April 1 2006

Jn 7:40-53 Some in the crowd who heard these words of Jesus said,“This is truly the Prophet.” Others said, “This is the Christ.” But others said, “The Christ will not come from Galilee, will he? Does not Scripture say that the Christ will be of David’s family and come from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?” So a division occurred in the crowd because of him. Some of them even wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why did you not bring him?” The guards answered, “Never before has anyone spoken like this man.” So the Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed.” Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them, “Does our law condemn a man before it first hears him and finds out what he is doing?” They answered and said to him,“You are not from Galilee also, are you? Look and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.” Then each went to his own house.

Those who wish to condemn Jesus refuse to consider the signs of true prophecy. They ignore the good in his ways of speech and acts of healing. They stubbornly insist that he cannot be a prophet because he is from Galilee. No good can come from Galilee is the prevailing attitude.

I think one of the lessons from this reading is that I should accept the reality of a situation first and after that see how the Scriptures apply to it. The Pharisees take the Scriptures first and insist on fitting the situaion of Jesus to them rather than looking at all the angles of what is actually happening at the time and how it fits the spirit of the writing rather than "the letter of the law."

At times as an educator, I go off on a quest of following the rules and guidelines. I always need to remind myself to return to the purpose and spirit of what is being done and show compassion and caring with all those people that I am facilitating on their journey while I am in the role as their educator. It is a privilege and those people that I encounter deserve to be treated with the utmost caring and respect.