Your Faith Journey - Finding God Through Words, Song And Praise

Perhaps some of you, at some point in time, have heard the 11th Commandment.  It goes something like this, “Thou shalt not make any changes in the way we do things around here.”  Or, similar words like, “But, we have always done it this way before!”  Quite honestly, when this 11th Commandment is observed, when conventional thought and action are never challenged, when we are not open to being changed and being made new, there is hardly ever any growth. As we hear the Jesus story we know that throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry, he continually challenged conventional religious structures, religious thinking and religious practices.  And, the example in today’s gospel lesson is no exception. Jesus’ words in today’s reading not only challenge us, they are also disturbing. As this gospel reading begins, Jesus is speaking to the crowd about tradition and conventional religious practices. He is speaking to all who hold tradition and ritual in high esteem and consider themselves to be the “in crowd” – the socially ac