There is a short distance between righteousness and self-righteousness

Monday May 30th, Acts 17: 27 “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. 28 For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ One of the pivotal stories of scripture for me is the story of the Good Samaritan. The question, “who acted like a neighbor?” is central to the teaching of Christ. These teaching of finding God in others are also central to Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. It is also significant that the religions scholars of the day passed by. Their focus, as all too often is ours, was more on correctness than on calling. There is a short distance between righteousness and self-righteousness. One calls us to follow the God of love, the other calls us to follow the god of our desire, as one would an idol. All too often in Christianity, we place Jesus on a pedestal and worship him as one would an idol, worshiping the person, as an object rather than what Jesus taught us to follow, the word of God for all people. We are called to follow Jesus as the son of God, the one who teaches us the way. That way leads us face to face with our neighbor, not around him. That way leads us to love one another and God has loved us.