Scripture: Matthew 12:34
You brood of vipers! How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
Thought for the Day: I have been enjoying Brian McLaren’s new book, Why Did Jesus, Moses, The Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? He begins chapter 5 with a quote from Blaise Pascal, the 17th century mathematician. Pascal wrote, “Human beings never do evil so completely and so joyously as when they do it from a religious motivation” (p. 38). History would like to run away from this quote, yelling the denial as it attempts to distance itself. The sad part is how tightly truth clings. For some of the religious leaders in Jesus’ day, there were great attempts to sanctify ugly and mean-spirited behavior. We read the above passage and shake our heads at their self-righteous behavior, but we always need to ask ourselves if our condemnation of their actions isn’t by chance our attempt at putting some distance between ourselves and our own behavior that basically looks the same as those we condemn.
Prayer: God, teach me to be honest with myself, and in my confessional realizations, may I find grace to change my ways. Amen.
