There is a wonderful scene in the play/movie Steel Magnolias when one of the characters comes into the beauty shop with a big bag of home-grown tomatoes. Take them all, she says, “I hate them.” Her friends ask her why she grows tomatoes if she hates them. “Because I’m an old Southern woman and we’re supposed to wear funny looking hats and ugly clothes and grow vegetables in the dirt. Don’t ask me those questions. I don’t know why. I don’t make the rules!” The Pharisee in the parable of Jesus was following the rules. He did what he had been told to do: say his prayers, fast often, pay his tithes. But he missed the point of those religious practices. As the prophet Hosea put it: “It is love that I desire, not sacrifice.” If our religious practices don’t lead to love we are just running through the motions. For church goers this has to be the constant barometer we use, particularly during Lent. Do our religious practices hel us to grow in love? If not, let’s find something else that does.
