Title Hear from Bethany
Content R>
Old Testament R>
9. The LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" He said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?
10. He said to him, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood calls out to me from the ground."
new testament
12. Jesus went into the temple and drove out all who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those who sold doves.
13. And he said to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make a den of robbers.
14. The blind and the lame came to Jesus from the temple, and he healed them.
15. When the chief priests and the scribes saw the strange things that Jesus was doing, and the children in the temple cried out, Hosanna, Son of David, they were angry.
16. He said to Jesus, "Do you hear what they say?" Jesus said to him, "Have you never read that out of the mouths of infants and sucklings you have perfected praise?"
17. After leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and stayed there.
sermon
Hear from Bethany
Matthew 21:12-17
There are many stories in the Bible where the community of faith distorts God's will, loses the essence of faith, builds a wall with the world, does not reflect on their own mistakes, and repeats things that deviate from common sense. Each time, God sent prophets to urge them to return to their original positions. Now we are living in a similar era.
When quoting the book of Jeremiah, Jesus says that the temple should be a place of prayer to God. When you come to know God's will through meeting with God in that temple, you will listen to the cries of oppression. Because the God who heard the cry of Israel, the slaves of Egypt, and set them free, is with those who cry in a reality full of sorrow.
Just as in Jeremiah's day, Jesus criticizes the leaders for imprisoning God in the temple, monopolizing it as their own, and ignoring the cries of the oppressed people. Jesus shows by his life that God is the One who frees the captives, restores sight to the blind, and restores the socially disadvantaged.
The mission of those who have been saved by crying out to God should be to listen to those who cry like themselves and to wipe the tears from their eyes. However, if we forget the days of our cry, humans soon become arrogant and do not want to let go of their vested interests and settle for abundance. Today, we must strip away the hardened shell of religion by seriously reflecting on what God's will is and what the faith community should look like. R>
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