We are pretty good at taking care of the monuments of the brave prophets of the past who spoke out against the abuse of power and the injustices of their day; they bore reproach, ridicule and persecution. We venerate their memory but do not follow their footsteps. We fear the rejection that they embraced; we polish them in our memories, hoping it will acquit us of our blind eyes and deaf ears. We desire the approval of our peers more than the approval of the Just Judge of all the earth. We have made our devotion solely spiritual so it does not disturb the way we want to live our lives in the world.
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed, and you decorate the monuments of the godly people your ancestors destroyed. Then you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would never have joined them in killing the prophets.’ “But in saying that, you testify against yourselves that you are indeed the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead and finish what your ancestors started. Snakes! Sons of vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell?” Matthew 23:29-33 (NLT)
