Luke 12 56
You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
"It's your fault that I'm late!" "It's their fault that we're in this predicament!" It's always somebody else, it's never you. You probably know someone like this. Remember the phrase, "when you point your finger at someone, the other three fingers are pointing back at you." This may be what Jesus was getting at in today's gospel reading from Luke. He's telling the crowd (paraphrasing) "you think you know so much about everything else, everyone's business and how and why things are, but you don't know much about yourself. Maybe YOU are the reason for the position you're in."
I was once at a local restaurant looking for a place to park. The car behind me was in a rush and the drive thru line was backed up. She was frustrated because I wasn't driving faster and began making the rude hand gestures and cursing me from her car. After I parked, I walked past the drive thru and happened to pass her car. I asked her if there was a problem. She said she was late for her daughter's graduation and needed to eat. I was mad, but I just said in a neutral tone, "maybe next time you should leave a bit earlier." It wasn't my fault she was late, but unfortunately I took the brunt of her frustration. Jesus wants us to look at ourselves, at our own sin, because that's what weighs us down and causes stress in our lives. Once we recognize that and live a life a life every moment for Christ, then our lives become much better.
