Spiritual cobwebs and empty souls....

Reading Matthew 20-25 Jesus gives such amazing answers when He is challenged by the authorities of the law. He takes the questions and in many cases he redifines them. It just blows me away. Amazing rhetorical skill.
Some of his parables, though, have left me unsettled. They gave me this eerie vision of my soul with certain regions shiny and others covered in cobwebs. There have been so many places I have left in neglect. I have let the present push me away and allowed certain aspects of my soul fade into the past and disrepair. I love how openly Jesus shows the way will be opened to those of us who are on the highways: the good and the evil, the beggers, the workers hired latter on... us. It takes me back to Romans and shows the foreshadowing that Jesus Himself gives the scribes and Pharisees.
Yet, the words that he speaks directly to them ring true in my life: "Woe to you, David (America, Church), hypocrite! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others."
...and with my words I, like Jerusalem,"I testify against myslf." I hold the guilt as well as the accusing finger. But what I find so amazing becomes my hope. Whatever we do for the least of these we do for Him. "The least of these" now looks very different to me: Not the starving child in Africa. Certainly they need help. For me it is the person sitting next to me in class. It is that rich snobby customer that walks into work and wants me to do twenty extra things while still on theeir cell phone. It is the person I really don't like that needs my attention. The least of these includes ALL of these. I want to pick and choose my "least". For me it is so easy to love the poor and the needy, but to love the rich and mean and needy becomes so much more difficult. I think, in many ways, these are my tax collectors, my blind, my lepers who are crying out for friendship for love and acceptance and I walk on by piously and fail to be the Samaritan. I play piously. One good scribe and pharisee and rabbi I am. Yet I am the helf-breed. Thank God for a grace that covers my indifference and a Spirit that can promt me to ast even when I am uncomfotable.
Just some thoughts from the week.