Making Life Work

By: Lenny Cacchio

    “A rabbi and a priest walk into a bar.” Ever hear a story begin like that? If you have, you are probably waiting for a laugh line about now. I wonder what Jesus’ listeners were thinking when he opened his act with, “a rabbi and a tax collector walk into the temple.” I wonder if they were looking for a laugh line too. So let’s put the story into the vernacular and maybe hear what the listeners heard and how they heard it. You’ll find the original version in Luke 18:9-14. A Pharisee and a tax collector walk into the temple. The Pharisee goes right up to God and says, “Hey, Lord! Look at me! Aren’t I a great guy? I don’t steal, I don’t cheat, I don’t run around on my wife. I do all the stuff I’m supposed to do....

By: Lenny Cacchio

    And He’s not a Democrat either. From what I know of the Man, he has better things to do than to align himself with various factions vying for political power. Ultimately, he has all of that in abundance anyway.     It’s instructive that even though Jesus held many positions in common with the Pharisees (resurrection of the dead, acceptance of all the Hebrew Scriptures and not just the Torah, belief in angels), he never once identified himself as a Pharisee. It is also instructive that he socialized with people from all backgrounds and factions, including Pharisees (Luke 11, John 3), Samaritans (John 4), people from Herod’s household (Luke 8), Roman soldiers (Matthew 8), Gentiles (Mark 7), fisherman (Matthew 4), publicans...

By: Lenny Cacchio  





    Most Christians don’t realize that they keep a Jewish High Holy Day! The day known as Pentecost was originally one of the Holy Days given to the Israelites while in the wilderness. It was known as the Feast of Weeks because it occurred about seven weeks after the people of Israel offered to God the first fruits of the spring barley harvest (Deuteronomy 16:9-10).     The word “Pentecost” is derived from the Greek words “pente” and “koste”, which literally mean to “count fifty” as in counting fifty days from that offering of first fruits to the day known as Pentecost (see Leviticus 23:16 where the instructions are to “count fifty days”). Pentecost marked the end of the spring harvest, so the day was essentially...