Tables of Holiness

Why do we often reduce Christianity to an hour a week on Sunday? Is the "worship hour" a biblical concept?

The Pharisees had a hard time blending the Sabbath day’s call for righteousness with the other six days of the week. They would follow the letter of the Law on the Sabbath and then fail to practice the weightier matters on the other days of the week. One day, as he was eating with a Pharisee, Jesus pointed out this inconsistency (Luke 11:37-52). He described out how the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law would tithe properly, wash properly, and worship properly, but failed to practice the weightier matters like love, forgiveness, and mercy. They knew the letter of the Law but were clueless as to the spirit of the Law.

These Jewish “ministers” created a false division between their sacred lives and their secular lives. They made the Sabbath day an exclusive day of holiness and all but ignored the others days of the week. So Jesus, while sitting around a table, took the opportunity to teach them that simply because the Sabbath day was holy did not mean that all the other days were unholy. For Jesus, every day is an opportunity to reflect the holiness of God. Holiness is not a once a week phenomenon, it is a lifestyle. There should be no division between our sacred lives and our secular lives. Every day is sacred for followers of Christ. Sitting at Jesus’ table involves living like him. May we not fall into the Pharisaical practice of practicing holiness once a week.