CONDEMNATION
Today's reading: Mark 3-4

"Jesus went into the synagogue again and noticed a man with a deformed hand. Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus' enemies watched him closely. Would he heal the man's hand on the Sabbath? If he did, they planned to condemn him." Mark 3:1-2 NLT

I can see the Pharisees sitting together on the same pew.

I can imagine they had already spent a good portion of their time their in running commentary about the robes of other synagogue-goers, whether they were too short or too long, too old or too new and showy, wrong brand, too expensive, wrong color for church.

As they assessed the robes, they also passed judgement on the robe-wearers. I can imagine the conversation--'Yep, they sure needed to be here', or 'What gall they had to come today, especially after I heard what I heard'. 

I believe they arrived early enough to enjoy the 'coffee and donuts' prepared and provided, although according to them it was probably the wrong blend of coffee and their favorite kind of donuts had already been eaten...or maybe they didn't like the idea of coffee and donuts to start with and were there to complain about that simple fact.

I say all that to say this, they were planning on condemning Jesus no matter what He did.

There are folks like that.

There are folks in our churches like that.

We can, with one poorly thought-out comment, become one of them.

When we watch people too closely, our eyes are off God.