Preached at the Urban Abbey
March 19, 2017
Scripture: Matthew 23
Jesus is less than thrilled. This might be an understatement. He has a litany of seven woes and calls the religious leaders of his day blind guides and a brood of vipers. This is particularly notable because Jesus didn’t gecnerally walk around Israel calling people snakes. One group of people actually tried to toss him off a cliff, and he didn’t even utter one word to them. Roman soldiers were tasked with killing him and there was not one unkind thing that came across his lips. But hypocritical religious leaders, watch out. Jesus saved his anger for the blind guides.
He invites people to listen to the teachers, saying, “‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” (Matthew 23: 2-3) Jesus names how they study the words but don’t embody them, they hear the prophets but can’t live as one, and they teach the stories of the past but don’t live them in the present. He names how they heap up burdens on others and use their spiritual practice to gain power and honor and un-merited authority. “They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long” (v5). Phylacteries were a tool for spiritual formation, a leather box bound to the arm, carrying a scripture. If could serve as a constant reminder through the day of the sacred story pushing the wearer to live more faithfully or fully. But here the tools of spiritual formation became a tool of power and honor. A way to show off. A way to look really faithful in the community rather than being really faithful to the community.
It is this misuse of power that launches Jesus into his litany of woes, over and over saying, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.” (v23)
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.” (v25)
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.” (v27)
Jesus is pretty serious and these are just a few. He looked at the hypocrites, tithing even from their herb garden but neglecting the poor, the widow and the orphan and he must have been enraged at how they apply the law. I suspect he had three choices in the face of this reality…or at least perhaps we have three choices when we see it. First, he could have looked at the way these men gained power and privilege, how they gained authority without merit and he could have chosen to join them. Understanding the system before him, could have allowed him to engage it, be part of it, work his way into some advantage. Second, he could have looked at the scribes and priests and Pharisees and determined them to be hypocrites and he could have given up on the whole mess. He could have looked at the men who couldn’t embody their teachings and decided to give up on all of it, let go of the prophets and stop singing the Psalms, forget his phylactery and stop caring about the stories of Moses and Miriam, Abraham and Sarah, David and Ruth. He could have decided the whole thing is like a white washed tomb and just let it go. But he didn’t.
He chose a third option. He chose, I think, to get rooted so deep that he could stand firm in challenging the status quo. He knew his tradition, he quotes prophets and the psalms spring from his lips whenever he needs them. He teaches in the temple and everywhere he goes because he knows his faith and loves it enough to discover something more, to see beyond the teachers and into the teaching, to find the power of his faith even when he sees hypocrites all around him. And this choice is one I believe, he is asking of us.
This text has been used in ugly ways by Christians throughout history. Christians have read, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” And thought it was about Jewish religious leaders. This scripture has been used to scape goat, tighten fears of difference and has led to genocide and anti-Semitism, which is a gross misuse and spiritual violence. The truth is, if we are honest, Jesus would likely have a litany of woes for us twice as long. A litany of woes regarding how we spend money and build huge sanctuaries, or have such amazing liturgical bling, or neglect the poor or spend too much money on junk that doesn’t matter or cut meals on wheels. Anything really.
When I was growing up in the Methodist church, I remember learning about doing good, singing songs…sometimes about frogs… learning psalms, picking up trash, walking for the crop walk and talking about the environment. But as I entered high school and college, I became more connected to para-church ministries that offered Bible studies, which became a primary source of spiritual formation. And the studies had a primary theme: behaving in a particular way. As I look back at the Bible I used, I can see what that theme was: it was about sex. Every verse I have highlighted is about sex or really it was about waiting until you are married to have it. This of course was sprinkled with a side of don’t drink or do drugs and topped off with both the threat of hell and the grace of forgiveness…kind of. All of these themes are obviously important for young people to be thinking about; how to care for your body and your wellbeing in a world of choices. In college with the Navigators, who met on Friday night because they were so serious, there were detailed classes about courtship, a process of praying about dating for six months, a process of talking to someone of the opposite sex (of course) for six months, in a group and maybe holding hands and it culminated in another six months of engagement. They gave away books, they had every detail and everyone took notes.
My time was a little short lived because I soon shared my call to ministry and my plans to be a United Methodist Pastor. Which, they had a chart for as well! I like to call the chart, “Why women are secondary and can’t speak in church.” But at the same time, I was talking with my pastor at home, he gave me new books to read and new questions to ask. Questions the Bible study leaders couldn’t work with or work through, questions that didn’t fit into the nice five step process they had laid out for salvation. I started taking classes in Religious studies and Christian history and soon it was like I was discovering something new and old at once. Everything was more complicated and more interesting. Christianity was so much bigger and more beautiful and more difficult than I had imagined. And the parts about sex; well, they were so minimal.
I often wonder what it would have been like if those Friday night bible studies had focused less on policing behaviors and required a more expansive look at the Bible. What if the details had been about the phrase “blessed are the poor” and if the charts and graphs focused on the causes of poverty, the statistics from near and far, the ways people were working to make changes, the structures that help, and the laws that hurt? I sometimes wonder what it would have meant for the Navigators to look at what Jesus means when he said he came to “proclaim the year of our Lord’s favor” in Luke 4. This is an economic policy, a year of debt forgiveness, where people enslaved by debt are freed and land is returned to the original owners who may have lost it. I sometimes wonder if we had spent less time worrying about strategies to not have sex and more time looking at how Jesus healed people what it would mean when Christians today talk about healthcare. If rooms of college students were looking at the bible saying, “we may not understand healing or practice it in the same way, but is there a way that we as Christians can be a part of it?”
We are called to this strange faith, this beautiful faith that asks us to dive in. Perhaps diving in gives us the chance and the requirement to stand up and say, “Woe” when we need to. Perhaps it requires us to take a look at ourselves and at our churches and at our community leaders that claim Christianity and name that we all have room to grow into the faith Jesus taught us.
Questions for Discussion:
When you read this scripture about hypocrites, what is your first thought? What makes you angry and why?
Have you considered giving up on faith because of the church and hypocrisy? What would it mean to get deeper and explore faith in a new or renewed way? What does this require of you? Do you have to change anything?
What do you struggle with in your own journey…is there anything that makes you feel like a hypocrite? What are you working on?
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