"Hypocrites!"

Matthew 23:13-36

April 9, 2017

I.

Anyone confused about why Jesus was killed need look no further than Matthew 23 where he blasts the religious leaders of his day without much ambiguity.  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” is the refrain repeated by the Lord here no less than seven times.  He is disgusted and offended by the leaders of his own people.  They were mercenary control-freaks keeping up appearances to hide their own corruption and perversity.  In my view and experience, there is a lot of that going around.

Immediately prior to this passage, the Lord talks about the character of leadership in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is to say, his church, the gathering of his disciples.  In contrast with the scribes and Pharisees, who like to be important and exert their power over others, Jesus says that his disciples are not to be called rabbi, or teacher, because only God is our teacher and we are all students.  No one is to be in the position of a domineering, controlling father-figure; only God is our Father.  No instructors either.  Leaders are servants in Jesus’ community.  “All who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted,” he says.

Leaders often get to be leaders by doing well according to the normal standards for worldly success.  That is, they know how to cave in to the three temptations we heard about from chapter 4.  They do what needs to be done to get money, fame, and power.  In fact, they don’t really “cave in” to these temptations at all; they pursue them and grab for them wholeheartedly.

These were not considered to be bad people.  Just the opposite!  They were exemplary, admired, respected figures in society.  They were successful.  They were pious and patriotic.  People looked up to them.  These were the preachers, judges, teachers, lawyers, and scholars.  These were the people you wanted your sons to grow up to be.  

Jesus says they are hypocrites.  That is, they say one thing and do another.  They look good on the outside, but are not so good on the inside.  They talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk.  Indeed, not only do they lack integrity themselves, but their actions actually prevent others from walking the walk.

First, Jesus says that the leaders “lock people out of the Kingdom of Heaven” from the outside.  The Kingdom of Heaven for Jesus is the new life of doing God’s will, living together in equality, justice, and peace.  Jesus describes the Kingdom of Heaven throughout his ministry.  Indeed, the Kingdom of Heaven is the main topic of his mission; it is what he came to Earth to proclaim, embody, and establish.

Good leaders are supposed to facilitate this; they are supposed to exemplify it and welcome people into it and help them live this way.  They are supposed to open up space for the Kingdom of Heaven to emerge among us.  Good leaders are intended to function as a doorway into the Kingdom of Heaven.  We’re supposed to see the Kingdom of Heaven in their lives and feel ourselves invited into it.

II.

The Kingdom of Heaven, for Jesus, is emphatically not just some place to which we hopefully graduate when we die, or some reality that God establishes at the end of time.  Jesus continually and repeatedly talks about the Kingdom of Heaven as “near,” “within or among you,” and otherwise present and available here and now.  One of the most effective and frequently used ways to lock people out of the Kingdom of Heaven is to relegate it to some far off time or place that we may not attain in this life.  Jesus insists that this Kingdom is present today; we just have to learn to see it and live in it. 

Not to do that, not to live according to the values of this Kingdom, this new, transformed set of relationships, basically leaves someone in effect dead and lost.  It is worse than remaining a pagan.  Pagans at least don’t know what they don’t know.  It is far more destructive to know the truth and nevertheless refuse to acknowledge it.  

And then to prevent others from knowing it and following it is even worse.  Jesus refers to these illegitimate leaders as “blind guides.”  Which sums up what it is like to have leaders who don’t know where they are going… but pretend like they do.

And as with all self-important leaders, they make up stuff to boss people around about.  They invent these petty distinctions and silly rules that need to be kept because of some precious nugget of theological insider-talk.  But the main point is really keeping people off balance and proving their own control over people.

So apparently there was this whole superstructure about what it was appropriate to swear by and how binding it was to swear by this or that.  Only lawyers could make this stuff up.  Or children.  But you didn’t say “mother may I?”  Like how a promise doesn’t count if you have your fingers crossed.  Like there is always some obscure technicality that can void a promise. 

They were teaching people that if they swore by the sanctuary it was not as binding as swearing by the gold in the sanctuary.  Or making a distinction between swearing by the altar or the dead animal on the altar.  And so on.  Which creates wonderful arguments generating many billable hours for attorneys and prosecutors over whose evidence and testimony is more reliable.

But Jesus makes the radical and outlandish suggestion that maybe we should just tell the truth.  “Do not swear at all,” he says in chapter 5, “Let your word be ‘yes,’ ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ ‘no.’  Anything more than this comes from the Evil One.”  The community of Jesus’ followers is one of truth-telling, and discernment of the Spirit together.  We are to be an alternative to a world of “alternative facts,” “fake news,” self-serving spin, propaganda, and equivocation.  We are to be a place where people may be honest and direct about themselves without fear of reprisal.  There is a reason why the Evil One is referred to in Scripture as “the father of lies.”

III.

The scribes and Pharisees diligently kept the letter of the law.  They knew the rules about tithing and fasting.  But they turned them into regulations to be kept merely literally.  They went through the outward motions of perfection.  But they failed to see how this superficial obedience is meant to extend into both inward into the soul and outward into society.  Instead of being manifestations of discipleship, these practices in effect prevented discipleship.  They were meticulous details they kept instead of giving attention to what is really important.

Jesus says that the weightier matters of the law are “justice and mercy and faith.”  In other places, the law is summed up as love.  The law, the Torah, is really about inhabiting a good, blessed, generous, forgiving, non-violent community together.  It is really about hospitality and equality; it is about lifting up those on the bottom and bringing down those who think of themselves as above others.  But of course the leaders had no interest in mentioning this.

The Lord gets perhaps to the heart of the matter when he condemns the radical contradiction he sees in these leaders between surface presentation and interior spiritual state.  They are all for show, he says.  They look shiny and neat on the outside, but in their hearts “they are full of greed and self-indulgence.”  Greed and self-indulgence reveal the selfish ego-centricity that rules these leaders.  

In the end, that is the battle we all have to fight.  Whether we in our souls will be ruled by what we want for ourselves or by what God wants for all of us.  For what rules in our souls will be expressed in our actions and create the world we live in.  A world of greed and self-indulgence is a world of violence, deprivation, inequality, scarcity, and fear.  It is a world that pointedly kills those who, like Jesus and the prophets, point out how wrong this is.

Our choice then is, on the one hand, “greed and self-indulgence,” or, on the other hand, the “justice and mercy and faith” which is the real aim of the Scriptures.  Our choice is to follow leaders who look good but are really only out for their own gain, or to follow Jesus Christ and the beautiful life of grace and peace he gives us.  Our choice is to follow those who look good by the world’s standards, or the ones who are good by Jesus’ standards.

IV.

Jesus doesn’t appoint any leaders in the church.  He makes disciples.  Our job in this life is to be the best followers of Jesus we can be.  Our job is to be single-minded followers of Jesus, obedient to his commandments, inspired by his Spirit and example.  

And those among us who are particularly faithful and wholehearted in their discipleship in effect become leaders, not because they put themselves forward as such, but because they don’t.  Rather, they become leaders because others look at them and see their example as worthy of following.  Others in the church see in them something of the life of Jesus Christ, who rejects the temptations to wealth, fame, and power, who lives as a servant of all.  

+++++++