Christian Art | Jesus And Scribes And Pharisees | Jesus And Temple Judaism | Son Of God
Matthew 23: 1-12 – Lent 2, Tuesday; Week 20, Saturday (King James Audio Bible KJV, Spoken Word)
1 THEN spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,
2 Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat:
3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.
4 For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
5 But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,
6 And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,
7 And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.
8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.
9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
10 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.
11 But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
Through the Sermon in the Temple, Jesus’ attack on the Pharisees and the scribes who side with them is clear, hard and definitive. Their way of life is corrupt and vicious. They are blind guides and hypocrites. They will be condemned – ‘Woe to you’ – because they kill the true message of God through their failure of love, mercy, justice, faith. They are serpents who drag the people they preach to down with them.
Jesus’ attack on the scribes and Pharisees is motivated by his love and compassion and sorrow for the ordinary mass of people who are subjected to bad teaching, who have been abused, indeed hellishly bound, by the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus has come to free those ordinary people.
While Jesus recognizes that the scribes and Pharisees do have authority to teach the Law in the synagogues, this must be distinguished from the practical interpretations of the law to be seen in the lifestyles of these leaders of the Jewish people. It is there that their corruption shines blackly forth. They grotesquely abuse their position. They preach but they don’t practise what they preach. They are full of extortion and rapacity. They say and do not.
Their faith is insincere and it is lacking in love of God. The ‘phylacteries’ were belts or bands carrying quotations from Holy Scripture which would be worn fastened to the arms or forehead. The Pharisees wear broader phylacteries, because they need to try to prove to other people how religiously observant they are. (They will have their reward.)
Through Lent, we might look to Jesus’ condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees to see if in any way, no matter how slightly, we reflect anything about those whom Jesus condemns.
Jesus asks searching questions. He seeks to perfect his Jewish audience and his message shines through history to the Church. Do we always practise what we profess? Do we ever take advantage of others’ trust in us? Are we ever complacent? Do we love the place of honour and to be seen of men, when in our heart of hearts we know we haven’t really done anything that special? (Do we ever envy others their place of honour?) Do we ask our fellow humans to face too difficult demands, perhaps pushing them all the more because we ourselves are inadequate to tasks we face? Do we ‘tut-tut’ another then look in a mirror and fail to see ourselves?
Or do we love as Christ loved and give all as Christ gave all? Do we always serve and honour our fellow man? Probably we don’t. But it is humbling to know this and to try and try, to know that we are here to serve. We are here to give everything. Christ demands it. He says so explicitly. We are here to be perfect.
As he berates them, Jesus knows what the scribes and the Pharisees will cause to have done to him. He has come to Jerusalem to be crucified. His outrage in the Temple could become a despairing expression of tragedy were it not that it is Jesus speaking, and he is speaking on his way to the cross to absolve us of these very errors he speaks of. Through this biting satire on the corruption endemic and institutionalized in Jerusalem, the cross of our salvation continues to shine. This is, though, also the cry of a man, sharing in our humanity, who is going to die, and horribly. Jesus will lament all the lost opportunities as he moves closer to his saving death which was needed for all our sakes:
‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!’
King James Audio Bible | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ | Endnotes
Radical Love | Jesus’ Revolutionary Message | Beyond Power And Hierarchy
In Matthew 23, in the Temple, Jesus delivers a scathing condemnation of the religious authorities of his time, accusing them of hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and neglecting the weightier matters of the law. Jesus’ message is radical, challenging the established religious and political order of his time, and calling for a fundamental shift in the way people thought about power, authority, and spirituality.
At the heart of Jesus’ message is radical love – love in such a way as exceeds and might even make a mockery of human understandings. Jesus emphasizes that the greatest commandment is to love God with all one’s heart, soul, and mind, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself. This message of love is beyond religious observance and ritual purity, even beyond emphasizing the importance of treating others with compassion and kindness.
Jesus’ message of radical love challenges the hierarchical social structure of his time. Jesus rejects earthly titles and positions of authority, emphasizing the equality of all people before God. In his excoriating attack on the Jewish religious authorities, Jesus in a sense signs his own death warrant – and this of course becomes Jesus’ ultimate act of love, to give himself upon the Cross for our salvation, to make restitution for our sins through an act of purest love and self-sacrifice, through crucifixion.
In a sense then, this passage of the Gospels both teaches and enacts Jesus’ commandment – the teaching produces the outcome.
Jesus’ emphasis on radical love and equality is a call to action for his followers. Jesus calls Christians to serve others, enemies and friends, with humility and love, rather than seek positions of power and authority. This message has inspired countless people throughout history, from St. Francis of Assisi to Mahatma Gandhi.
As the apostle Paul wrote: ‘And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.’ (1 Corinthians 13:13, KJV)
Jesus’ message of radical love is a reminder that true power and authority come not from earthly status, but from a spirit of service and compassion towards others, and a complete reciprocation of the love of God.
The Psalm begins with a direct address, ‘Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.’ This line sets the tone of reverence and dependence. The psalmist, acknowledging his lowliness and God’s exalted position, looks to God for help. The act of lifting eyes to the heavens is a gesture of seeking help from a power greater than any earthly source [ … ]
Sometimes, when I read my Bible, I pause in the reading and say to myself: ‘This bit’s real.’ It would be fair to say, I have issues with Mary, because, contrary to what we are taught to say, Mary isn’t my mother. Rather: Mum is. One bit of the Bible-text says this: And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.” … And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mark 3: 21; 31-35.) Here she comes. She is in considerable distress. I can imagine that. I can relate to that. To save her boy from whatever he’s got himself into this time. And you’re not telling me there isn’t something inside that. Her boy is beside himself. Radical. Radicalized. Radicalizing. A misunderstood word. /ˈradɪk(ə)l/ adjective & noun. 1 Forming the root, basis, or foundation; original, primary. 2a Inherent in the nature of a thing or person; fundamental. b Of action, change, an idea: going to the root or origin; far-reaching, thorough. c Advocating thorough or far-reaching change. d Characterized by departure from tradition; progressive; unorthodox. ‘He has a demon! And he is mad!’ – thus ‘the Jews’. (e.g. John 10: 20.) Come home! It’s all she wants. His family want him back now. But it is an exclusive cult: there is an inside and there is an outside; and on the outside, they are not meant to understand, lest they be converted. He has defined himself as different from anything she was. Only at the end does Jesus say to his Mum – and with savage, bitter irony: ‘Woman, behold your son.’ And then he dies. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. We ask that we might find Mary in our hearts as a Yes! place for Jesus. It is also recommended that we pray to Jesus that we may be further in oneness with Mary. It is self-emptying, such that we only exist insofar as we are responsive to God’s Word. * Last term, and put-out to pasture, the old Archbishop Emeritus came over to stay for a few days and did the odd class with us. He spoke of Yes! as the meaning of Mary’s virginity. And we were not very nice about him. One or two took umbrage. One or two got the hump. In a sense, his Grace, the Arch, basically wanted to move anyone he’d ever known from a high-place – a mountain – received theological ‘truth’ – to an imminent, human plane. Earthing the spiritual. Recalibrating metrics of life’s believability toward a spiritual sense of things. He might have asked the impermissible question: what happened? His Grace described it. God’s love as a cloud. This descended upon Mary – and subsumed her. Within the cloud, Mary capitulated utterly. She became only and purely a response to God’s love. As he spoke, the Arch cradled her. He carried her in his lap – in his hands. His Grace was a consecrated bishop. He was faith. He sat squat, a rounded man, hands cupped and ankles crossed, fingers interlocked, with parted thighs. Rumpled, washed, speckled. A lifetime’s skin… There could be no doubt His Grace spoke through long-term personal relationship with Mary. It was Julian went for him: ‘So are you saying Mary was a Virgin? Or are you not saying Mary was a Virgin?’ Nasty. No, it wasn’t pretty. Julian twisting his silver ring. For a moment, what Julian had said to the Arch simply failed to communicate. No, for a moment, that dumped on the air meant nothing. Then His Grace said: ‘There is a range of possible meanings we may understand in the question of Mary’s virginity. For example, there are understandings of the word virginity entailed in the action of giving birth.’ Julian said: ‘Duh! So had she had sex or hadn’t she?’ Trigger words. No, it wasn’t pretty. On that went for a little while. At length, Julian’s point seemed reluctantly conceded. Then the Arch told us a new story, an additionally human event, the more to baffle us. Controversially, he told us that Mary could not have been Joseph’s first wife, for this would not have been the way of things in the society of that time. His belief was that Joseph must have taken Mary into his household through pity. That would be normal, he said, for Joseph to bring a young, vulnerable girl, who is about to have a baby, within his protection, not meaning to enjoy with her marital relations, but through kindness. ‘And this story of the inn and stable,’ the Archbishop said, ‘it can’t have been like that really. Joseph has travelled with Mary to stay with his family, at home in Bethlehem, and they don’t want Mary in their house, for reasons which I am sure we can understand. It must have been there was considerable resistance to Mary. But Mary gives birth, and who can resist a baby? That’s what happened. It must have been. ‘I’m convinced that must have been how it happened really.’ Later that term, toward the beginning of Advent, we met boys who had been here before, in Valladolid, and now were in regular seminary. They had heard and recited verbatim all the Archbishop had said to them. Their spot-on impressions of each of the fathers were scathing. […]
Lord Jesus, I come before you with a weary heart and a burdened soul. Life’s challenges have left me feeling tired and overwhelmed. I seek your comforting presence and the rest that only you can provide. Please grant me your peace, renew my strength, and carry my burdens as I surrender them into your loving hands. In Your name, I find solace and find rest for my weary soul. Amen [ … ]
