The Eight Woes – Part 4

 

The Eight Woes – Part 4

Quick note:  I apologize for not posting this yesterday as scheduled.  I had it written and somehow, in the midst of interruptions, thought I had sent and posted it.  OOPS!  I will be posting the one for today later today.  Be looking for it.  

 

Matthew 23:29-36, The Message - “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You build granite tombs for your prophets and marble monuments for your saints. And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands. You protest too much! You’re cut from the same cloth as those murderers, and daily add to the death count.

“Snakes! Cold-blooded sneaks! Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper? It’s on account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and scholars generation after generation—and generation after generation you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding them with abuse.

“You can’t squirm out of this: Every drop of righteous blood ever spilled on this earth, beginning with the blood of that good man Abel right down to the blood of Zechariah, Barachiah’s son, whom you murdered at his prayers, is on your head. All this, I’m telling you, is coming down on you, on your generation.

 

Matthew 5:10-12, The Message - “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.

“Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.

 

                Our contrast between the blessings of the eight Beatitudes at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry and the condemnation of the eight Woes at the end concludes today with the persecuted over against those who persecute them.  More to the point, Matthew 5 describes those who have so embraced God’s message to them brought by God’s messengers that they are willing to endure ridicule, shame, and even worse instead of renounce the truth they have embraced.  Matthew 23 describes those who not only reject the message of the prophets, but they also harass, flog, and even kill the messengers.  Reading through the first passage above, one can sense the rising emotion in Jesus’s voice for He knows that He, Himself, is one of those messengers who will be rejected, flogged and killed.  He knows it will happen in the matter of a couple of days.  He feels the hate that will motivate these actions emanating from the leaders he is presently condemning. 

                I’ve asked us to work to receive Jesus’s warnings in these eight Woes as personal warnings.  Perhaps of all of the Eight, this one is the hardest to personalize.  We like to think of ourselves as people who would never reject God’s message, much less persecute the messengers.  I do want to remind us though, that the leaders hearing Jesus’s words in the Temple that day, liked to think of themselves that way too.  This is why Jesus specifically addresses what He knew they were thinking:

“And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands. You protest too much! You’re cut from the same cloth as those murderers, and daily add to the death count.”  (v. 23:30)

Put yourself in the Pharisees place for a moment.  They have just been told that they are no longer necessary as mediators of God to the people.  They have been told that they are hypocrites in every way possible.  Jesus’s words are a repudiation of everything their lives have been about since they were children and they have received this judgement in front of the people they have had the responsibility of leading.   To the extent that we can squarely put ourselves in the place of these condemned leaders, we can almost understand the holy rage they will unleash upon Jesus in the coming days.

                To place ourselves in the Pharisees’ place is to connect with the emotion of being confronted with truth that beliefs you have held strongly for most of your life are unfounded.  Maybe you are familiar with that emotion and maybe you are not.  But regardless, God’s truth continues to confront wrong-headed beliefs.  To say that it is impossible for us to be people who are sometimes on the wrong side of God’s truth is to make the same mistake that the religious leaders of Jesus’s day made. 

                Don’t do that.  The Beatitudes guard against falling into the Woes.  Humility. An openness to others suffering. Meekness. A passion for God and people.  Mercy. A pure heart.  Peacemaking. Conviction that withstands persecution.  These are the ways of the Kingdom of Jesus. 

 

Question:  How open are you to the possibility of being wrong?

 

Prayer:  Lord forgive our arrogance and hard-heartedness.  Help us see your Truth being revealed in the present time even if it challenges long-held practices and/or beliefs.  Install the beatitudes in our heart.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for peace where there is war today.

 

Song:  (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding  - Nick Lowe & The Southsea Alternative Choir

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1yfkye_qR4

The Eight Woes – Part 3

 

The Eight Woes – Part 3

 

Matthew 23:23-28, NRSV - “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, 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.  You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!

“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.  You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.

“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.  So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

 

Matthew 5:7-9, NRSV – “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

 

The practice of mercy.  Purity of heart.  A heart to make peace.  The hearers of Jesus’s first public teaching, the Sermon on the mount, heard the vison of those who sincerely follow God.  In Jesus’s last public address, the so-called leaders of the followers of God called out for living out and teaching others the total anthesis of God’s vision.  The Pharisees stress tithing while taking advantage of the poor – a total repudiation of mercy.  They maintain a spotless image of piety that hides widespread corruption in their ranks – their hearts are far from pure.  They have not brought peace to God’s people, for they are only looking out for themselves and their position. 

                It’s important to remember the setting here. Jesus is speaking in the temple in front of many people with the various groups of leaders present.  This polemic against the religious establishment is directed at leaders, but clearly, Jesus wants the people to hear it. Just before he turns to the leaders, he talks about them to the people.  Jesus instructs them to do what they say, but avoid doing what they do.  Then the Eight Woes talk specifically about those “doings” that people should avoid.  This is the word for us today as well. This is easier said than done.

                Our tendency as humans is to expend a much energy in “image management.”  We all want to be seen as “good people.”  There’s nothing wrong with that desire.  But what God looks for in us is not our surface image, but the condition of our hearts, a condition that is often hidden from others because external image would be “tainted.”  People who are truly merciful are often seen by others as weak.  People who work to keep their heart pure are often accused of being “goody two shoes.”  The great peacemakers of this world often endure much vitriol from the very folks with whom they are seeking to make peace.  It’s much easier to appear merciful, pure in heart, and peacemaking than it is to actually BE those things.  So, all too often, we settle for appearances. 

                God cares much more about the real condition of our souls and the real substance of our living than the public appearances we maintain.  Jesus points out in the Beatitudes and Woes that there is blessing in the real work of faith and there is misery in the never-ending quest for the perfect image.  Jesus message to the people standing in the Temple that day (and to us) was to aim for the blessings, not the misery.   Be merciful even when it’s not popular.  Keep your heart pure even though it means you might have to say no when everyone else is saying yes.   Do the work of making peace even when it’s runs against the tide.  Align your heart and action with the heart and action of God.  God does not promise to do so is to avoid pain, but God does promise there is blessing in the Beatitude life and misery in living the opposite.

 

Questions:  How much energy do you expend “keeping up appearances?” How might some of that energy be better used?

 

Prayer:  Lord, help me see the ways in which I am only “going through the motions” for appearance sake.  Help me rediscover the your ways of blessing.  Reinstall the beatitudes in my heart and action.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people you know who are fighting discouragement right now.

 

Song:  Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly – Pat Barrett

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk7llf2LkKc

The Eight Woes – Part 2

 

The Eight Woes – Part 2

 

Matthew 23:15-22, NRSV - Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.’  You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred?  And you say, ‘Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.’  How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?  So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it;  and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it;  and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.

 

Matthew 5:5-6, NRSV – “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

 

                Those who have spent anytime using a copy machine know that a copy of a copy loses some quality.  The quality of the copy decreases with every “copy of a copy of a copy.”  This is similar, in my estimation, to what Jesus is saying about the religious leaders of His time.  They are all about attracting followers, but since they are already a copy of a copy, their followers are even worse than they are.  This is why Jesus makes it clear that there is no longer a need for people model themselves after spiritual leaders.  They now have the “original” available.to them, the original being Jesus.   In these “Eight Woes.” Jesus pointedly asserts that the eventual result of primarily following the Pharisees and other religious teachers is expanding hypocrisy. 

                The religious establishment cared more about how many followers they have than how many followers God has.  As further evidence for this hypocrisy, the fourth woe issued concerns the religious leaders instructions on swearing oaths.  They taught loopholes on vows.  If you swore an oath only generally on the sanctuary, this is an oath that is breakable; if you swear by the gold of the sanctuary, you have the keep that promise or else.  This is legalism at its finest, and Jesus rightly condemns it. 

                These third and fourth woes recall the third and fourth beatitudes listed above.  The meek don’t seek to build kingdoms of followers for themselves.  They humbly accept the blessings that naturally come to them when they welcome the kingdom of God.  They “inherit the kingdom” by forsaking the building of their own.  Likewise, true followers of God aren’t looking for loopholes that excuse them from keeping their vows.  True followers seek to be righteous as Jesus is righteous.  They are driven by gratitude for what God has done for them and because of that, they seek to live the way God teaches.  They “hunger and thirst for righteousness.” 

                We live in a time when our value and the value of our organizations are often measured by the number of followers on social media, the number of subscribers podcasts have, or the number of views livestreams receive.  Often lost in the mix is whether or not our efforts are actually drawing others into meaningful relationships with God and people.  In such a time, loopholes abound for every kind of behavior.  The root meaning of “righteousness, “which is “right relationship,” takes a back seat to technicality arguments and drawing moral “lines in the sand.” To put it more bluntly, the goal of the Christian way of life is not to hold a perfectly right position on every hot-button issue; the goal is a relationship with God and people that is primarily characterized by love as demonstrated by Jesus.  This is the “righteousness” that “fills” people according to the beatitude promise. 

 

Questions: Have you ever been guilty of “majoring in the minors?”  Have you ever found yourself putting more stock in what a leader says than in what Jesus says?

 

 Prayer:  Have mercy on us Lord, for we often don’t see our own hypocrisies.  Point them out to us as we look to the teaching of Jesus Himself, the Author and Finisher of our faith.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for peaceful resolutions of conflict around the world today.

 

Song:  Give Us Clean Hands – Mark Schultz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0kX05CqPsY