Humble
Matthew 23:1-12
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Is it just me, or does Jesus sound crankier in Matthew’s gospel once he gets to Jerusalem? But then again, who could blame him? His words today remind me of a story I heard once about a man who was being tailgated on a busy street, when suddenly a traffic light turned yellow. He did the right thing and stopped, even though he might have beat the red light by speeding through the intersection. The tailgater behind him went ballistic, honking and screaming in frustration at not getting through the intersection. In the middle of this rant, the tailgater heard a tap on the window and looked over to see the face of a very serious looking police officer. The driver was ordered to exit the vehicle, and was subsequently taken into custody and brought to the police station to be searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a holding cell. After several hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. The driver was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with the driver’s personal effects. He said, “I’m very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were honking your horn and flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the ‘What Would Jesus Do’ bumper sticker next to the one that said, ‘Follow Me to Sunday School,’ along with the chrome fish emblem. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car.” Which is why I don’t have a ‘clergy’ sticker on my car.
Why is it that hypocrites always seem easier to identify when they are someone else and not ourselves. That’s some of the danger of our reading this morning, where Jesus is in the Jerusalem Temple, calling out the scribes and the Pharisees.
For clarity’s sake, it might be helpful to have a little background, because it can be easy to turn the Pharisees into cardboard cutout villains, like first-century versions of Snidely Whiplash twirling their moustaches and tying poor innocent people to the train tracks. In the contemporary Jewish life of Jesus’ day, the life that Jesus lived and that informed much of his earthly ministry, there were generally four major currents. There were the Sadducees, who were a bit like the royal caste of the people, living in Jerusalem. The one percent, if you will. They were the ones who ran the temple, the ones who selected one of their own as high priest. As a result they were also cozy with the Roman occupying authority. In exchange for their collusion with this foreign power, they were given the freedom to run and profit from temple life. Then there were the Essenes, who did not live in the city, in fact they made their home out in the seclusion of the desert, living an austere life dedicated to preserving the purity their faith from the corrupting influences of the city and the Empire. Like the Essenes, the Zealots were critical of their fellow Jews who cooperated with Rome, and benefited from that relationship- often at the expense of their own people. But unlike the Essenes, the Zealots weren’t content to hide away in the desert. Inspired by the the history of the Maccabees and their revolt against Seleucid oppression, the Zealots advocated forceful resistance of Rome’s occupation, if not outright overthrow of their rule. Finally, there were the Pharisees, a kind of people’s movement of religiously-minded folk who took their scripture seriously and sought to reform their faith through strict adherence to the Law of God. Of these four movements, only the Pharisees would survive the Jewish revolt some 30-40 years after Jesus’ crucifixion, and the resulting Roman destruction of the Temple. It was the Pharisees who led the way to synagogue-based Judaism, where, it turns out, they would run smack dab into members of their own congregation who insisted that the crucified Rabbi, Yeshua from Nazareth, was in fact the Messiah whom God had raised from the dead. This gospel of Matthew is written by and for those believers who were eventually kicked out of those congregations for their belief.
The danger is in reading Jesus’ words as a polemic against ‘them’, against Judaism and the Jewish people themselves. Jesus is a Jew, as are most of the members of the community that Matthew is writing to. That’s not what’s going on here. Instead what Jesus is doing is calling to account the members of his own community, and the habit that religious people of just about every stripe have of saying one thing and doing another. Of slapping pious bumper stickers on their cars and then driving like crazy people. So to avoid the danger of allowing these words to draw us into the comfortable and easy place of assuming that they are about someone else, it might be a better use of our time to hear what he has to say and then to ask, “is it I, Lord?”
These days it is fashionable for younger generations to describe themselves as spiritual, but not religious. These are the people who when polled list their religious affiliation as ‘none.’ That doesn’t mean, however, that they are atheists. If asked further they may very well explain that they believe in God, but they belong to no formal system or tradition for expressing that belief. They may even have an interest in Jesus, but too often they see his followers the way Jesus describes his fellow Jews.
I was having a conversation with someone recently about their older adult children who do not attend church. Why do you think that is, I asked. The answer I heard wasn’t about music, or parking, or the quality of the coffee. It was about convenience and the perception that church was one more obligation in an already crowded calendar of obligations. In other words, there was an expectation, either explicit or implicit that was burdensome. And it raised a question in my mind that I don’t have an answer for, but which bears asking nonetheless. What are we doing to help alleviate that burden? “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them,” Jesus says. Do we do that with our expectations of what church should be, and what it looks like for the people who walk through our doors? How they dress? How often them come?What they give? Just knowing which door to enter? We have some wonderful volunteers who give their time to our youth and Sunday School programs, but every year Libby and Stephanie search to find help for those ministries. And I find myself wondering why almost every single Godly Play teacher is a woman? Are there no men in our church who will wonder with our children about scripture and the story of our faith? Do we say one thing about the importance of cultivating young people of faith, but do nothing ourselves to actually contribute to their development?
I was telling our new Elders and Deacons last week about my own confirmation experience in the church that raised me in the faith. I don’t remember much of the content we were taught over the course of those few months. I remember that we had to meet in the pastor’s off-site office because there had been a fire that year at our church and the offices were being re-done. I remember having to memorize the Apostles’ Creed to recite before the Session in order to be approved. But more than all the rest I remember Homer Rouse, who was my confirmation sponsor. Homer was an Elder who worked for the National Park Service. Years later, at the time of his death, he had become Superintendent of Rocky Mountain National Park. But once confirmation was over, Homer kept up with me. He was an adult in the church beside my parents that I knew cared for me, looked out for me on Sunday and made a point of knowing what was going on in my life. He didn’t do it for appearance sake. In fact I was probably the only person who saw it, or knew what it meant. Because it meant the world to me, and I still think of him every time we honor the saints who have gone before us to make our own faith possible.
Here’s where Jesus’ words cut the deepest. Because while he talks about the danger of titles and using them to elevate ourselves, or claim special privileges, at the heart of it, it’s a question of thinking ourselves above certain things, or people. Now, don’t get me wrong, not everybody is called to do everything. That’s just another kind of burdensome expectation that I have no interest in laying on our shoulders. There are a variety of gifts. But there is a difference between not having a gift and not being willing to do something, or sing something, or serve someone that we think it is beneath us.
On this Sunday when we celebrate and bear witness once again to the saints, we are reminded that in our Reformed tradition a saint isn’t someone who has a well-documented history of miracles attributed to themselves. A saint isn’t someone who goes through a rigorous canonization process before having that exalted title conferred upon them. It’s funny Jesus makes a point of calling out our habit of using our titles and honorifics to gain some kind of status in the world, but the one title that we are called to claim is this, “Saint.” If that makes us nervous, maybe it should. Sainthood is about a whole lot more than bumper stickers and outward displays of piety. Sainthood isn’t about status, it’s about service. In the reformed tradition sainthood is a function of our baptism. As one letter puts it, “as he who called you is holy, be holy yourself.” The holiness of sainthood isn’t about slavish adherence to a prescribed way of believing. It certainly isn’t about wearing our halos out for everyone to see what great people we think we are. And it doesn’t mean that we are better than anyone, or for that matter more favored by God. What it does mean is that those who have aligned themselves with Jesus have aligned themselves with one who is set apart, holy. And so are we when we exchange the heaviness of the burdens we are carrying around for a life shared with the one who calls us in our weariness to come to him, whose burden is light. Being a saint isn’t a heavy thing. It’s the lightness that comes from knowing holiness isn’t one more thing to strive for in a world full of striving. It is the blessing that we discover as we are humbled by it. And when, in such humility, we pass the blessing on. It is one that exalts us.