The Tuesday Before Passover
But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. 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. (Matthew 23: 13-15)
Now, in this last week of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry, he was letting loose with some final thoughts which, I think, he might have been holding in for some time. A crowd had gathered, along with some of his disciples. Because of the things that had happened the previous several days, the scribes and Pharisees were nearby, too, challenging Jesus more and more openly and caustically. Jesus, I believe, is fed up with them and their blindness about what he has been saying, teaching, and demonstrating concerning the Kingdom of God.
I’m going to relate a story here in very general terms, even though it is a story being acted out in the present among people I am in contact with daily. I’m changing some of the specific information so that no confidentialities are breached. But it is a story which illustrates very well why Jesus’ teachings, and his frustrations and anger, are relevant for all time and for all people.
There is a family in a nearby town with deep needs. They have no money, no friends, and no power. What most of us need in terms of information, or records, or services, they must work very hard to get. They are met, because of their inabilities to communicate well, their lack of education and know-how, and (regrettably) because of their sometimes unkept appearance, with belligerence, animosity, and rudeness. They’ve made many mistakes, that’s a given. They are trying, against huge odds, to fix some of those mistakes.
“Are you saved?” I’ve heard them being asked when they’ve asked for help. “Are your children baptized?” Yes. “Do you really know the Lord?” Yes. “Are you going to church?” Not yet. “Shouldn’t you be giving back what you have been given?”
And on and on. In return for the right answers, they receive someone’s cast-off clothing, and a box of someone else’s expired food. Like all people with little means, the few things they do have- phone service, electric service- costs them more in deposits and fees than it does someone who has the money to spend. Each day brings new challenges, new frustrations, and more religious hoops to be jumped through.
Don’t get me wrong, please. I am as frustrated by the difficulties of this family’s situation as anyone. But as I am beating my head against the wall one more time over their plight and being tempted to flush the problem into someone else’s holding tank, I am reminded of those people who Jesus said were locking people out of the kingdom of God. By making up rule after rule after rule for others to adhere to in order to be allowed to approach the Temple, the gatekeepers became impediments to the Kingdom. They got in the way of God’s love through their actions and attitudes. It became easier to run from the God those gatekeepers stood in front of, than it was to work their way toward that God.
How easy it would be for me to make this family flee from the God who loves them, with some sarcastic comment of my own, or some legalistic moralizing on my part. Someone whom God is calling closer to his son could so easily be tripped up on their journey toward him by some power-grabbing set of religious gymnastics concocted by me, their spiritual “superior.”
I am as guilty as those on whom Jesus is pronouncing “Woe!” when I fail to stand against this evil which exists at the edges of the Kingdom of God. If I look the other way while others are making up rules designed to keep others out of their “sacred” spaces, then I am
every bit as guilty as the rule makers are. And woe are they, and woe is me.
Jesus had every right to be angry at the unrighteousness of those who posed as God’s point men but who were, in actuality, in the words of Jesus, “children of hell.” I’m not nearly as upset with them right now, though, as I am upset with myself. And I’ve got some amends to make tomorrow.
Now, in this last week of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry, he was letting loose with some final thoughts which, I think, he might have been holding in for some time. A crowd had gathered, along with some of his disciples. Because of the things that had happened the previous several days, the scribes and Pharisees were nearby, too, challenging Jesus more and more openly and caustically. Jesus, I believe, is fed up with them and their blindness about what he has been saying, teaching, and demonstrating concerning the Kingdom of God.
I’m going to relate a story here in very general terms, even though it is a story being acted out in the present among people I am in contact with daily. I’m changing some of the specific information so that no confidentialities are breached. But it is a story which illustrates very well why Jesus’ teachings, and his frustrations and anger, are relevant for all time and for all people.
There is a family in a nearby town with deep needs. They have no money, no friends, and no power. What most of us need in terms of information, or records, or services, they must work very hard to get. They are met, because of their inabilities to communicate well, their lack of education and know-how, and (regrettably) because of their sometimes unkept appearance, with belligerence, animosity, and rudeness. They’ve made many mistakes, that’s a given. They are trying, against huge odds, to fix some of those mistakes.
“Are you saved?” I’ve heard them being asked when they’ve asked for help. “Are your children baptized?” Yes. “Do you really know the Lord?” Yes. “Are you going to church?” Not yet. “Shouldn’t you be giving back what you have been given?”
And on and on. In return for the right answers, they receive someone’s cast-off clothing, and a box of someone else’s expired food. Like all people with little means, the few things they do have- phone service, electric service- costs them more in deposits and fees than it does someone who has the money to spend. Each day brings new challenges, new frustrations, and more religious hoops to be jumped through.
Don’t get me wrong, please. I am as frustrated by the difficulties of this family’s situation as anyone. But as I am beating my head against the wall one more time over their plight and being tempted to flush the problem into someone else’s holding tank, I am reminded of those people who Jesus said were locking people out of the kingdom of God. By making up rule after rule after rule for others to adhere to in order to be allowed to approach the Temple, the gatekeepers became impediments to the Kingdom. They got in the way of God’s love through their actions and attitudes. It became easier to run from the God those gatekeepers stood in front of, than it was to work their way toward that God.
How easy it would be for me to make this family flee from the God who loves them, with some sarcastic comment of my own, or some legalistic moralizing on my part. Someone whom God is calling closer to his son could so easily be tripped up on their journey toward him by some power-grabbing set of religious gymnastics concocted by me, their spiritual “superior.”
I am as guilty as those on whom Jesus is pronouncing “Woe!” when I fail to stand against this evil which exists at the edges of the Kingdom of God. If I look the other way while others are making up rules designed to keep others out of their “sacred” spaces, then I am
every bit as guilty as the rule makers are. And woe are they, and woe is me.
Jesus had every right to be angry at the unrighteousness of those who posed as God’s point men but who were, in actuality, in the words of Jesus, “children of hell.” I’m not nearly as upset with them right now, though, as I am upset with myself. And I’ve got some amends to make tomorrow.
posted by D.Barry Weber at 7:36 AM
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