Woe

Matthew 23:13-32

March 12, 2023 • Mount Pleasant UMC

You often hear people say that the COVID pandemic changed everything, and that may be more true than we think it is. I’ve noticed how people don’t stand next to each other anymore; we’ve learned how to social distance and when you end up in a line, you probably still do it without thinking about it. I know I do! People wear masks a whole lot more than they ever did before the spring of 2020. And the online life has taken a prominent place in our culture. We all pretty much had to learn how to do a Zoom meeting, and we got used to looking at people in little boxes rather than in person. Online meetings, online conversations, online interviews, even online church—I’ll take “things we never thought about before COVID” for 500, Alex. And all of that screen time led to other things—like an increased awareness of how we look to other people. Or how we think we look to other people. So, for instance, the United States is the world’s largest consumer of cosmetics, to the tune of nearly $90 billion every year. As an aside, according to the United Nations, it would only take $40 billion a year to end world hunger by 2030. Just sayin’. But then there’s another thing I discovered that has been on the rise since COVID: ear pinning. I had never heard of this, maybe you have. It’s a surgical procedure people have done to pull their ears back closer to their head. And doctors believe it’s on the rise largely because of time we’ve spent on our screens; we see ourselves more than usual and we become convinced we don’t look right—or at least that our ears don’t look right.

I could go on, but you get the point by now: there is an obsession in our culture with how we look, to varying degrees certainly, but very few of us get out of bed and just head out the door. We want to look our best. And then along comes Jesus, saying things like, “You shouldn’t worry so much about what you look like on the outside. You should be worried about what you are like on the inside.” He has a way, doesn’t he, of cutting right to the heart of the matter?

On this third Sunday of Lent, we’re continuing our slow walk through the last week of Jesus’ earthly life, and while I said we were basically taking one day a week, Tuesday of Holy Week was a day full of teaching and conflict. There’s so much that happens on this third day of the week that we’re actually going to spread this out over three Sundays. So get comfortable on Tuesday, a day when the differences are evident and the lines are being drawn. Jesus makes very few people happy on this day, but he especially seems to go out of his way to make trouble with the teachers of the law and the Pharisees by cutting to the heart of their matter.

So maybe first we ought to make sure we know who these opponents of Jesus were. Some of your Bibles may say “scribes” instead of “teachers of the law,” but it’s the same group. They were loosely organized, their roots going way back to the time when the people came back from exile (around 538 BC). Their job was to copy God’s law (what we know as the first five books of the Bible) and it was painstaking work. They were, then, learned men, educated men, because not everyone could read and write, and before too long they also began teaching God’s law to the people. I mean, if you spend your days writing it down, you probably know it pretty well. By the first century they were respected individuals to whom people turned for all sorts of things. They were kind of like judges or lawyers today, involved in particularly legal matters. Because of their knowledge of God’s law, it’s no wonder they connected with the Pharisees, who were a group of laypeople concerned about getting people to follow God’s law. They were the religious conservatives of their day, and I’ve said before, Jesus and the Pharisees probably agreed more than they disagreed. They would have had much the same outlook and interpretation of the Scriptures. When Jesus argues with them, it’s a family squabble, not really enemies lining up for a battle. Jesus’ main beef with the Pharisees was not what they believed; it was that they didn’t live out what they said they believed (cf. 23:2-4; Wright, Matthew for Everyone—Part Two, pg. 106; Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 203). And that comes out loud and clear in the series of “woes” he pronounces on both of these groups during the day on that last Tuesday.

So I don’t know how you usually hear a passage like this, but most people it seems hear this as coming from an angry Jesus, like he’s condemning them right, left and center. And the word that is used there certainly contains an element of warning. I checked a bunch of English translations (thanks to my Bible app that has a bunch of different ones installed in it) and the most common translation is exactly what we read here: “woe.” Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. If I were to come into the church and say, “Woe to you, Pastor Rick…” you would understandably think I was mad at him for some reason. Probably because he ate all my M&M’s while I was in Indianapolis this week. And while “woe” is a good translation, the original word doesn’t mean to condemn someone, and it’s not just to warn someone, but to warn them sorrowfully. “Woe” is an exclamation of grief, not anger. It contains sadness, not rage. It isn’t a word that hopes for their destruction; it’s a wish, a desire, that they would be more and better than they are. Jesus isn’t cursing the scribes and Pharisees here. Much like he did over the whole city of Jerusalem when he entered on Palm Sunday, he’s warning them of the state they are in and hoping for better for them (cf. Porterfield, Fight Like Jesus, pg. 80).

And Jesus has a pretty extensive list of things he hopes for them. Seven warnings make up this Tuesday teaching and, as one author says, “You don’t need a Bible degree to understand what Jesus is saying” (Porterfield 78). Here are the seven things Jesus is concerned about:

1. They hinder people from becoming part of God’s kingdom (23:13).

2. When someone does get in, they don’t convert them to God’s law but to their own (23:15).

3. They value the gifts brought to the altar in the Temple more than they do the Temple and the altar itself or the worship that happens there. Money is what matters (23:16-22).

4. They count their tithes down to the smallest percentage but neglect to practice justice and mercy and faithfulness. One of Jesus’ most memorable images shows up at this point: “You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel” (23:23-24).

5. Getting back to our opening illustration, they worry more about what things look like on the outside than they do the character that should be on the inside (23:25-26).

6. They are dead inside, hypocrites and wicked people (23:27-28). And…

7. They claim that, had they lived “back then,” they would not have killed the prophets from God as their ancestors did (23:29-30).

And yet, as Jesus knows, they are involved in plotting even at that very moment to kill the greatest prophet, the Son of God himself. And that’s when Jesus lays it down. I have to admire his audacity with this last statement: “Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!” (23:32). I hear him saying, “I double dog dare you!” Or maybe something along the lines of Clint Eastwood: “Go ahead, make my day.” He may not say it that way, but I’m sure they get it.

So, with all of that as background, let me bring us back to the prayer we’ve centered this whole Lenten series around, the prayer Jesus wept over Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. You remember how Jesus stopped halfway down the Mount of Olives as he was on his way into the city, and when he saw Jerusalem, he began to weep and he said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:42). If there ever was a living example of God’s shalom, wholeness, peace, being hidden, it was in the way the scribes and the Pharisees lived. That’s what Jesus is talking about here, that they are not showing the shalom of God by the way they live. By pronouncing these “woes,” Jesus is fighting for peace on this Tuesday. How, you ask?

Let me answer that question with a story first. I have been sailing exactly twice in my life, and neither time went very well. The first time was in the summer of 1988 when we were working with InterVarsity in a summer ministry project on the west side of Chicago. On one of our days off, someone had loaned a sailboat for us to use for the day, so we headed to Lake Michigan, found the boat, loaded up and headed out. We navigated out of the harbor, and then we put the sail up and we were off. Chicago, you know, is called “the windy city,” and we were having a great time. Until the wind died down. And then stopped. We were out a ways from shore on Lake Michigan and we had no wind. After a while, our ministry leader decided the wind wasn’t coming back that afternoon, so he decided to start up the motor and we would get back to shore that way. Except none of us had thought to check the gas tank before we left the harbor. No gas. Empty. No power. We were out there quite a while before another boat came along and towed us back to the harbor. How embarrassing! Who would have thought that in the Windy City we would end up without wind power?

And who would have though that in the Holy City, God’s most respected religious authorities, the scribes and Pharisees, would be without Holy Spirit power? Jesus is fighting for these community leaders to have peace with God; he’s calling them back to the power source. He wants them to be able to feel the blowing wind of the Holy Spirit again. He wants who they are on the inside to reflect who they pretend or appear to be on the outside. As I said, the squabbles Jesus has with the Pharisees in particular but really with all the religious leaders is a family fight. These words are spoken out of love, calling them back to God’s shalom. His intention is not to punish them. It is to help them find their way back. And for those who think Jesus is overly harsh here, remember what the writer to the Hebrews says: “God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10; cf. Porterfield 82-83).

Hebrews does on to say what we know to be true: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” Amen, anyone? But… “Later on…it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it “(12:11). That’s what Jesus longs for these scribes and Pharisees to experience. That’s what he longs for you and me to experience, as well. Down through the ages comes the voice of Jesus with a sorrowful warning, asking us to examine our lives and see if the inside matches who we appear to be on the outside. Let me ask it this way: what “woe” is Jesus speaking into your life? What are the pieces of your life that break Jesus’ heart, enough for him to speak truth and shalom to you?

Much of the time, like good scribes and Pharisees, we become blind to the things in our lives that block or dampen God’s shalom. Many times, maybe most times, we need a way to be able to see or hear what is true about us. We need a prayer something like, “Lord, tell me the truth about myself, no matter how hard it is to hear.” But, honestly, that’s a hard prayer to pray. Maybe we can turn to an ancient practice to help us pray.

“The Examen” dates back to St. Ignatius of Loyola in the 15th century and this morning we have some cards available for you to take to help you pray this way. The cards have the prayer laid out as a practice before you go to bed, but it can also be done mid-day or even in the morning with some adaptations. The Examen has five parts to it, the first of which is to ask God for light. I like the way it’s put on the card: “I want to look at my day with God’s eyes, not merely my own.” Next, you give thanks for the day. The day is a gift from God, so give thanks to the one who gave it to you. Third, the heart of the prayer time is to review the day, and ask the Holy Spirit to help you see places where you did well and places where you failed. That leads to the fourth piece: face your shortcomings. This is where we hear Jesus warning us sorrowfully. Where do I need his grace and strength to do better? The temptation will be to shy away from the truth we learn or realize at this time. Let me urge you not to do that. We grow the most by walking through and facing the hard things. And then, finally, look forward to the day to come. Where will you need God tomorrow? Spoiler alert: the answer is “everywhere.” Many throughout the centuries have found that spending a few moments with Jesus before rest allows them to rest better. I’m not prescribing this or guaranteeing that. I just think that if we’re serious about living in God’s shalom, maybe we need to spend some time allowing Jesus to speak to us, even when it’s hard to hear.

But beyond what God is doing in us, there’s also a need to reflect on what God is doing through us. As followers of the one who said “blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9), we are called to stand up for truth, even when it’s unpopular, even if it means speaking up against the powerful and influential. “The most unloving thing Jesus could have done in [this] situation would have been to remain silent” (Porterfield 83). He had to speak up. He had to speak truth to power. And there are times when we might be called upon to do the same. Maybe not to authorities like Jesus did, but maybe we are called to speak truth in a City Council meeting, or a school board meeting. Maybe there is a community issue in which our voices are needed. It may be hard. It may not seem to be taken well, but we are still called to speak truth because truth is what leads to shalom. Now, granted, this “speaking truth to power” can be abused and often is. Many times today people blast others on social media or even in person and think they have “done God’s work.” But Jesus demonstrates here that bringing shalom is not done cruelly or harmfully. Remember that the “woe” here means to “warn sorrowfully.” If our hearts are not broken, we’re probably not in the right position or mindset to speak up. As Jesus put it, be careful to not focus on the planks in someone else’s eyes when there are splinters in your own (cf. Matthew 7:3-5). The goal is never to tear someone else down; it’s to lead them toward repentance. That was Jesus’ goal, and we know that while he didn’t succeed on a large scale, there were two religious leaders who were affected by what he said. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were at the crucifixion and cared for his body after he was dead, at the risk of their own lives and reputations (cf. John 19:38-42). The goal of speaking truth to power is the same goal Jesus has had throughout this whole week; in fact it was his goal through his whole life: to bring people to repentance, to restore us, to gather us back to himself.

When the nation of Romania became communist, it was expected that the church would become secular and the leadership would be communist collaborators. Or that’s how it usually happened elsewhere. But Pastor Laszlo Tokes in the city of Timisoara believed the church was the body of Christ, and he believed in Jesus’ mission of shalom. So he stood firm, and stood up for what the church had always believed. As he did that, the church he pastored grew from 50 to 5,000, and then the officials began to notice. His bishop suspended him, but Tokes kept on preaching. Beatings and intimidation didn’t stop him so the communists informed him he would be arrested and exiled. And when word got out, the people of the church gathered, but not with weapons. They gathered with candles and songs. They expressed their faith and danced in front of machine guns. It was that faith that then spread throughout the city, and then through then country. It was that faith that eventually led to the banishment of the communist dictator and to restored freedom. It all started when the church decided to be the church and to work, and serve, and pray for shalom by speaking truth to power (cf. Colton, The Body, pgs. 51-61). How might God be calling us, as a community of faith, as the body of Christ, to speak truth to power, to call our community, our city, our county back to God’s shalom?

So I said I have been sailing twice, didn’t I? The second time was in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where we were staying with some friends for a week several years ago. I had been wanting to get out on the lake all week, and one afternoon, there seemed to be enough wind and sun to make for a good sail, so we headed out. It was a great time, and we got a ways out from shore when, at least it seemed like it to me, all of sudden the wind picked up and the clouds got dark. A storm was coming, and it looked like it might be a bad one, so we headed back to shore. We didn’t make it before the storm hit, so putting the boat and all the gear away was a challenge. But I thought of that story as I read this one in the Gospels, because as Jesus is making these pronouncements to the religious leaders, a storm is about to break. They’ve already been thinking about ways to get rid of him, as we saw last week, but now it seems Jesus is just poking the bear. In the last “woe,” Jesus reminds them that their ancestors killed the prophets, the same prophets whose tombs they decorate now. Jesus sort of mocks them by reminding them that they say if they had lived back then they wouldn’t have killed these prophets. But he knows they’re about to kill him, the greatest of the prophets. He knows the storm is brewing, and so he calls them out on it: “Go ahead…and complete what your ancestors started!” (23:29-32). There’s a storm coming. Jesus knows it, and still he fights for peace.

The next chapter of Matthew’s Gospel begins this way: “Jesus left the temple and was walking away…” (24:1). What Matthew doesn’t say is that this is the last time Jesus is at the Temple. When he leaves this time, he never returns again (cf. Porterfield 81). He has done what he can; he has spoken the truth. And all he can do now is hope that his “laments of wounded love” (cf. Keener, Matthew [IVPNTC], pg. 335) will make a difference. Do they? Well, his still words ring out, 2,000 years later, to anyone who needs to put aside our religious appearances for a true experience of God’s shalom. Maybe that’s you this morning. If it is, know this: God’s transforming grace waits for you. All you have to do is ask for it. Let’s pray.