Sermon Cloud

In Jesus' day, there was a group of religious leaders called the Pharisees. The Pharisees had one singular mission. Their mission was to fix the problem their nation was in. Their once glorious nation had spent the last several centuries getting kicked around by world powers. First the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, then the Persians and by Jesus' time, it was the Romans. The Pharisees knew who to blame; all the sinners of their day. The cheating tax collectors, the sexually permissive, the alcoholics. Anyone who didn't live up to their rules. And the religious leaders were convinced that if these dirty-rotten sinners would start behaving, then God would send the Messiah who would overthrow Rome and restore Israel as the world's superpower. The key to this plan was getting the sinners to stop sinning. So the Pharisees passed law after law after law, to force morality upon the sinful masses. And to make everything right again.
It's funny, isn't it, that no matter how much things change, so much stays the same. When Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, it marked the beginning of a movement we now call the Religious Right. The RR was a group of church leaders who were convinced that America could be "won back for God" through the passing of enough laws. If we could just get the right people elected, they said, we could enforce the morality that would return America back to that bygone era of spiritual purity. Which is pretty ironic, because even a shallow study of American history reveals that we have a steady track record of not behaving very Christian. Which simply means we're like every other nation in our world. A lot of good, a lot of bad. We're human, we're not C.
I say all of this to point out the fact that human nature hasn't changed. Especially among religious people. There will always be religious people who believe it's there mission in life to tell other people how to live. And religious people are really good at looking at all the problems in the society around them and placing the blame for those problems on the people who don't behave like them. It happened with 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina and it was happening in Jesus' day, too.
Last Sunday, I talked about the evil of putting rules above relationships. Which is the whole point of this series. To help us break free from this thought that I have to control the people around me. I also shared with you last week that this is going to be a hard series for me to preach because it hits so close to home. Which is why I've entitled this message, "Confessions of a Pharisee" because I see myself all over in this passage. I don't preach with this level of self-confession very often; partly because it's too painful but also because it wouldn't be helpful to you for me to do this all the time. But when I realize that Jesus is teeing off on religious leaders, I realize this passage is speaking directly to me. But before you prop your feet up and grab the remote to watch Donnie suffer, I'll remind you that while there are different positions of leadership within the church, every single one of us bears the name of Jesus. And in some way or another, every single one of us are watched by those who have not yet chosen to follow Jesus. Every single one of us lives as a representative of Jesus in this world. And Jesus is hardest on those who have leadership positions within his community.
Biblical scholars split this chapter up into 4 criticisms and 7 woes. In the NLT, the word "woe" is substituted with the word "sorrow." But I still like to call them "woes" because it makes me think of Joey Lawrence on Blossom, "Woah." Matthew 23:1-24
Let's dive deeper into these criticisms:
Criticism 1: Not practicing what they preached vs. 2-3 I can't imagine anything else I'd rather not hear from Jesus than this. If Jesus stood up before you and said, "Donnie's teaching is right on, but his lifestyle doesn't match what he teaches." That haunts me, because I am aware of my own inconsistencies. I'd so much rather heard Jesus say, "Donnie was actually a heretic, but at least his lifestyle was consistent with is crazy ideas." Jesus had high expectations for leaders because other people would follow their lives. I could yell at you every Sunday for years but if my lifestyle didn't match up to what I preached and if I wasn't able to be honest about my shortcomings, then you wouldn't listen to a word I said. Which is why we read this warning in the bible, 1 Timothy 4:16. If Paul had been in a modern movie, such as Meet the Fockers...
Criticism 2: Rules above Relationships vs. 4 I would've been a great Pharisee. I admitted some of this last week, I'm the type of personality that is a rule keeper. I'm a pretty disciplined person, give me a list, I can get it done. I've shared before how at the beginning of the year, God prompted me to spent 3 hours a week in personal prayer and Bible study and 3 hours a week praying for our church. It's a good rule of life to follow. As of last week, I was right on pace. I can show you my hours log in my journals. But my temptation is to focus more on "putting in my time" than actually talking with God. And I can be tempted to look down on those who don't follow the same rule of life. We're all tempted to put the biblical standards for living above the God they were meant to help us know. Idolatrly. Or to look down on those who don't live the way we do; J. It's possible to keep every "rule" but still not let God anywhere near your heart.
Jesus wasn't on the Pharisees for what the way they were teaching people to live, he got on them for (among other things) the way they manipulated people with guilt and intimidation. Rules are never more important than our relationship with God or with other people.
Criticism 3: Wanting the attention of people more than the attention of God Vs. 6-7 Yeah, this one hits home in a big way. I expected to graduate seminary, start a church and then be giving daily interviews as the "hot shot young church planter." It was a healthy shot to the pride when I realized it was a good friend from college and not me, who was being lifted up as the "hot shot." I've been talking with a good friend and counselor about this and he says I've been taking some good strides in letting God humble me (I'm not really sure if that's a compliment). The more I come to grips with the fact that it's not about me, it's about Jesus, the more God is able to use me. That's been a painful but important lesson.
Criticism 4: Hero Worship vs. 8, 12 Jesus isn't worried about the titles we give to leaders, but the importance we place on those leaders. There's a cult of hero worship in a lot of churches. I go to this guys' church because he's such a great speaker, or I follow this guy. There's certainly a lot to be learned from great leaders or great speakers. There's one guy I listen to every week and part of what I'll share later comes from his message on this same passage. But church becomes a spectator sport where we watch the "professional" perform on stage. While the leader may like the attention, that's a really sick form of church. Sure, I preach every week but it's not so you can be impressed but to try to empower you to go be the church. The church isn't just one hour on Sunday, the church is a group of people trying to live like Jesus in our world. Are you a spectator or a Christ-follower?
Building upon the momentum of ticking off the Pharisees, Jesus then moves onto the 7 Woes. One right after another, bam, bam, bam. I love what Jesus says in vs. 15. Ouch, is it any wonder these guys ended up killing Jesus?
I'd like to break all of these down for you (and to show how it applies to me, too) but we don't really have time. Next week we'll focus on the 5th, 6th and 7th woes. Right now I want to focus on the 4th woe, Vs. 23-24.
The Pharisees were all about following rules. And there was one really important rule they were serious about, the tithe. Let's look at the instruction to the people of Israel to tithe, Deuteronomy 14:22. The tithe was a way of acknowledging that everything we have is from God. We take 1/10th of what God's provided for us and we give it back to God. This was before the days of direct deposits, their currency was their crops and livestock. So they tithed off their produce. Even though this passage in Deuteronomy says nothing about the tiny herb crop, the Pharisees were so diligent they split up 1/10th of their tiny herbs and gave that to God, too. They were serious about this.
And Jesus commended them for it. He told them their tithe was a good thing, "you should tithe." And we believe that as a church as well, that giving 1/10th of your income to be used by God through the local church is an important part of following Jesus. But it's interesting what Jesus then says vs. 23b. What does he mean by more important matters of the law; justice, mercy and faith?
To get an idea, let's track how those words are used in other parts of the bible.. Justice Proverbs 18:5 Ecclesiastes 5:8 Psalm 94:15,20 So we have this idea of Justice as making sure people are treated fairly and equitably. An innocent person isn't punished wrongly, a worker is paid their fair wages. Justice is treating others in a right way.
Mercy Matthew 6:2 (charity could be translated as mercy) Mercy is this idea of giving to the poor, serving those who are less fortunate. Mercy is active compassion.
Faithfulness A couple scholars I studied believed "faith" could be better translated "faithfulness." 3 John 1:3-4 Faithfulness is consistently living as the people of God in the world. It's fidelity to God, true heartedness.
These "more important things" can be best summed by Micah 6:8
So, there's the tithe which is important but then there are also the "more important matters." One scholar I studied made this distinction and I want to go with it for the rest of the message.
The ‘tithe' represents individual morality. It's doing the right things with your own resources. Tithing is one of the things we do as individuals because God expects us to do so. We tithe and follow other personal moral rules for our own benefit, for our personal walk with God. This is our vertical relationship.
The "more important things" represent how we interact with other people. Are we making sure workers get a fair wage, that the innocent are kept out of jail. The "more important things" are matters of social justice. This is our horizontal interaction.
Here's what Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, "you're doing a great job with personal morality, keep up the good work. But in your focus on rule-keeping, you've neglected the more important things. You've forgotten about the wrongly accused. You've forgotten about those who are being ripped off by an unfair system. You're neglecting the poor. You should continue to ‘tithe' while also giving to the poor."
Your individual morality matters. How you spend your money. What websites you visit. Whether you're gossiping. Your individual morality and purity matters.
But do NOT neglect a suffering world. Whether you're serving the poor matters as well. Are you faithfully living as the healing presence of God in a hurting world?
If you're only focused on your individual morality while ignoring the hurting world around you, you've completely missed the point. (repeat)
And in case they didn't catch it the first time, Jesus adds this vs. 24. What in the world is he getting at here? To understand, we've gotta go back to the OT again. Leviticus 11:20 These were kosher dietary laws. Part of being ceremonially clean meant you didn't eat certain bugs (why just certain). It was a way God kept his people healthy. Very important in the time before meat thermometers.
So, Pharisees would cover their wine goblets with filters meant to keep out the bugs. When they needed a drink, they'd take off the filter. Put it right back on when they were done. They wanted to make sure no unclean insect got in their drink. It was this "return our country back to God" way of thinking. If everyone would be as ceremonially clean as us, then everything would be right again."
Jesus mocks them. Because in focusing upon the gnat, they missed the camel. And those words sounded the same, it was a pun. Gant = comla, camel = gomla. Jesus had a great sense of humor. And this is why it mattered, Leviticus 11:4. They weren't supposed to eat a camel either. Which do you think was more unhealthy? To swallow a gnat or to eat an entire camel? I've swallowed lots of gnats but haven't tried a camel yet.
The Pharisees were obsessively consumed with being individually pure before God. So focused upon their own right-living that they were deaf to the cries of a hurting world around them. In being so focused on keeping out the gnat, they were actually swallowing a camel. Their balance was off, they were missing the larger issues.
A couple months ago, during one of our trips to the gentlemen's clubs to pass out gift bags, my wife invited the clubs to join us in a service project day at My Father's House in Paola. It was a bit of a surprise, but mostly really cool, when a dozen employees from Bonita Flats showed up that day to work alongside us.
I had a great conversation with the owner and some other employees who couldn't believe we were "Christians." We didn't act like the other Christians they knew. The owner told me now another church in our denomination had recently protested their club; standing in front with signs and passing out flyers to keep people away. Guido shared how surprised he's been by our church. We aren't like "most Christians."
In focusing on the "greater things" of serving the poor in our area and by focusing upon our commonalities, we're presenting the opportunity for those with whom we've built relationships to eventually give their lives to Jesus. If they make that decision, then Jesus will take care of their individual moral issues. What do you think is going to draw a person closer to Jesus? Working together to serve the poor or holding picket signs? Inviting someone to join us in kingdom work or telling them what a sinner they are?
Jesus isn't interested in just saving you for your own sake. You aren't made new so you can show others how pure you are. God wants to do something through our lives to help alleviate the pain in our world. Whether it's the pain of those working in the sex industry. The pain of the rural homeless served by My Father's House. Or whomever it may be.
Jesus has shown you mercy so you can show mercy for others. It's not just about you and God; it's about you, God and others.
Let's take a few moments to reflect. You've got a space to journal on our weekly. Do any of Jesus' criticisms hit home with you? What does it mean for you to focus on Justice, Mercy and Faithfulness?