Wooly wolves
This week's study is on Matthew 23:23-28:
Jesus here is talking about the tendency of clergy at the time to be hypocrites and predators. He goes into more detail elsewhere, but the gist of the problem is that a lot of times the people we think are really righteous turn out to be complete scoundrels. People usually suspect that being religious turns people into hypocrites, but the reality is that religion also tends to attract flawed people hoping to hide behind a façade of righteousness.
The religious people Jesus is talking about would tithe even their cooking herbs to show how righteous they were. The implication was that their attention to religious detail was so well trained that they wouldn't even neglect that detail. Nowadays people might signal righteousness with politically correct language and behaviour, recycling, reducing waste, and other fashionable trends that our culture places moral value on. We all know people who are politically correct, or who care about the animals, or who always be sure to work late or volunteer, who are not good people at all. Jesus calls these sorts of people blind guides. The things they focus on are tiny and visible mostly just to their social circle, while the things they overlook are so huge that everyone else can see them clearly.
Jesus says it's like cleaning the outside of a dish without cleaning the inside. Ironically enough, I've seen modern day Pharisees proudly show off their dirty exterior in order to virtue signal to other Christians how very clean they must be on the inside for not cleaning the outside! But the idea is that both should end up clean, not just the outside, and not just the inside. If one is still dirty, you're not done. But hypocrites like to point at the outside so that nobody will ask them how the inside is coming along.
Jesus calls these religious people who have learned to game the system "whitewashed tombs." In other words, they're using their religious lifestyle as paint to freshen up the image people see of them, so they won't know the disgusting things that are hidden inside. How many religious scams have we heard about in our lifetimes where the perpetrators looked fantastic, like superhumanly good people, right up until the news came out about their infidelity, predation, embezzling, etc? Jesus describes them elsewhere as wolves who have learned to disguise themselves as sheep.
But what can we learn from this if we're not religious leaders, or at least not hypocritical ones? Jesus is addressing religious hypocrites, but the Pharisees are still just people like us. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether or not we are also blind guides, sloppy dishwashers, and whitewashed tombs. Do we focus on one area of our lives and neglect the rest? Do we put on a good show for others but never talk about the day to day struggle? You don't have to be a public figure to have learned how to game the system, and gaming the system is the part Jesus is trying to break them of.
There are two kinds of people that are mostly in danger of this. The first are the people who narrow what they consider to be important down to a few things, like how long they pray or whether they tithe regularly, and then focus all of their effort into those things, while ignoring the rest. These are the people who treat their coworkers and family like dogs while making a point to slowly put that hundred dollar bill in the collection plate each week so that everyone has time to see that they have "generosity" handled. These are the gnat strainers. They don't care about anything outside of the few key points they focus on, and they make sure they do those better than anyone else so they can count themselves as winning.
The other kind are people who are actually quite aware of how flawed they are, but then try to offset the balance by doing a bunch of "good" stuff so that people just see that and not the flaws. I think this is where stuff like the football coach who is a sexual predator, or the evangelist who turns out to be a philanderer comes from. Rather than fixing what is inside the tomb, they go out and buy as much whitewash as they can afford and slather it on.
Do you see a part of yourself in either of those kinds of people? Have a conversation with God about it. As for help in seeing those things outside of your narrow focus of righteousness. Ask for help with that one issue or bundle of issues that you are tempted to just bury in distractions. Even if we're not religious leaders, we're still examples to others. Join forces with Jesus and you won't need that scratchy fake wool disguise any more.
“Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You give a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin, yet you neglect what is more important in the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness! You should have done these things without neglecting the others. Blind guides! You strain out a gnat yet swallow a camel!
“Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside may become clean too!
“Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you look righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Jesus here is talking about the tendency of clergy at the time to be hypocrites and predators. He goes into more detail elsewhere, but the gist of the problem is that a lot of times the people we think are really righteous turn out to be complete scoundrels. People usually suspect that being religious turns people into hypocrites, but the reality is that religion also tends to attract flawed people hoping to hide behind a façade of righteousness.
The religious people Jesus is talking about would tithe even their cooking herbs to show how righteous they were. The implication was that their attention to religious detail was so well trained that they wouldn't even neglect that detail. Nowadays people might signal righteousness with politically correct language and behaviour, recycling, reducing waste, and other fashionable trends that our culture places moral value on. We all know people who are politically correct, or who care about the animals, or who always be sure to work late or volunteer, who are not good people at all. Jesus calls these sorts of people blind guides. The things they focus on are tiny and visible mostly just to their social circle, while the things they overlook are so huge that everyone else can see them clearly.
Jesus says it's like cleaning the outside of a dish without cleaning the inside. Ironically enough, I've seen modern day Pharisees proudly show off their dirty exterior in order to virtue signal to other Christians how very clean they must be on the inside for not cleaning the outside! But the idea is that both should end up clean, not just the outside, and not just the inside. If one is still dirty, you're not done. But hypocrites like to point at the outside so that nobody will ask them how the inside is coming along.
Jesus calls these religious people who have learned to game the system "whitewashed tombs." In other words, they're using their religious lifestyle as paint to freshen up the image people see of them, so they won't know the disgusting things that are hidden inside. How many religious scams have we heard about in our lifetimes where the perpetrators looked fantastic, like superhumanly good people, right up until the news came out about their infidelity, predation, embezzling, etc? Jesus describes them elsewhere as wolves who have learned to disguise themselves as sheep.
But what can we learn from this if we're not religious leaders, or at least not hypocritical ones? Jesus is addressing religious hypocrites, but the Pharisees are still just people like us. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether or not we are also blind guides, sloppy dishwashers, and whitewashed tombs. Do we focus on one area of our lives and neglect the rest? Do we put on a good show for others but never talk about the day to day struggle? You don't have to be a public figure to have learned how to game the system, and gaming the system is the part Jesus is trying to break them of.
There are two kinds of people that are mostly in danger of this. The first are the people who narrow what they consider to be important down to a few things, like how long they pray or whether they tithe regularly, and then focus all of their effort into those things, while ignoring the rest. These are the people who treat their coworkers and family like dogs while making a point to slowly put that hundred dollar bill in the collection plate each week so that everyone has time to see that they have "generosity" handled. These are the gnat strainers. They don't care about anything outside of the few key points they focus on, and they make sure they do those better than anyone else so they can count themselves as winning.
The other kind are people who are actually quite aware of how flawed they are, but then try to offset the balance by doing a bunch of "good" stuff so that people just see that and not the flaws. I think this is where stuff like the football coach who is a sexual predator, or the evangelist who turns out to be a philanderer comes from. Rather than fixing what is inside the tomb, they go out and buy as much whitewash as they can afford and slather it on.
Do you see a part of yourself in either of those kinds of people? Have a conversation with God about it. As for help in seeing those things outside of your narrow focus of righteousness. Ask for help with that one issue or bundle of issues that you are tempted to just bury in distractions. Even if we're not religious leaders, we're still examples to others. Join forces with Jesus and you won't need that scratchy fake wool disguise any more.
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