Loving honor

 This week's verses are Matthew 23:1-6:

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The experts in the law and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat. Therefore pay attention to what they tell you and do it. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy loads, hard to carry, and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing even to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by people, for they make their phylacteries wide and their tassels long. They love the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues

 Jesus talks a lot about the shortcomings of the Pharisees because the Pharisees were the religious authorities of their day. They set the standards for morality in Jesus' time, living conspicuously holy lives. They quoted scripture to justify how they chose to live, and the ideas they had were noble ideas, but in their hearts they were wicked. They pretended to be good so that people would admire them.

Hypocrites love to be seen as good moral people. The things they advocate for are usually really good things. It's good to pray often, for instance. It's good to not be racist. It's good to not waste resources, to isolate yourself when sick, to donate to charity, to help the poor, and so on. Jesus says that when people are advocating for good behavior, we should do the good things they tell us to do, but we shouldn't just push people to do good while not actually doing the good we say is good.

Jesus confronts the Pharisees for tying up huge loads for other people to carry without themselves doing anything to help. Making rules on top of rules is easy when you're not the one doing the work to put them into practice. It's easy to tell the waiter not to give all of the customers the flu because he showed up to work sick, but are you going to pay his salary on the days he can't come to work? It's easy to judge someone not speaking English, but are you going to sit down with them and help them improve, or babysit their kid so they can go to night classes? We love to make rules to judge people by, but we don't so much like to meet people where they are and help them to change when we are the ones carrying some of the weight. 

Every time we impose our standards on someone, or judge them against how the Bible describes the Christian ideal, we make work for them, the same as we would be if we put rocks in a bag and asked them to carry it for us. "Hey, can you carry this? And this? And these? Oh and these too. And this one..wait why are you being so combative? It's just one little rock. See how much I can carry?"

Not only that, but we make rules, and then we expect to be praised for following them. "Look at me, I come to church every week, not like that guy who has to travel every weekend for work." "Look at me, I give thousands to charity, way more than that deadbeat family down the street who lives in a dumpy trailer." "Look at me, I know all of the latest words that show all of the other people that I am not a racist like them." We want people to look at us, and admire us for our virtue. We want to be the ones basking in the praise and adoration, influencing the socials, setting the moral standards, and being like God, but on our own terms.

We want to be pleasing to Jesus as Christians, but Jesus does not talk favorably of these Pharisees or of their religious behavior. He doesn't want us signaling our virtue just to gain a better position at others' expense who don't have the time and resources to do the same things we do. He doesn't want us making rules for other people, even if they're just in our heads. God's will for our lives is enough for us to focus on without making more work for everyone.

Diagnostic questions: 

 * If you did something good that you are passionate about, and nobody ever found out, would it bother you? If so, why does the lack of acknowledgement bother you?

* Would it bother you if people thought you were not a good Christian? If so, why would what they think of the quality of your Christian walk matter?

* Do you find yourself measuring others by the standards in the Bible or by the standards of our society or by the standards you have set in your head? If so, why might you feel it is your job to measure them by those standards?

It's a good thing for us to enjoy positive feedback on things we have done. It's how we train children to do good. And it's a nice feeling to have when we have done something well. The problem is when we begin to seek out that feeling as the end goal rather than as a nice extra thing we receive for something we would have done anyway.

When we seek to be praised, or when we look down on others for not following our rules, we turn everyone else into game pieces in a game we are playing for ourselves. It isn't based in love. It doesn't imitate Christ. It is selfish evil that cloaks itself in the appearance of good.

If you love honor for honor's sake, ask God to help you to change your motivations. Seek God's praise, not the adoration of other flawed humans. And if you love to tell other people what to do, ask God's help to make their lives easier instead of more difficult. Instead of asking them to meet your standards in addition to what God is working with them on, help them to carry the workload they are already struggling with.