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Sermon for the week of Laetare – Lent 4
Isaiah 9:8-17 + Matthew 23:1-12
Turn your minds back to Holy Week again. It’s Tuesday afternoon. Soon Jesus will go out to the Mt. of Olives, to the Garden of Gethsemane, where He’ll give His disciples some final instructions about the coming destruction of Jerusalem, and about the difficult times leading up to the end of the world and the signs of His return for judgment. But first, He has one last sermon to preach to His followers about the scribes and Pharisees, the leaders of the Jews. It takes up a whole chapter, Matthew 23, which I’ve never preached on before at Emmanuel, first, because it doesn’t come up in the Church Year, but second, because it’s the harshest sermon Jesus ever preached. And it isn’t directed at believers in Him; it’s directed squarely at the wretched ministers of the Old Testament Church of Israel—at the very ones who would have Him killed by the end of the week. The words of this sermon were the last thing Jesus said to them before they would arrest Him on Thursday night, and how these words must have rung in their ears!
We’re going to review this whole chapter together tonight, next week, and on Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week—not because you’re Pharisees who need to have a harsh sermon directed at you, but because Jesus preached this sermon also in the hearing of those who believed in Him, for three reasons: (1) So that they could watch out for the false teaching of these unfaithful teachers, (2) so that they themselves would never fall into similar sin, and, most importantly, I think, (3) so that they could see just how zealous their Good Shepherd was for them, how angry their God was at the worthless shepherds who dared to mislead His beloved sheep. While those shepherds were destroying Jesus’ flock for love of themselves, He, the Good Shepherd was about to lay down His life for them.
Jesus introduces His harsh sermon by leveling two charges against the scribes and Pharisees.
Charge #1: They were teaching things to others that they themselves did not follow, thus setting a horrible example for the flock.
Charge #2: They were seeking to be acknowledged and revered by men as great teachers, turning the people’s focus toward themselves and away from Christ.
Let’s look at charge #1: Jesus spoke to the multitude and to His disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, observe and do that. But do not do according to their works. For they say, and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders. But they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
To sit in Moses’ seat was to be a teacher of Israel like Moses was, a teacher who taught, not their own ideas or their own traditions, but the Word of God to the people of God. They were to teach the people what God had commanded them, through Moses, to do, and to not do. They were to teach the people both God’s justice and God’s mercy. They were to teach the people to ponder the sacrifices that were required for sin, and to look ahead to the coming Messiah to save them from their sins. As long as they were teaching in accord with Scripture, the hearers were to do what the scribes and Pharisees told them to do.
But, at the same time, the people were not to imitate the scribes and Pharisees in their behavior, because the scribes and Pharisees weren’t living according to their own teaching. Jesus calls them out for their open hypocrisy. “Keep the Law!” the Pharisees commanded. “Keep the whole thing! Keep it perfectly!” Yes, you should do that, Jesus says. But the Pharisees themselves don’t keep the Law.
Teaching people to keep God’s Law was not the problem. The problem was that the Pharisees believed that a person could earn himself a place in heaven by keeping the Law. So they preached it in all its severity to the people, laying a heavy burden on their shoulders, loading them up with guilt before God. But no one, including the Pharisees, was able to keep the Law well enough to earn God’s favor. And the Pharisees offered no solution to the people. “Just keep at it! Keep working at obeying! Harder and harder and harder! Make yourselves worthy of God’s attention!” But no one could.
The Pharisees should have directed the contrite sinners to God’s mercy in the promised Messiah, who would be the true sin offering that would atone for their sins and through whom sinners would have access to God. But, no. The Pharisees didn’t preach the Christ, much less Jesus as the Christ. And so they were leading all who followed them straight to hell.
Now on to charge #2: But they do all their works to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments, and love the best places at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi.’
Phylacteries were little boxes in which people kept some Scripture verses. It was a visible symbol people invented in memory of what Moses commanded: You shall bind my words as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. Moses’ command was figurative, but by the time of Jesus, the Pharisees were using these phylacteries and hanging them from their forehead and binding them on their arms, and they made them large, so that everyone could see how obedient they were.
They had also “enlarged the borders of their garments.” That’s a reference to something God did actually command through Moses: Speak to the children of Israel: Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners. And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the LORD and do them. Those little tassels on their garments didn’t have to be large. They were just supposed to be personal reminders of God’s commandments. But the Pharisees made them extra large and visible, so that everyone could see how obedient they were to God’s commandments. Everything they did was to be seen by men, and praised by men. They chose the best seats at feasts and in the synagogues. They were desperate to be revered and respected by everyone around them. Rabbi! Rabbi! That was music to their ears.
But God hates that kind of self-importance. He hates it when people lift themselves up above others, or, even worse, when they exalt themselves in God’s presence. Instead, He counsels His own disciples and followers to behave differently from the wicked scribes and Pharisees: But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ For One is your Master, even Christ, and all you are brothers. And do not call any man on the earth your father, for One is your Father, who is in heaven. Do not be called masters, for One is your Master, even Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.”
This isn’t an absolute prohibition against calling anyone Rabbi, or teacher, or master, or father, from that moment on in history. We know that from the rest of Scripture, where all these terms are used for people, where God calls upon us to “honor your father and your mother.” The problem is when titles are used, or insisted upon, to bring glory to oneself, to lift oneself up in the eyes of men, instead of pointing men to Jesus, and to our Father in heaven. In other words, don’t be like the Pharisees, stealing God’s praise for yourselves, seeking prestige and honor and glory, walking into a room and expecting everyone to sit up straight in your awesome presence. That’s the opposite of what any child of God is supposed to do, much less a minister, who is called to imitate the Lord Jesus by being a servant to those who need his service, who is called to preach Christ, and not himself.
Now, none of this sermon from Jesus has been terribly harsh, so far. It will get much harsher as the verses go by. But hear in these words the voice of the Good Shepherd, who is fed up with the ministers who lead His sheep astray. Let His words bring comfort to the humble, and let them serve as a warning to those who would leave humility behind. Amen.
