Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary
Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem amid much popular acclaim (Mt 21) provoked a series of sharp confrontations with different cohorts of the Jerusalem leadership (Mt 22). Now, as chapter 23 opens, Jesus’ detractors have left the scene. He speaks to his disciples and other followers—and, of course, by way of Matthew’s gospel, to first century Christians and to us.
When Matthew wrote his Gospel (in the latter half of the 1st century), the Temple had been destroyed (70 CE). With the exception of the Pharisees, the cohorts with whom Jesus had debated no longer existed (Temple leadership, Sadducees, and Zealots). Post-Temple Pharisees were convinced that Jewish identity would dissolve without stringent adherence to Torah. They insisted on rigorous observance of ritual purity laws. These detailed statutes were all but impossible for the poor to fulfill. Thus, ritual purity became a status symbol. The Pharisees identified with the well-to-do, but shamed the ritually impure poor. Mt’s community included Jesus-following Jews who had been cast out of synagogues influenced by this intensified version of Pharisaic doctrine and practice.
The question implicit behind Jesus’ critique of the religious leadership of his day remains relevant in our time: What are the teachings and practices that distinguish religious leaders worthy of our trust and emulation from those who merit neither our trust nor our emulation?
Preachers do well to begin where Jesus does: he underscores what the Pharisees and scribes of his time are getting right. They read the scriptures and ensure the people know and understand them. (Reference to “Moses’ seat” may evoke Moses’ teaching of the law to the escaped Hebrew slaves.) We, too, need to affirm what pastors, preachers, ecclesiastical administrators, and lay leaders are accomplishing that is good and true. Yet Jesus’ critique quickly follows, and it is devastating: the Pharisees are hypocritical, ostentatious, and over-bearing. The scribes and Pharisees, Jesus says, draw attention to themselves with extra-long fringes on their prayer shawls and over-sized phylacteries. (Phylacteries were leather boxes strapped to the forehead, containing short quotes from Torah. Notably, their warrant in Deut 6:8 is sometimes interpreted as a metaphorical admonition to allow Toray to shape thinking and action.) Furthermore, they heap on the poor a burden of ritual obligations that they themselves ignore. Meanwhile, the “weightier matters of the law” (Mt 23:23)—the justice and mercy that the poor so desperately need—are neglected.
Jesus lays down a single criterion for religious leadership: “The greatest among you will be your servant.” Trustworthy leaders will not demand deference or leverage their prerogatives for personal gain. They will not dominate the flock; they will walk alongside it. Worthy leaders model the practices they teach, extending mercy to those who struggle and justice that is restorative and constructive.
Perhaps the most challenging thing about preaching this week is that we cannot get to the pulpit except by way of the confessional. Which of us is not flattered if a parishioner whispers confidentially that we are “so much better” than Pastor So-and-So? Or when at a restaurant, a parishioner waves us over, eager for their friends to meet us? Perhaps we should treasure more the “special access” granted us to trauma units, prisons, and detention centers, to share the burden of human suffering.
