“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]
Introduction
Humans love power. We do. We get a little bit of—even if we swear it will not change us—and it changes us. A little bit of vested authority goes a long way toward bloating our egos. Doesn’t really matter the size of the realm in which one has authority; once one has any authority, one is now in possession of power and the temptation to use that power as one wills and wishes grows strong.
It doesn’t help that we have very few examples of what it means to use power well, in a way that serves others and not oneself. Looking around the world today, we might feel quite abandoned by such leaders. (Have they all been raptured?) Most likely, at this stage in the existential game, we probably look back in history to find examples of human beings who understood the intoxication of power and were disciplined against it. Our minds may conjure up memories of various religious people, political people, family, friends, co-workers who embodied such leadership; this is fitting today, the day of All Saints. Recalling and remembering such people who led with humility and self-discipline—those who refuse the temptation to use power to serve themselves and their own (financial, material, spiritual, emotional, physical, etc.) interests—reminds us that the world and humanity have known such people to exist therefore, we can surmise, they will and can exist again. We find hope looking backward so we can proceed forward. Maybe we ourselves can become such people…
The thing is, though, we, as Christians, technically, must be these people. There is no place in the body of Christ for those who use their power to serve themselves. And I don’t mean just here in this physical structure we call our church. Christians out there in the world should be so inspired by Christ, the gospel, and the power of the Holy Spirit, that when it comes to positions of power and authority, we see not an opportunity to serve ourselves and our egos, but a brief moment to be Christ for our neighbors.
Matthew 23:1-12
While still in the temple,[ii] Jesus takes a moment to speak to the crowds and his disciples (v1), saying,
Upon the seat of Mοses the scribes and the Pharisees sat. Therefore, whatever things they might say to you, you do and you heed, but according to their deeds you do not do; for they say and do not do (vv2-3).
Matthew tells his audience that Jesus begins by pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees. The Pharisees were instigators of a well-intended movement meant to address Israel’s failure to remain “pure” regarding the law; with an eye to reform, these Pharisees (of whom the scribes were the leaders within the movement) wanted the lay people to have access to the same purity demands normally reserved for the priests.[iii] Jesus’s current condemnation does not stem from complete opposition to the concerns of the Pharisees and scribes; he (generally) shared their concern.[iv] (He was aligned more with the Pharisees than he was with the Sadducees and the Essenes. [v]) Where Jesus opposed the Pharisees and scribes was where the emphasis of law-obedience and purity fell: were the children of Israel made for the law or was the law made for the Children of Israel?[vi] Jesus believed the intention toward the law and not just the doing of the law was important. This is why he then says to his audience,
Now, they tie up heavy loads and impose them upon the shoulders of the people; but they, they will not lift their finger to remove these things. And they do their works for the purpose of being noticed by people; for they widen their phylacteries and make great their tassels (vv4-5).
The very ones who sit (metaphorically) on the seat of Moses, the one through whom God liberated Israel from slavery and oppression under Egyptian, are the same ones now imposing heavy burdens on the people and forcing them into a new type of bondage to the law of Moses (a thing meant to be life-giving).[vii] These religious leaders—charged to care for the soul and spirit of the people of Israel—are failing miserably,[viii] and they have (clearly) gone too far with their rigorism as the Israelites waste away under this new oppression and reified slavery.[ix] Ironically, the scriptures they make big and bold and wear about are the very scriptures telling of prophets speaking out against errant leadership oppressing the people.[x] Yet, these leaders present themselves as pious and pure; they desire to be seen as such,[xi] but, according to Jesus, this is the furthest thing from the truth, and it’s killing Israel.[xii] These leaders have forgotten themselves, they have become wrapped up in their power and authority; they have, sadly, left the role of being a prophet of God and have conflated themselves with God. As Jesus continues to (negatively[xiii]) describe them, And they love the chief place at the banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues and the salutations in the marketplace and being called “Rabbi” by the people (vv.6-7). As a man of the people for the people, Jesus must call out this hypocrisy; it’s a matter of liberation or captivity. For Jesus, God is a God and God’s Word is a word of liberation not captivity.[xiv]
Matthew’s Jesus then turns this descriptive tale of the errors of Israel’s leadership into an imperative for the crowds and disciples so gathered around him (the Pharisees become a foil to life-giving, loving, and liberative community[xv]),
But you, you are not to be called “Rabbi,” for there is one teacher of you, and you, you are all siblings/students. And you do not call anyone on earth “father,” for there is one heavenly father of you. And you, you do not call anyone “mentor” because there is one mentor of you, the Christ/Messiah (vv8-10).
Jesus strips away the inflated titles used by the religious leadership of Israel and puts them back where they belong: in the throne room of God. It’s not that, for Jesus, there are no “teachers” or “fathers” or “mentors” (“instructors”/ “guides”) in the world; clearly, there are those who teach and those who learn, those who are “fathers” and those who are children, those who mentor and guide and those who are mentored and guided (i.e. apprenticeships). What Jesus is rejecting is the elevated status given to the ones bearing these titles.[xvi] The greater the title, the more obeisance is expected and even demanded; therein the community fractures into hierarchies and those vested with power and title lord it over those who do not have such power and authority. In the religious life of Israel, this means that regular people are restricted in their movements and funneled through human beings posturing themselves as gateways to God to access God. Thus, God comes to the people, to love them, to bring them life, to liberate them and to be with them (Immanuel). The Christ/Messiah, very God of very God, comes to show them a new and better way to live as a community of God’s people, a community living for the wellbeing of the neighbor and the glory of God and not for performative human beings playing at demagoguery. The son of God comes so that human beings may be liberated from themselves for their neighbor. Thus, why Jesus then says,
Now, the greatest among you will be your servant. And whoever exalts themself will be humbled and whoever humbles themself will be exalted (vv11-12).
The community of God is non-hierarchical (even if it does have different roles and callings); there are no power-trips, no lording-over, no-better-than-thou, no kiss my ring, no avert thine eyes. Everyone in the community is, like Christ, to serve the other thus, in that service, they will be lifted up; those who lift themselves up will find themselves humbled by the power and authority of God vested in the Messiah. For Jesus, the ones who are true leaders, true Rabbis, true Parents, true mentors will be those who elevate others and serve them no matter who they are, what status they have, and even when they have no title to hang their honor on;[xvii] for Jesus, just being human, made in the image of God is the source and dignity of every human being and not the titles we adorn ourselves with.
Conclusion
We know that Jesus lives into what he says; we have many accounts that Jesus—who did have the power and authority to reign in the style of the kingdom of humanity—refused to do so. We know, too, that he shrugged off his divine authority to become as we’re even willing to suffer and die to identify with us in our plight. This is our example. Jesus is our true Rabbi, Mentor, and Son of the “Elder.”[xviii] Because Christ is our head, we’re always the students to Jesus the Teacher, we’re all mentored by the Mentor, the Holy Spirit, and we’re all children (thus siblings) of God the loving Parent/Elder/Father.[xix] In light of this, Jesus envisioned a community built on him and representative of him where equality and equity reigned, not power and authority, not title and elite salutation. No matter what the title, there is always a double risk: the risk of over inflating the title and ending up endowing whoever has that title with too much power and authority; and, 2. The risk that those who defer to such titles and stations of power and authority will lose their alterity and integrity as they accommodate, like children, those holding such titles, power, and authority.[xx] This is not a life giving, loving, or liberative situation.
And yet… Here we’re.
We may find ourselves called out like the Pharisees. We’re guilty of using our titles, honorifics, financial status, birth privilege (race, class, sex), age for our own self-aggrandizement; who doesn’t love to be honored and throw about their authority? But this is the very thing that is forbidden in a community daring to call itself Christian. It seems we may have the same illness of the scribes and Pharisees; the good news is that Jesus came for ill and not the well; there’s hope for us.
Inspired by Christ and indwelt with the Holy Spirit, we can dare to shrug off these titles and statuses and serve each other no matter who we’re or what we do. We’re equal, we’re siblings, we’re loved by one Abba God, and we all follow one big brother, Jesus, by the power of the one divine Holy Spirit. No matter where we find ourselves in this moment, tomorrow, or next week, remember: our titles are just titles—crowns to be cast to the floor—never used as weapons against our neighbor to harm them. Rather we’re exhorted to bring our neighbor life, love, and liberation; may we each learn how to use our power for the wellbeing of our neighbor to the glory of God as representatives of Christ.
[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.
[ii] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 261. “While still in the Temple area, Jesus delivers a bitter diatribe against the scribes and Pharisees.”
[iii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 262. “The Pharisees were part of the ‘lay reform movement’ within Judaism, and the scribes were leaders among them. Their good intention was to breathe new life into the practice of Judaism by extending into the life of the ordinary Jew the laws of purity usually reserved to the priests.’…”
[iv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 262. “Jesus shared the concerns of the Pharisees.”
[v] Case-Winters, Matthew, 262. “He was closer to their thinking than to that of the Sadducees or the Essenes.”
[vi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 262. “However, he differed from Pharisees in his understanding of the relative importance of such things as ritual purity, tithing, Sabbath, and what he considered to be the ’weightier matters of the law” (23:23).”
[vii] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, translated by Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 446. “I: ‘But [the Bible] can be good for us if, as Christ says, we put into practice its freedom message that they didn’t put into practice. Moses brought the people out of Egyptian slavery and took them to another land to found a kingdom of freedom, and the chair of Moses means the temple of freedom. Now just like then there are people in that temple preaching the Gospel and defending oppression. What they preach is false, but only because they don’t practice it. If we put that into practice we change the world, we make a revolution.’”
[viii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 263. “Jesus’ condemnation is directed at religious leaders who, charged with the role of leadership, fail miserably.”
[ix] Case-Winters, Matthew, 263. “In their teaching they might be termed rigorists. They go further than what the law requires.”
[x] Cardenal, Solentiname, 447-448. “William: ‘You notice Jesus’ scorn when he describes those adornments. It’s very ironic when he talks to them about the pieces of Scripture used as adornments of their clothing to show off: what they attached to themselves were writing s of the prophets denouncing their oppressions, And Jesus probably wasn’t talking just for those people, he was talking also for the Christians that were going to go on doing the same thing in other ways.’”
[xi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 264. “Another criticism of the Pharisees is that they make a show of their religious practices.”
[xii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 447. “Olivia: ‘It seems to me it’s like when the priests preach to the poor that they must be content with their poverty…And they didn’t live like that. They lived on board fancy yachts that some rich man lent them because they were friends of the rich. They piled a heavy burden on the people, the burden of misery, and they wouldn’t even touch that misery with a ten-foot pole.’”
[xiii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 264. “Also objectionable was the Pharisees’ predisposition to be self-important…”
[xiv] Cardenal, Solentiname, 446. “There’s nothing evil in the Bible, says Jesus, because the whole message of the Bible is freedom. The evil thing is that in teaching the Bible some people, in practice, are defending the exploitation.”
[xv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 265. “In this chapter, the Pharisees here become a bit of a foil. Jesus teaches what the new community is to be like (indirectly) by his delegitimation of the objectionable practices of the Pharisees.”
[xvi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 264. “‘Father’ (Hebrew ab) was sometimes used as a term of respect for a revered elder or teacher. This also is forbidden as signaling a heightened status.”
[xvii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 450. “Felipe: ‘The leaders don’t become leaders because other people name them leaders, or because they name themselves=, but through their own actions: because they serve the others.’”
[xviii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 448. “‘We’re all equal. The only teacher is Christ, who is identified with the poor. The only teacher we have is the people.’”
[xix] Case-Winters, Matthew, 264. “In the new community, titles are eschewed, and egalitarian nonhierarchical patterns are advocated instead. There is a ‘leveling’ in relation to one another as all stand together before God. No one is to be called ‘rabbi’ for they are all ‘students…”
[xx] Case-Winters, Matthew, 264-265. “Members of the new community should not seek heightened status reflected in titles but rather humble themselves and seek to serve—aiming low instead of aiming hight (23:11). The use of titles is not conducive to the wellbeing of the new community. Titles—whether ‘rabbi,’ or ‘father,’ or ‘instructor’ (or ‘Reverend’)—have their dangers, both for those who hold them and for those who call others by these titles. Those who hold titles maybe lured into a sense of self-importance and all the other pretentions and temptations of power. Tittles are equally problematic for persons who bestow them on others. In doing so, they may be tempted to childlike dependence on designated leaders and authority abdicating their own responsibility and agency.”
