Sermon: Yet Another New Leaf

Text: Matthew 23:1-15, 23-28

Date: October 30, 2005

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

After church one Sunday morning, a young boy suddenly announced to his mother, “Mom, I’ve decided I’m going to be a minister when I grow up.”

“That’s okay with us,” the mother said, “but what made you decide to be a minister?”

“Well,” the boy replied, “I’ll have to go to church on Sunday anyway, and I figure it will be more fun to stand up and yell.”

The twenty-third chapter of Matthew is a stand up and yell sort of text. The lectionary assignment actually ends at verse 12 with the familiar theme of Jesus, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” Verse 13 takes up the theme of woes. There are seven “woes,” denunciations of some, not all, Pharisees and scribes.

Some alternative translations of “Woe to you” might be instructive since we rarely use that word nowadays. Eugene Peterson’s translation says, “I’ve had it with you! You’re hopeless, you religion scholars, you Pharisees! Frauds!” The Scholars Version uses even stronger language: “You scholars and Pharisees, you imposters! Damn you!” (Are you getting the sense of stand-up-and-yell here?) Another translator says the best way to render this Matthean diatribe is “Shame, shame on you, scribes and Pharisees!” or “How very shameful, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!”

Shame on you! That phrase sounds more familiar to us than the others. Can any of you recall having someone address those words at you? Raise your hand if you’ve ever had “shame on you” said to you. Did it work? Were you ashamed?

George Graham writes about a day when he was nine years old, volunteering with his family at a school flea market. At some point during the day he took a break and sat down in the cafeteria to have lunch. Before he knew what happened, an older woman caught her foot in the chair he was sitting on and fell on the floor behind him. As she got up, she began scolding him, “Don’t you know you should pull your chair in? Any child should know that! What’s wrong with you?” [Shame on you!] Despite George’s apology, she went on and made a big scene. George remembers acutely his feeling of mortification and shame. Those memories can last a lifetime, can’t they?

I remember once my mom squawked at my sister for spitting in the kitchen sink. Mom told her in a very heated way that “Ladies never spit in the sink!” My mom was not that big on what Ladies Do and Don’t Do; I wouldn’t call it a huge theme in our upbringing. Maybe that’s why I remember it. I think of it every time I spit in the sink.

George says his experience as a child made him very conscious forever after about pulling in his chair whenever he sits down. Shame motivated him to change his behavior. As for me, I still spit in the sink. Maybe I wouldn’t if my mom had been squawking at me instead of her and I had felt ashamed of what I was doing. Hard to say.

One of the curious features of the twenty-third chapter of Matthew is that the scribes and Pharisees weren’t around to hear all of this denunciation. Jesus was addressing “the crowds and the disciples.” I suppose they could have been lurking around in the crowd, but Jesus wasn’t addressing them directly. It’s a little clearer at the beginning of the chapter when he starts out talking about what “they” do and don’t do. But then verse 13 on goes to “you” language, making the reader think that they might be in the room, squirming under Jesus’ withering gaze and pointed words. There is no evidence that he is speaking man to man, however.

The biblical scholars have a logical, scholarly explanation for why Jesus is portrayed yelling at people who aren’t actually there which I understand and agree with. Rather than explaining that to you, though, let’s just take the text at face value. We can imagine Jesus warning against a hunger for recognition and respect that leads one to try to look superior to others, when, in contrast, God’s way is to be humble. He is using the scribes and Pharisees as examples of people who eat up the respect of others with a spoon. Suddenly, he gets flushed. He thinks of everything that has ever annoyed him about scribes and Pharisees. He’s on a roll: “Shame, shame on you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, you frauds!”

Imagine being one of the crowd who really enjoys this little scene. You aren’t so fond of the scribes and Pharisees yourself, and least not the conceited, holier-than-thou types Jesus is going on about. It’s so enjoyable to see someone get up a good head of steam haranguing someone you don’t like. It’s just good fun. It’s what makes talk radio popular.

I myself thoroughly enjoy hearing people pick on the New York Yankees. How I love to hate the Yankees! Maybe that’s how the disciples and the crowd felt about the scribes and Pharisees. Anyway, I can imagine myself among the bystanders there thinking, “Yeah, you tell ‘em!” as the woes roll off the preacher’s tongue. “Preach it, Amen, brother!” I’m hanging on every word. I’m admiring his skills as an orator. “Blind guides.” You got that right. “You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” Good one! “You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony.”[1] You go, guy. “You’re like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it’s all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you’re saints, but beneath the skin you’re total frauds.”[2] Whooaa…another direct hit!

Is there a point at which the bystander notices there are no scribes or Pharisees in the room to hear this rhetorical masterpiece? Is there a point at which Jesus fixes his fiery eye on me, and even though he’s still saying “You scribes and Pharisees” the “you” starts to sound louder than the “scribes and Pharisees?” Is there a point at which the bystander has a glimmer of an idea that this speech isn’t about scribes and Pharisees in particular so much as it is about hypocrites in general?

If so, it’s a beautiful technique. You don’t start out defensive, as you might if some authoritative person was in your face saying “Shame on you!” You get on board with the critique because you think it’s about someone else. But gradually it occurs to you that you’re not exactly immune from the human failings that are being enumerated. You’ve paid such close attention, and he’s used such colorful language, that you won’t easily forget what he has said. Maybe you’ll hear his voice in your head the next time you catch yourself in some obvious hypocrisy, like I hear my mother’s voice in my head when I spit in the sink.

One my seminary professors taught us that we should always read “Presbyterians” whenever the gospel said “Pharisee.” That’s because he was a Presbyterian—what he meant was, put yourself into that sentence. Shame on you, UCCers, you blind guides, you hypocrites, straining out a gnat and gulping down a camel! It doesn’t trip off the tongue like “Presbyterian” but we can’t all have elegant names.

Now you might think I’m all for shame and guilt. It’s true that I think we should be ashamed of our own hypocrisy whenever it rears its ugly head. We should, I believe, recognize that hypocrisy did not become extinct with the scribes, Pharisees and Dodo birds; it’s alive and well right under our own skins. We’re all going to be mired in hypocrisy at some point. I don’t think it can be avoided. We may be able to avoid being shameless hypocrites. Some shame is entirely appropriate.

Shame can, however, be a crippling burden. Biblical scholar Brian Stoffregen helped me connect the dots between the burden of shame and one of the critiques Jesus offered about the Pharisees: “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others, but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.” Stoffregen warns the church against obsessing about sin so much that guilt and shame become unbearable burdens. Our faith teaches us that Jesus Christ does not bind the burden of guilt on us but lifts it from us. We need to be made aware of our sin, but that’s not what our religion is all about. It’s not Christianity if a teaching on sin doesn’t wind up with forgiveness.

Robert Capon has written beautifully about the church being in the forgiveness business:

The church is not in the morals business. The world is in the morals business, quite rightfully; and it has done a fine job of it, all things considered. The history of the world's moral codes is a monument to the labors of many philosophers, and it is a monument of striking unity and beauty. As C.S. Lewis said, anyone who thinks the moral codes of mankind are all different should be locked up in a library and be made to read three days' worth of them. He would be bored silly by the sheer sameness.

What the world cannot get right, however, is the forgiveness business -- and that, of course, is the church's real job. She is in the world to deal with the Sin which the world can't turn off or escape from. She is not in the business of telling the world what's right and wrong so that it can do good and avoid evil. She is in the business of offering, to a world which knows all about that tiresome subject, forgiveness for its chronic unwillingness to take its own advice. But the minute she even hints that morals, and not forgiveness, is the name of her game, she instantly corrupts the Gospel and runs headlong into blatant nonsense.

The church becomes, not Ms. Forgiven Sinner, but Ms. Right. Christianity becomes the good guys in here versus the bad guys out there. Which, of course, is pure tripe. The church is nothing but the world under the sign of baptism. [Hunting the Divine Fox, pp. 132-133]

I find that intriguing. I especially like his line about offering forgiveness for the world’s chronic unwillingness to take its own advice. That’s the essence of hypocrisy, to be unwilling to take our own advice, and then to compound the problem by refusing to admit that we are unwilling to take our own advice. A little shame about this particular foible may act, we hope, like yeast in bread. A little shame may motivate us to ask for forgiveness and try to do a little better tomorrow at practicing what we teach. A little shame keeps the impulse toward reformation, both personal and institutional, yeasty and alive.

Back to the kid who wanted to be a minister so he could stand up and yell in church. I don’t really think that’s what preaching is all about. And I don’t think standing up and yelling is what Jesus was all about either. He may have had his moments, and may we all have ears to hear. But though his words may momentarily burden us with shame, in the next moment he offers to lift that burden with forgiveness.

It is that forgiveness that liberates us to turn over yet another new leaf, today and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, everlastingly a new creation aiming to be like Christ. God’s steadfast love invites us to turn like a sunflower turning toward the sun---reformed and reforming. Reformed and reforming. Reformed and reforming.

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[1] Peterson, Eugene The Message Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993, p. 61

[2] Ibid.