Woe to you Pastor !

June 6, 2020

Good afternoon,

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.  You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.  Matthew 23:23-24

I had forgotten about these " woes ". In my reading of Matthew this week, I came across them, and they were jarring. This call to faithfulness happens during the last week of Jesus' life, while he is in Jerusalem with his disciples. He knows that he is going to die at the end of the week. It is  all part of the plan, even if Jesus wishes it could end differently. So, the pressure must have been intense between him and his disciples. It seems they left every evening to stay outside the city, to be in a safer place.

Even if Jesus is worried, he confronts the leaders of the Temple. Six times he says woe to you, " teachers of the Law and Pharisees, and once he states, " you blind guides " and finally he calls them, the leadership, " you snakes and you brood of vipers ". There is a harshness to Jesus' words that we often do not talk about. Jesus is supposed to be kind, nice and pleasant, but here is scathing to the leadership of his own faith tradition. Here he is being prophetic, and no one likes a prophet.

As I have said before, as a pastoral leader, I am sensitive to Jesus' anger at the Pharisees. I have to be careful that I do not abuse my authority as a caregiver or as a preacher. I never want to say something that is hurtful or uncaring. I am a Pharisee, but I do not want to be a bad Pharisee.

The final sentence of the above quote says , "….you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. " . Am I focusing on the little things and not the major issues. Am I worried about spices like cumin, and not working on " justice, mercy and faithfulness."  We must be a prophetic community on issues of race, gender,  justice and peace, rather than about the little things of the church. This image is like the one about taking the log out of our own eye, before we take the speck out of our brother/sister's eye. What is most important in the church ?

Dear God,

Help me take the avocado pit out of my eye

before I take the carrot seed out of brother's eye,

Help me take the watermelon out of my eye

before I take the cherry tomato out of my sister's eye,

And,

Take the redwood tree out of  my eye

so that I might not see the lilac flower in my friend's  eye.

AMEN .