Proper 26, Year A, 2011

Matthew 23:1-12

The Rev. Ronald N. Johnson

If the gospel reading today seems strange, remember that we are dealing with a time more than two thousand years ago, and with religious practices that differ from our own.  What do we know about broad phylacteries and long fringes?  What do they have to do with faith?  When you don’t know answers the temptation is to invent answers, and it amuses me that when many read this passage they zero in on the “call no man on earth your father” thing, as proof that Anglicans, Roman Catholics and the Orthodox Christians sin by calling  priests “father.”  It’s easy to miss the point any time you are reading Scripture when you are looking more at the literal word than the spirit of the text.  It is the spirit of the holy text, particularly the Gospels, which gives us its true meaning, and it is that understanding which enlightens faith.  The thing to hear in the gospel text today, our Lord’s teaching point, is that religion without heart is religion without meaning.

In the reading, our Lord denounces the scribes and the Pharisees, because they are, he said, laying on the people a burden of rules and rituals, but by their own lives they are proclaiming that the rules and rituals are really empty.  They preach, Jesus said, but they do not practice.  This is perilous path for us, too.  We have to be careful, in our religious quest, not to preach what we cannot or will not practice. 

I have often boiled Christianity down to what I consider its essence, the Summary of the Law that we heard last week in Matthew’s Gospel. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind and your might and love your neighbor as you love yourself.”  I should add what the Old Testament prophet Micah said: what the Lord requires of us is justice, mercy and a humble walk with God.  In other words, faith is revealed in practice.  If our lives do not reflect a love of God, a love of mercy and the practice of justice - and it is mercy and justice that reveals the love for neighbor – then the practice of our religion is hollow, without meaning.  We don’t want to be in that boat.  If God holds us accountable in any way, it is accountability for how we have treated others.  God expects of us what he gives to us, and God’s judgment of our lives will be based on what we do, or do not do, more than what we say.  Actions do, indeed, speak more loudly than words.

It seems to me that one thing that Christians must realize, to be effective disciples in this world, is that Jesus must do his work in this world through the efforts of those of us who claim to be his disciples.  I’ve said it before, and it is trite, I know, but our Lord has no hands but ours, no voice but ours, no eyes and ears but our own, so it is up to us to be his presence in the world.  It is our duty and our obligation as baptized persons, but it is also our greatest privilege.

The world in which we live never tires of giving us challenges.  Discipleship is demanding and the workday long.  The news of today distracts us from the tragedy of yesterday.  These things remind us that human suffering never goes away; therefore, we are given all the more opportunity to practice what we preach.  “Love mercy, do justice and walk humbly with God.”  “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  Our own suffering wears us down, tempts us to only focus inward.  It is a powerful temptation, but if we give in to it, we have lost it all.  Amen