INTRODUCTION
So tell me. When the clock turned over to the year 2000, were you ready for Y2K? Do you remember counting the days left until the next century. The days and hours until, the expert tolds us: the phones would go dead; the electricity would go out; and the banks would be unable to give us our money. What did you do to prepare. Did you: have a backup generator; a multi-fuel furnace; as well as a three year supply of food? But that’s nothing when it comes to being prepared. My mother-in-law has been prepared since 1929. My mother-in-law was 8 years old the day the stock market crashed. She can still remember her mother sitting at the kitchen table crying as she heard her say , “what will we feed our children.” From that experience she swore “I will never go without again. She hasn’t. The depression forever affected her life.
What great events have affected your life? World events shape us - more than we realize. There was a study done which discovered that each generation is shaped by a world crisis which has occurred before those individuals are 10 years old. Let me list some of these events and see how you react to them. You will know these events have shaped you if you still feel what you felt that first day, you will know these events have impacted you if you can vividly recall where you were when you first heard of them. The Armistice. The Depression. Pearl Harbor. Nazis invaded Europe. Hiroshima. Sputnik. The assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. Watergate.
The Explosion of Challenger. The Collapse of the Berlin Wall. The end of the USSR.
Crises like this impact us in ways we can barely understand. All we know is. Now we think differently. Now we act differently than we did before. Now we are someone we were not before. World events shape who we are and how we live. They even effect what we pass on to our children. Their effect shape generations even to the point where the crisis is forgotten, but its aftermath remains. Does anyone know what started the conflict between the Irish Catholics and the Irish Protestants? Or why Japan started a war they knew they’d loose from the start?
HISTORY OF THE PHARISEES
In our passage today Jesus is again railing against the Pharisees. But in fairness to them,
they had their reasons for doing what they did. Back in the days of the Prophet Jeremiah Israel had turned away from God. They forgot much about their origins in Egypt, and had decided that they could live well enough on their own. After many warnings and calls to return to God’s ways God brought judgment upon his nation. They were exiled into Babylon. They spent 70 years in captivity before they began to return to a ruined land. And in response to this judment upon their sin the people said “Never Again.” Leaders like Ezra and Nehemiah called the nation to be faithful, to live according to the covenant God made with Israel when Moses lead them out of slavery. Many driven by fear, set their hearts to obey God and his laws. So priests arose to instruct the people in the ways of God. The Pharisees were these priests. The people knew the law of Moses but they were unsure how to fulfill it. So they would go and ask for guidance. For example, one commandment which showed how Israel honored God was to keep the Sabbath day holy. Now the question some of the people had was “How do we do that, how do we keep the Sabbath day holy?” The rabbis said it meant you don’t do any work on the Sabbath. But then someone would ask, “What exactly do you mean by work?” You have to do some things. How much is legitimate?” So the rabbis put there heads together and found that in the Law the Holy of Holies was places 2000 cubits away for the nearest home. Presumably it was legitimate for people to walk 2000 cubits to worship. Therefore, they said, on the Sabbath you must not walk more that 2000 cubits (i.e. 1000 yards). And so that became a Sabbath Day’s journey. That was as far as you could go. Remember the purpose of this discussion was to answer the people’s question, “How do we honor God.” The answer was Keep the Sabbath. But now they have this thing so well definedthat you honored God by not walking more than a thousand yards on the Sabbath day.
That’s when matters got worse. Some people said, “1000 yards really isn’t much, and we have a lot of things we need to do. Is there anything we can do about this?” So the rabbis
said, What we could do is decide that you don’t measure from your front door, but from the edge of your property. That will give you a few more yards.” And that was helpful, but still some said, “look we really are in a bit of a bind, is there anything more you can do.” So the rabbis said “Well, if before the Sabbath begins, you walk 1000 yards and place some of your property, or some food by the way, you can then consider that the end of your property, and walk a Sabbath day’s journey from there.” Now this may sound ridiculous, but it’s called religion. It’s amazing how people can start out to honor God, and if they are earnest they have a tendency to get more and more meticulous about it until they loose track completely of honoring God and become locked into the system. That’s what happened to the Pharisees. That is what happens when generation after generation keeps the ways of their forebearers. The memory of the events that shaped them fade, but the responses to the crisis remain. People no longer remember why they do what they do. They just do it. And then you find other reasons for continuing as you always have.
JESUS’ CHALLENGE
This is what drew Jesus’ criticism. The people had forgotten not only the exile but also the call of God. Jesus came to remind the people, and the leaders, and the priests not “Be Holy” but “I shall be your God, you are my people.” More important than upright living, Jesus knew, was the reason for living. Jesus announced “The greatest commandment is this: ‘you shall love the Lord your God, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ And Jesus knew even more importantly, that the true reason for love is this God is with us. Jesus came to call people to walk with God to remind us that God is for us, that God is present here and now. And Jesus is willing to challenge the crazy extremes that leads the Pharisees and others away from God and into religious effort and self-righteousness. To point out to them and to us, the dangerous behaviors that come when we forget the heart of the matter we live out of fear rather than love. When our motivation for obedience is to avoid judgment rather than receive grace.
Jesus knew the Pharisees wanted to do their very best to be upright that is why he could say “ the Scribes and Pharisees sit on the seat of Moses, so do as they say.” But Jesus looked far deeper than the doing, and that is what he criticized. He saw through the religious habits and warned “You do not practice what you preach.” How often we here that criticism. We say one thing on Sunday but do another thing on Monday. It means we can talk the talk, but fail to walk the walk. It means that we pay lip service, but fail to act. We may even defend ourselves and say ‘well no one is perfect.” We know that no one is perfect, perfection is not the goal. To put into practice means - you practice. It is your habit, your pattern to keep after those things you understand to be important. Did you know performers like Isaac Perlman practice musical scales every day. They know their performance demands it, so they do it. They practice what they preach. Jesus calls us to practice our faith.
Another thing Jesus saw as corrupting was that as highly religious people we lay on others heavy burdens we ourselves will not lift. You know what he is talking about. Everyone should pray daily. Everyone should read the scripture. Everyone should tithe. Which gets
translated “You should”. Well Mary, you should really know more of the scripture. Mike, you know you should pray. If you would tithe, the church could do more. And you should be visiting too. But the danger Jesus says is that we are unwilling to follow the advice we give to others. We wouldn’t do what we require of others. We will not even ask ourselves, but what about me? You should tithe, but what am I giving? You should invite people to church, but could I? We demand others to do what we find impossible for ourselves.
Jesus also exposed how religion becomes obvious and social. He said the Pharisees of his
day made their phylacteries broad and their fringe long. We don’t do that any more. What it meant was that the signs of their religious practices were seen publicly. Today they would be carrying 20 lb. Bibles, and praying really loud in restaurants, so others would know how important it is to return to the way we were raised. Today it is the protests and cry to return prayer to the schools and insistence on no sports or business on Sunday. But Jesus points out, the danger is if that is as far as it goes. Jesus saw that there was no substance behind the social image. Jesus warns us that there must be private devotion behind our civil religion, there must be personal faith behind our public confession and individual commitment behind our corporate practices.
Jesus then leveled his gaze on the esteem of religious living. He said the pious love being
given the best seats in the house, and being honored at feasts and acknowledged in the market place. You know what that means. “ladies and gentlemen, it is our distinguished privilege to have with us today....” We think of this in terms of having a big name like Billy Graham, or Rev. Dawson. But don’t we all want our neighbors to say “Bill is a good Christian”, and “she is a godly woman”. That is recognition too. Would we be willing to risk our reputation for the sake of Christ? Would we be willing to have heads shake and tongue wag just for doing God’s will? Do you think Mary was called a Nice Jewish Girl when Joseph’s family found out she was pregnant? What gossip flew around the temple when God called a priest named Hosea to marry a harlot and then name their first two children “Not mine, and no regard”? Jesus would remind us that true obedience is risky business.
Lastly Jesus exposed the habit of the carefully religious - that they are careful. He warns
us not to call others father, or rabbi, or teacher. Now you may think this means not to take titles, but its not simply that. It is the habit of giving others not just the title, but the authority of being our religious master, our leader, --and our guru. Rather than struggle with obedience ourselves we ask “What should I do” and then if, or when we are challenged, we say “I only did what Pastor told me to do.” It’s the ‘don’t blame me, I listened in you’ syndrome. Jesus knows how easily people, especially well meaning followers, wind up following the person rather than the one they point to. When Jesus looked to the religious people of his day, and to their religious leaders, the Scribes and Pharisees He saw the dangers of religion gone amuck. He saw the extreme distortion of the desire to honor God, and the end result of the desire to be right and to escape judgment. He saw the growth of self - justification, self - preservation and self-righteousness.
Jesus knew there was only one way to escape the dangers of bad religion. And it was radical. Jesus said the way out of religion was meekness. He knew that true greatness was in service and humility. But Jesus was not talking about slavishness and doing good to others, he was not talking about shame and subservience. Jesus knew the way out of selfishness was healthy selflessness. The heart of humility and true servanthood was self-forgetfulness. Humility was not worrying about where you stand but was trusting in someone greater to whom you gave yourself. This is what faith is all about, this is what Jesus calls us to. We who would truly honor God are called to follow Christ. We are told: “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves...”
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”
This is humility, this is servanthood. This is life which honors and loves God, that has so trusted oneself to God that you lose yourself in God, knowing God will never lose you. You can forget yourself because God remembers God’s grace. The way out of false religion is true relationship. Paul, himself a Pharisee, knew this truth. In Phil 3 he said that in his religious life he had been blameless under the Law, yet under it he never gained what he truly desired. Only when Paul experienced a crisis on the Damascus road, when he saw the vision of the triumphant Christ, did he realize the love and grace of God that was offered to him, and his goal became, not personal righteousness, but the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus the Lord.
CONCLUSION
The challenge we face today is how are we living our life? What are you basing acceptance before God on? Do you rely on religion? Is it what you believe is it your personal uprightness is it that you faithfully come to church, that your family has been members here for generations is it that you are known as a good Christian person. Or have you discovered the remarkable grace of God. Have you experienced the world shattering crisis of the unending love of God that has forever changed your life. Have ou
been transformed by the presence which calls you away from self-protective care and into
selfless love, that leads you out of the world of fear and into eternal joy. May we all seek
the answer to our hearts desire. Amen.