Smack Down [part 3]; The Price of Getting it Wrong ...

How you do something is nearly as important as what you do.  Imagine the chaos that would reign in the ring if there were truly no rules, no holes barred.  If suddenly a tightly choreographed ballet of wrestler-meets-wrestler became a fully unscripted, unrehearsed free-for-all of may the better, stronger, and more determined man win.  Imagine the shock and surprise.  Imagine the real injuries that would come from doing for real, what up till now was only part of that tightly choreographed ballet.  People would get hurt.  Seriously hurt.  And all of the sudden it is not fun anymore.  Not fun to do surely, but also, not fun to watch.  It is easy to watch a melee we know in our hearts is tightly controlled.  But to watch carnage is not what anyone truly tunes in for.  For the audience, no one wants to see real harm, real damage.  It makes it hard to sit still and just watch it.  You want to get up, you want to do something, you want to make it stop.  And as God watches this earth.  He knows it is not choreographed.  The war for mankind is very real.  And the damage is very real, pain is very real.  And He just wants it to stop.  But He cannot make us listen, or instead of humanity, He would have only created biological robots.  Instead man must choose his fate.

But what happens when we choose wrong?  Oh sure, it is easy for the Christian believer to sit back in the easy chair and just think, once you choose Jesus, you’re done.  And frankly that is sort of true.  The problem is that we package Jesus, with a whole list of doctrines that are supposed to be teachings of how to connect with Jesus better.  Sometimes those doctrines do a great and wonderful work.  And sometimes we just get it wrong.  We wind up teaching something that not only does not bring us closer to Jesus, it takes us farther away, pointing us in the wrong direction entirely.  That is not just an oh-well-moment.  That is more like a literal oh-my-God moment.  Turning away from Jesus is a sure-fire way of finding carnage that you are at the center of.  It is removing the rules of protection, and entering the ring outgunned only to find your opponent brought a chain-saw he already has running and completely intends to use … on you.  Doctrines that distract put us in this position.  Fanaticism of nearly every kind can do the same thing too.  And the carnage is not pretty, and it really hurts.

So what does God do?  He tries to warn us.  He sends us His messengers (imperfect as they may be) to warn us, and try to keep us away from the carnage.  And I am not talking about avoiding some after life hell everybody bemoans.  I am talking about avoiding real painful carnage in this life, in the here and now, that any given demon is all to happy to bring your way.  He sends us His people to try to keep us of group mind, and more importantly of a group heart, where love might help us avoid, what otherwise looks attractive.  God has written His love letter in the form of His word (the Bible).  In this book of love, He tries to tell us the story of how we got it wrong to start, and He has been working every day since to help us get back to what “right” looks like.  We can read it.  And through the lens of the life of Christ, where Jesus demonstrates every day what love looks like, we can understand better what His love letter might mean.  But for those of us given to extremes, it is easy to misinterpret that love letter to mean some predefined agenda.  We package up those thoughts and ideas, and brand them a doctrine.  Then we force feed everyone else the doctrine that might save them or get them lost, based on how they respond.  What started as a love letter degenerates into hate mail; all by altering the perspective of the reader to fit their own agenda instead of what He originally meant.

This danger is not new.  It did not start with us.  But it has a horrific tendency to be continued by us, in ways we may have become numb to.  Sometimes when we do become numb, it takes a spiritual smack-down by Jesus to wake us up, and begin to see the error of our ways.  To make us see, we got it wrong.  And ultimately to help us change course before the carnage heads our way (chainsaw rumbling in the distance).  Matthew continues the object lesson of Jesus, of our price for getting it wrong in chapter 23 of his gospel to the Hebrews.  He picks up with Jesus talking in verse 23 saying … “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. [verse 24] Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.”  Yikes.  The first woe issued here is about fanaticism in the church.

Our Pharisee forefathers knew the obligation of paying tithes back to God.  They did not see the love in it, because they did not use love as the lens through which to read God’s love letter.  So lacking love, they read only the obligation of paying tithes.  Apparently God was only another tax master.  And while God did not have a readily apparent tax agent to collect His due.  There was a history of monstrous things happening to Israel when their sins got bad.  So better to avoid captivity by paying God off with what he required.  10% of the increase is tithe.  We generally hold that to be 10% of our incomes from jobs.  So did they.  But they took the matter a step further.  The word “increase” could apply to flocks and sheep.  So why not to spices in the spice rack.  Therefore in an effort to be fully compliant (again note the lack of love), they actually taxed themselves 10% on literally anything that went into the kitchen.  Even the smallest things we would never even consider.  Straining at the gnat.

It is like going to a picnic to eat.  And to avoid eating unclean things, you carefully sift your pepper, to insure not a single gnat has died and fallen into the pile or container.  And while you meticulously sift each grain of pepper with your left hand, you hold a camel burger in your right hand eagerly munching away.  While perhaps the notion of not eating a dead bug accidentally is OK (extreme given the venue, and low likelihood it is even a risk, but OK); eating camel burgers is strictly prohibited, and horrible tasting as well (just a guess, you don’t see many camel-burger stands going up everywhere for 2 thousand years).  Without love as the driving motive, Pharisees had only corrupt and selfish judgments.  They handed out rulings and decisions that favored themselves, no matter who else it cost.  Sound familiar?  We vote for ideas that will benefit us, even if others must pay for what benefits us.  Even if those who pay can least afford to.  And we call this progressive, or disruptive thinking.  Its not.  Its simply walking where our Pharisee forefathers once walked, for the same reasons they did.

The disease of extremes must continue to be called out.  Jesus continues in verse 25 saying … “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. [verse 26] Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.”  Apparently a strange custom had developed so long ago, of washing the outsides (or bottoms if you prefer) of plates and cups.  But leaving the insides or tops alone.  I guess the idea would be to let the crumbs of the last meal, help flavor the current one.  While this might work once, or maybe even twice, over time it is not flavor that lasts, but mold that begins to grow.  It is then a “new” flavor that infects the new food you intend to eat from the old that for whatever reason you keep neglecting to clean.  And mold flavor brings with it, you guessed it, carnage.

So with a dishwasher in every home (we call ours “me”).  Perhaps we cannot relate to a dirty plate analogy.  But how about a more personal one.  What is the dress attire requirements at your church for worship services?  It used to be “the best we had to offer”.  Over time that became a three-piece-suit.  That evolved into a jacket, lose the vest, keep the tie.  Then perhaps it was lose the tie.  Then for the bold, it might become lose the jacket.  But wear a pair of cargo shorts and a tommy Bahama look alike short sleaved shirt, with tennis shoes, and see what happens.  I know (it is how I go to services now).  And just so you know, my decision was not one of disrespect.  Rather, I dress like I do, every other day of the week.  I would like to believe that I dress to be able to help those in need when I encounter them.  And as my disabilities make it very hard to dress any more formal than this, this is the least pain in getting presentable.  But does anyone bother to ask me about that?  Does anyone look past the cane with the four feet, and reason perhaps that had something to do with it?  Not where I go.  My church family is surprising accepting of me (that is, no one has had the nerve to say a single negative word).  But I expected it, and still do.  Cause how I package the outside of the plate, is still something most church goers pay more attention to, than what is on the inside.  And forget me, this is a phenomenon that has infected our sanctuaries for years, from our ancient roots right up to this day.  We focus on the packaging, and turn a blind eye to the insides, and how we love.

Jesus continues in verse 27 saying … “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. [verse 28] Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”  It is almost as if Jesus peered into any traditional church body in America.  Or perhaps into any executive office suite where serious money is made.  Looking the part, is a distinct part of our culture, in and out of the church.  We worry about our packaging, believing it says something about who we are.  It does.  It says we worry about our packaging, perhaps more than being fit for practical service.  And perhaps our assemblies are more inwardly facing, where we feed each other, you know, the already fat sheep; instead of assembling out of our normal comforts and going where the need is, to meet it.  Not because we have to, but because we are driven to, because we just cannot sit still and watch others in carnage for one more minute.

Service is rarely “pretty”.  When I do the dishes in my house, I look anything but pretty.  I struggle to stand, to balance, to get the job done right.  I am hunched over leaning on the sink to steady me.  And yes, we have an automatic dishwasher so why do I bother.  (Technically it is full of hoarded containers for some reason I am not allowed to throw out.)  But beyond the technicalities if I am able to do the dishes, my wife who works hard in her hospital trying to help patients facing life and death dilemmas get better or at least feel better, won’t have to come home to a dirty kitchen, and find even more work to do.  I am no saint.  Nor am I clean freak.  I make more than my share of mess as I am sure every husband does, that my wife without a word comes behind me and cleans.  We do what we can for each other, because we are afforded the opportunity to.  It is not a contest, it is a pleasure, the pleasure of trying to ease each other’s burden, even if only a little.  And what it leads to ultimately is time, more time we can spend together, which frankly is worth more than any place where serious money is made, or where euphoria over spiritual repetitions are recited ad nauseum.  We probably don’t look too pretty in our “house clothes”.  But as I said service is rarely ever pretty, at least on the outside.  But what I see when I look at her is a fire inside that is immune to age, health, or inability – and to me that is beautiful no matter whether it comes dressed in scrubs, 15-year-old house shorts, or a negligee from Vickie’s.

It is time for us all to see the beauty of service to others.  Not just to our families, but to any who have need.  Not for brownie points, or to earn heavenly demerits, but because the passion to sit still while carnage is ever present is just something we can no longer abide.  It is this passion that comes from transformation, and it is available without measure to any who seek it, in the form of submission to Jesus Christ.  My Pharisee forefathers refused to submit.  They preferred extremes of law, to extremes of love.  And they like we, cover the ears so as not to hear, even as God sent His messengers (imperfect as all of us are) to invite them back to love.  Jesus continues in verse 29 saying … “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, [verse 30] And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. [verse 31] Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. [verse 32] Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. [verse 33] Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”

Smack down.  To me.  To my generation.  Woe to us.  For we say … “if we had been in the days of Jesus, we would not have been partakers with them in His blood”.  And in our next breath, we deny His love, rely upon ourselves, and fail miserably.  Then we propagate our doctrine of self-reliance to our children, and our sphere of witness, to no effect.  We teach action without motive.  Because self-reliance may control action, but has no effect on motive.  So we try to act our way into heaven, fooling no one.  It will be our own damnation we cannot escape when by grace we walk His golden streets.  To know the time we wasted, and lost.  To see the lives we could have showed just a little more love to, but failed and lost the opportunity, sometimes forever.  It will be our own knowledge of perfect love that will perfectly condemn who we are today in our own eyes then.  That damnation is our inescapable fate, even on golden streets.  Unless we can begin our journey of submission to Jesus now, in the here and the now.  Only then can our feet move from well-trodden paths of failure, into the green grass of His direction.

Jesus calls out to them and us in verse 34 saying … “Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: [verse 35] That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. [verse 36] Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.”  I am confused, is He talking to them, or is He talking to me.  When I ignore the prophets in His word.  When I deny the power of His gospel, by stubbornly holding to the image in the mirror to somehow find perfection when history would demonstrate this is impossible.  When my denial is as great as theirs, do I also share their fate, and the blood of those slain to try to recall me to the Feet of Love itself?

Listen to the ache in the voice of Jesus who so longs to love us, when still we reject Him.  Jesus continues in verse 37 saying … “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”  He is not just speaking to those long gone from the earth.  He is still speaking straight to me, and to you.  How He longs to gather us under His wings.  But we are too evolved for that.  We are modern, and educated, and well to do.  We have no need of a protector, let alone of a savior.  We intend to do that work ourselves, strengthened by our doctrines, and certain in their interpretation, with no room for error or mistake.  And still Jerusalem would not.  Not the city.  But us the group of believers who claim His name, yet know not His real power to change.  And so it comes, the price of getting it wrong.  The price of our arrogance, and pride.  The price of our hypocrisy and refusal to submit.  The self-imposed hell of separation from His Love He so longs to give.

Jesus writes the epitaph picking up in verse 38 saying … “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. [verse 39] For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”  The smack down ends.  There is no point to more, if the message will never penetrate the person’s ear, because they refuse to let it.  Is this where our lineage to our Pharisee forefathers makes a break from their path of self-reliance?  Or do we too follow along blindly clinging to our doctrines, our hypocrisy, and our complete lack of passion for others on any level.  This is where I must rage against my heritage.  I wish to hear His words, open my ears, and my heart, and become someone other than who I would make of me.  There comes a point where forgiveness is just not enough.  Where a real change in behavior from a real change in motive is the goal we live for.  Forgiveness gets us started but it is not the end of the road, it is only the beginning.  A life past His transformation is the only thing we should seek with singular purpose.  To let Him remake how we think, how we love, and why we do what we do.  And Jesus will.  He does this to every willing seeker.  No matter your past, or your present, your future can still be something so much better.  It is worth more than anything.  Don’t ever let it go.  Let this smack-down be the last one we ever need …

 

Smack Down [part 2]: The Price of Hypocrisy ...

In the wrestling ring it is understood that no-one is actually supposed to get hurt.  It looks like they would.  But it is supposed to be only how it looks, not how it really is.  When delivering a spiritual smack down, the intent was not to seriously hurt the people targeted.  Only their prides would actually be wounded.  The intent was to “get in their faces” enough to cause them to re-think what they were saying, and in opposition, what they were doing.  A professional wrestler is truly professional about how they make what is otherwise a pretend fight - look so real.  If you let yourself, you can easily get lost in the spectacle and allow your imagination to make it real.  When you do this, you blur the line between intent and reality until that line gets harder and harder to see.  It is no different in the spiritual realm.  Those who “talk a good game” sometimes believe what they say to be the truth.  And for as much as their minds believe it, their feet and hands still tell a different story.  The words sound right.  But the body does not follow, or at least it does not follow the words, it still follows the desires of the heart.

This is the basic problem with any religion that embraces “legalism”.  Legalism declares that you can earn your way into paradise based on what you do.  Feed the poor, visit those in prison, shelter the homeless and you are in fact “doing” what Christ asked you to do.  So do it, and you should be saved right?  The problem for the legalist becomes … exactly how much of this do we have to do, to get into heaven?  Can I feed the poor 3-4 times and tick that checkmark off of Jesus’ list?  Or do I have to do it 3-4 times a year in order to stay current with the Lord.  When I was a child, I once visited my uncle in prison for bank robbery in Massachusetts.  Does that count?  He was family, and it was my mom who actually took me, so does that go under her list or can I count it as one of my own.  Outside of that, I don’t believe I have ever been inside of any prison myself for any reason.  Not so much a scared straight situation as just one of those places you don’t pick over Disneyland.  The legalist must ponder the question how much is enough.  I figured out a loophole for myself; I just support prison ministries financially, and call it a day. 😊

But this is the basic flaw in any kind of religion that asks you to “do” things to “earn” favor.  And every false religion on planet earth has this tenant at its core.  To do, without the motive to do, may still provide benefit to the audience, but not so much a change inside of who you remain.  Jesus is the only deity offering to change what you want, how you love, and therefore why you do what you do.  Which essentially means, Jesus offers the only form of religion that has a shot at working.  The others offer a life of self-sacrifice, but not much of a life of real change.  When Jesus changes how you think, and how you love.  Your passion for others drives you to do what you do.  And the question “how much is enough” just does not come up.  Because the answer is, there is no limit to it, no upper end, no amount of tick marks on any contrived list that would ever be enough.  After that kind of transformation, you begin to love like He loves, and find that you cannot rest while need exists within your reach.  That kind of walking the walk is not a natural state for most of us.  It is only one that happens AFTER He transforms who you are, NOT before it.  It is the painful difference between the words, and the deeds.

My Pharisee forefathers did not understand this.  They believed in balance.  They believed there must be a balance between what is good for “me”, and what is good for “others”.  They believed love should not be lopsided, with all of ours poured out on someone else, and never any of it reserved for ourselves.  And nearly ALL of modern Christianity would seem to agree with them.  This is why when Jesus appears, and lives a life that reveals an entirely different way to love.  It is a silent rebuke to what they believe.  And for Jesus, it is not just about words, but about constant unyielding demonstrations of God’s love, that has no limit for you or me.  Loving like God loves, is not a trivial thing, or a natural one.  It defies human limits of exhaustion, and keeps going anyway, even for only the littlest opportunity.  My Pharisee forefathers thought this impossible to do.  As again, nearly all of modern Christianity would agree.  And they are both right.  If you look for the strength to love this way within yourself.  That kind of love can ONLY happen through His transformation of “who” you are – effectively saving you from you.

Hypocrisy then, is an expression of lost hope.  It is the human recognition that we just have no more within us, to pretend to love the way God loves.  And if His tick mark list is truly infinite, there is no way we will ever fill it.  Backwards thinking about how a change in motives works.  And if shock-and-awe was needed to wake us up to the reality of how salvation should work, then so be it.  Jesus would call out the hypocrisy we have all become numb to.  Jesus would offer a series of “woes” to those who claim to represent “His” church, but still depend on human strength to get anything done.  You will note these stinging rebukes did not go out to “sinners”.  They went out to “saints”.  Leaders in the faith had adopted this false thinking, and the practice, and the teachings needed to stop.  If it took a spiritual smack-down to see it done, the get ready for one that happens to accomplish that feat.

Matthew picks the story back up in chapter twenty-three of his gospel to the Hebrews, beginning in verse 13 Jesus says … “But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.”  Ouch!  Here Jesus offers a frank assessment of the effect of this self-reliance within His church.  It prevents both the teacher, and the parishioner from entering the Kingdom of Heaven.  Let that sink in for a minute.  It is your self-reliance that keeps you OUT of the Kingdom of Heaven.  It is these doctrines you spread to others that is keeping them out as well.  Christians worry about being a stumbling block to others.  They cite this premise when considering what to eat, or what entertainment venue they frequent.  But in truth, the stumbling block is far more meaty and more relevant.  Self-reliance is what keeps us away from transformation.  When you teach others that “they” have the power over sin, you block up the doors, and cause them to stumble into a life that leads only to hypocrisy and lost hope.

Jesus continues in verse 14 saying … “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.”  Here is where evidence of the hypocrisy presents itself.  How someone professing the religion of Jesus would have no problem making financial gains on top of the backs of others, even when those others are already disadvantaged.  The strong prey on the weak.  No different within the church than outside of it.  Industries spring up designed to take money from people who can scarcely afford to lose it.  Yet countless “Christian” employees fill their ranks and perform whatever duties are asked without question.  Even when it is the people in need who must suffer to see these industries succeed.  My Pharisee forefathers were willing to “devour” the widow’s house.  That is not just a casual lack of empathy.  It is a purposeful state of intent, emulating the lion in his hunt.  Have we come round to this behavior again?  Do I fund prison ministries and then vote to make sentences 3 times longer without the possibility of mercy by a judge, instead forcing them to impose a sentence that is stern, and lacking mercy of any kind.  Myself, all the gleeful, feeling vindicated when the amendments are approved in the state legislatures.

Or has the modern version of hypocrisy descended into creating a cottage industry out of Christianity itself.  Asking for donations to earn favor from God, to fund the leaders of a church to levels of excess that would make Donald Trump blush.  Despite the need of the membership, donations are solicited without regard for the church family; giving back to those in need within its ranks.  Our religious systems seem very adept at funneling money up; but only reach down in times of natural disasters of an epic scale.  Sometimes the disaster is very personal, and it is epic to the fathers, mothers, and children who bare its weight in silence – all while being solicited for donations under the guise of earning favor of God, the implication being that to withhold would be to incite His wrath.  Christian leaders in our modern age should know by now, giving is not done to curry favor.  Giving is done as a blessing to the giver, an opportunity, a privilege to extend love.  If we present it any other way, or imply demand, we dishonor Christ and ingrain hypocrisy in yet another generation of believers.

Jesus continues in verse 15 saying … “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.”  Aarrg!  We pride ourselves on our church missionary endeavors.  We cross sea and land, bringing translated copies of our Bibles.  But then only to teach doctrines of “choice” as it relates to the cessation of sin, and self-reliance as it relates to salvation.  We teach a stern doctrine that judges others who like the new convert need our love, and the witness of our lives, to have the motivation to even seek a change.  We make the new convert as hard as we are to sin, and more specifically to the sinners who are still enslaved to it.  We neither free them from the evil of their sin, nor see them reform others in any way.  We give them the doctrine of “forgiveness” and call that enough.  Two times the child of hell than we are, and turn them loose on their communities, spreading a message of judgement, not of redemptive love that has the power to really bring change.

Jesus continues in verse 16 saying … “Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! [verse 17] Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? [verse 18] And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. [verse 19] Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? [verse 20] Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. [verse 21] And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. [verse 22] And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.”  Technicalities.  The weapon of the legalist is to find obscure technicalities upon which the values of the law can be circumvented. 

It is better for men not to swear by anything.  To make solemn vows, is to presume we are capable of keeping those vows.  It implies we have the strength within us to do what we say.  When in truth, none of us know the future, or have the least influence on controlling it.  What we say in health, we may fully regret when sitting in cancer.  What we value in greed, may cause us absolute pain when we see what it truly costs.  Swearing, or vowing, or making promises and commitments we think are absolute – imply a self-reliance that is no different from the self-reliance that keeps us out of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Jesus came to show us what absolute dependence upon God looks like.  He prayed every day bending His own will to the will of His Father, every single day, every single moment.  When the mother of His disciples asked for position for her sons, Jesus did not commit to it.  Instead He deferred to the will of His Father.  He made no vow.  His only promises to us are based in the same promises His Father has made to us.  He needed no technicalities to keep up His end.

Does the scribe technically obey the law, if they observe all the technicalities and adhere strictly to the letter of the law?  Do you?  The Commandments state not to commit adultery.  But what about Pre-Marital sex?  What about Marital Rape?  Incest?  Cultural forced abstinence and/or genital mutilation upon children.  Masturbation.  One can avoid having sex with a married partner and technically keep the letter of the law, but what about the values of the law?  When you truly love another, you do not think to hurt them, in any way, ever.  When you value others, you do not think to violate them even if only in your mind in order to bring you self-gratification.  For when you truly love others, your own gratification comes from how you love them, not in what you do, to stimulate the baser instincts of your own selfish passions.  When you treasure another, you would not humiliate or devalue them, by not offering them the protective commitment of marriage before attempting an intimacy with them that is best when done as God originally outlined.  Finding technicalities, or omissions, within the law, dishonors the law, and dishonors the Author of the law.  But worse, it reveals how far from harmony you are from the law, and how little you understand about truly loving others more than yourself.  Hypocrisy branded in yet another way.

A “woe” is no small thing.  It is a term decrying great sadness.  It is a term that when employed allows the person saying it to understand how bad their condition has become.  And Jesus is making a series of “woes” to us, His saints, because of our hypocrisy, our lost hope, our failed self-reliance that keeps us out of the Kingdom of Heaven.  But the list of woes in this smack down was not to be ended just yet …

 

Smack Down [part 1]; The Price of Pride ...

Maybe it is cathartic to sit back in the big easy chair and tune in to one of the various professional wrestling groups present a good old fashioned “smack down”.  The villain gets the applause, but ideally the hero comes back in the end to win it.  While it looks so real, everyone understands that no one is actually supposed to get hurt during the fiasco.  Just a lot of melee, chairs getting thrown, people tossed outside the ropes, and a conclusion that seems to leave the audience coming back for more.  I cannot honestly say I am a fan (at least not since Tojo Yamamoto ruled the ring some 40 years ago); but sometimes I sure see the appeal of the villain getting what is coming to him.  And the more trash-talk the villain does before his demise, the sweeter the victory when he is defeated.  That idea the villain seems to nurture about himself, that he is “the greatest”, and “he cannot be defeated” – yup, it is that kind of pride that when it goes before his fall, makes the fall just feel awesome (at least for me, and the audience anyway).

And it is easy to carry that feeling into many other areas of life.  The know-it-all kid who is just so certain of everything they say; sometimes it is just a little bit satisfying when life proves they didn’t after all.  Or that boss who is just so sure they are right about pretty much everything; when the facts reveal they weren’t, I get the wrestling flashbacks in the back of my head.  The hardest part about most of these situations is that argument, and debate, are pretty much useless with these folks.  They get an idea in their heads, and they sink their teeth in like a pitbull on a fresh cow bone – hmmm good.  Nothing seems to shake their self-confidence until life hands them a literal “smack down”.  Only then do they realize their certainty was misplaced, and in truth they were wrong.  Whether they can admit they were wrong tells us a bit more about who they are.  But they know it themselves in their hearts no matter what the public persona is willing to admit.

Enter the church elder.  When you practice religion long enough, you begin to sometimes think of yourself as a “church elder”.  It may or may not be a professional part of who you are, but inside, where only you can see, it takes over how you see yourself.  On matters of doctrine, you are the fountain of learning.  Others should come to you for answers, you don’t go anywhere else to get them.  On matters of counseling, or advice, you think your own words at the top of the heap.  From a priority standpoint you see God first, angels second, and then you – in that order.  Now chances are, you either know folks like this, or if you can’t think of anyone like it; it is probably you.  But these people have existed in every faith, since faith started out.  Lucifer was the first one.  He knew the pecking order in his church.  God first, Jesus second, and then him; the chief of all angels.  But pride got him wondering why Jesus was second, instead of him.  And once he started his Pitbull-on-a-cow-bone ideology, nothing could shake him from it.  He reasoned his logic was as good as anyone else’s, maybe even just a good alternative to what God thinks.  Not bad you see, just different.  And why shouldn’t you control your own thinking, and your own destiny?  6000+ years of pain and death have answered that, including killing God.  So for us the verdict is in on Satan.  But we still seem to follow the same line of prideful thinking he did so so many eons ago, even in our own churches.

I find the term “Pharisee forefather” quite useful.  It reminds me, that all the things I read about them going down the wrong path apply just as much to me today.  While I cannot imagine myself plotting to kill Jesus; I do find myself believing I don’t need anyone other than my choices to save myself.  Sound familiar?  How much are “you” the answer in your own salvation; as opposed to Jesus doing it all.  When you don’t see your need, you stop asking for help.  And before you know it, you are cruising down ACDC’s Highway to Hell, the tune still echoing in your ears.  My Pharisee forefathers did not perceive their own needs either.  They reasoned they were “good” people.  They did perform many good deeds (most of them publicly, you know, for witnesses). 

They followed all the rules, that is to say, they invented rules that were even more detailed to insure they followed them.  They knew scripture better than anyone else (even the author).  Just ask them, they would tell you.  They spent hours reading, studying, debating, and learning.  Not so much loving.  But all that other more meaty stuff anyway.  So why on earth would any elder this prepared and this educated, submit themselves to an upstart Hippy with no formal education, who constantly keeps blathering on about love.  Love, Love, Love; He just won’t shut up about it.  Its like wandering through the hills at Woodstock at one of His rallies, instead of a well-controlled, well-planned, formal study presentation with PowerPoint slides and a multimedia setup.  “Get a job and a haircut”.  “Grow up”; life is more than love.  It has to be right?  Right?

But Jesus just had other ideas.  And Jesus could see right through us.  He knew what we thought about ourselves back then, and right now.  And for my Pharisee forefathers, and maybe for me, it had reached a point where perhaps only a good old fashioned “smack down” was going to get through to either of us.  Our pride had gotten so thick, our eyes were crusted over, and we did not see.  Our ears were crusted over so we barely heard.  And the mind was just full of gook.  We needed then, and sometimes today we still need, an OUTSIDE accurate assessment of where we really are; and where our words lead.  Jesus was here to reconcile, reclaim, and re-create us all.  That is to say, ALL of us, are in need of this.  Perhaps it had come time to tell us more directly.  To get us to stop, and roll back our words, and our thinking.  Maybe the hair isn’t important at all.  Maybe the job of redemption should be the only job we care about.  Maybe the Author of our scriptures will always know them better than us, and it is time we seek His wisdom instead of constantly offering our own.

Matthew starts the story of this in his gospel to the Hebrews in chapter twenty-three picking up in verse 1 saying … “Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, [verse 2] Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: [verse 3] All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.”  Many things to unpack here.  First, Jesus recognizes that organized churches do have a need for servant leaders, who are willing to carry that responsibility.  In days of old the phrase sitting in the seat of Moses, meant carrying the weight of decisions and leadership within the church.  Jesus does not complain about this.  Nor does he say, throw the bums out.  Instead, He offers support to them, by asking His followers to listen to what they say.  To pull the truth from the words is paramount.  To attempt to use humans as role models does not work out so good.  While our Pharisee forefathers were well equipped at speaking; they did not seem to have a clue how to go about living it.  Sound familiar?  Pride does that.  Pride keeps us from submitting, and causes us to think we already know it all – even though our lives clearly show we don’t.

Jesus continues in verse 4 saying … “For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.”  The Pharisee and the modern-day legalist share a common phenomenon.  When in doubt, create more rules.  Expand the list.  Make the do’s and don’ts clearer and easier to understand.  This will address action.  But it does not touch motives that drive behavior in the first place.  And so it is flawed.  But as it usually goes, the modern-day legalist, and our Pharisee forefathers get tired of trying to follow so many other rules.  And they give up on all of them.  Hoping God will just forgive them, because it is just too hard to be saved.  A lie the devil longs to enforce for each of us.  This is the problem with these burdens; they never came from God.  They exist because we do not understand harmony with God, because we continue to refuse to submit to Jesus, and let Him re-create us in that image of harmony.  Pride keeps us from allowing Jesus to save us, making us believe it is all up to us to do it.

Jesus continues in verse 5 saying … “But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, [verse 6] And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, [verse 7] And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.”  Earning that “good” person title is exhausting, especially when your heart was never in it.  Our modern-day saints who do good works, in order to be known as saints, who do good works, are modeling very old, failed, behavior.  And “titles”, don’t get me started on “titles”.  I am the chief sinner in this regard; always insuring my career path had ever escalating titles that sound important.  The work was the same, whether you lead, manage, or innovate.  But the escalating titles were always meant to show progression and greater responsibilities.  So how could this defective trait of my pride not follow me into the hallowed halls of the church.  Where once I craved the title “elder”, I have learned it is now something I want nothing to do with.  The more I learn, the more I realize I do not know.  But the more I have come to see the wisdom of Jesus knows everything, and truly is The Truth.  So I understand and can equate with my Pharisee forefather, looking to be seen as a “master” of the word.  When in truth, there is but one Master, and it is not us.

Jesus then lays out what He wants His new church to look like picking up in verse 8 saying … “But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. [verse 9] And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. [verse 10] Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.”  So long to “titles”.  Easy to pick on the Catholics for their use of the title “father”, as this is specifically ruled out by Jesus in plain English.  But the word “master” is equally thrown out.  And do we in our modern lexicon of terminology in the faith exclude specifically these two words, but instead employ a thesaurus of other titles that come to mean the same thing?  The point Jesus was trying to make is that HE alone is in charge.  If you have a question, going to Jesus is the right place to see it answered.  Getting human advice is a horribly risky thing to do.  Prayer yes.  Humanity no so much.  Better to get your potential advisors to join you in prayer to Jesus to ask what the answer is.  Our only Master, and our only Father, are within the God head, nowhere else.  Church leaders are in fact church servants.

Jesus continues in verse 11 saying … “But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. [verse 12] And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.”  You cannot truly serve without humility.  To see others as equal, or rather, perhaps even more worthy and more important than yourself.  To value the opinions and diversity of others appreciating how it may enrich the body of Christ, rather than attempting to pigeon hole it into the cookie cutter images you prefer.  The body of Jesus is greater than any single part of it, or perspective of any single member.  To discover the journey of getting to know Jesus, is to let go the idea that He fits in a box of your own design.  He does not.  You must admit that God is greater than yourself.  Without humility, your “service” will emanate from motives of deep-rooted selfishness you may not even consciously perceive.  You will walk comfortably with the Pharisees, and hardly ever with the poor, and those is so great need.  Pride finds friends of the proud, and rarely looks for friends in the lower class.  It is pride that creates “class” to begin with.

The time had come for a spiritual “smack down”.  We are not masters.  We are not “father” to anyone else on earth.  Jesus alone is in charge.  Humility matters.  Motives matter.  Being a “good” person is not something you do, it is only something Jesus can create of you.  And service, that comes from a passionate love of others, is where all the goodies are found.  When you get tired of living the way you do, submission to Jesus, is the easy way out.  He does not leave you the way you are; He re-creates you into what He intends you to be, and puts you in harmony with the law, with Love, and with God the Father.  Only then, can true obedience be found, free from lists, and steeped in passion.  No title can sum that up.  Time to think differently, and as a result, to live differently.  This is the gift Jesus was offering and He was not content to leave my Pharisee forefathers or myself, complacent with where we had evolved.  The Truth had started, but it was not to be over yet.

The Smack-Down was to continue …

 

The Greatest Legal Minds ...

In our day “the law” is a written aspiration of seeking justice.  We use the law as a tool to attempt to insure fairness and equality.  But even the greatest legal scholars among us will recognize that our entire body of laws are simply, not perfect.  This would make sense.  Since man is not perfect, the devices of his imagination are likely not to be perfect either.  In the field of art, we glory in these imperfections and unusual perspectives.  But in the field of law, we attempt to fix the imperfections as we stumble across them, or suffer from their application.  But no matter how much we continue to revise our laws, to attempt to find a better justice than the one we had before, our work on them is never quite finished.  One could find it interesting that while our laws can trace their roots all the way back to the tablets of stone Moses first carried down the mountain – our “evolution” of them has resulted in only more opportunities for improvement over time, not less.

In the days of Moses, “the law”, was the first revelation given to the people of earth, of what it means to love.  For a people fresh from slavery, who never had the freedom to think and act as they chose, God tried to reveal to them in the tablets of stone (and in His very tangible presence, with daily miracles of His care), what the base definition of love is.  That Ten Commandment law then, was the first guide rails, in answer to the question – what does it mean to love God, and to love each other.  But herein is where most of us jump the rails; the law, was NOT a definitive list, it was merely a beginning.  If the legal code of the United States is written across volumes of books today, imagine how much bigger it would be, if we were to attempt to define what it means to love on top of all the other statutes.  The Ten Commandments were a start, a beginning, NOT a comprehensive definition of how to love.  Common sense would build on this law, and provide a next step, in how to make love deeper, richer, and better.  For instance, if I love you, I would not think to steal from you.  Common sense would tell me, that as I get to know you, I will find out what you like, and try to share those interests with you, simply because it makes you happy.  Theft is the farthest thing from my mind.  Giving and trying to improve your life (because that makes me happy too) is at the top of it.

When you think in those terms, when you feel passionately in those terms, other crimes drop from you like scales off of a snake.  When I love you, I do not think to enslave you, I do not think to rape or abuse you, all of the evil that can be done to you, is NOT what I would see happen to you, not by the world, and especially not by me.  The Ten Commandments enumerate a starting point, but when love is my way, my list gets substantially longer.  This does not represent a flaw in God’s law, it represents true obedience to it, and the genius of it.  We were never meant to be satisfied with how great we can love.  We were always meant to discover an even greater love for others, every single day of our lives, not just in this life, but in the eternal one to come.  That thought should overwhelm you.  It is meant to.  To know that your ultimate state of bliss can only be measured today, for tomorrow it will become greater, is beyond the limits of our imagination.  Yet our reality to come.

Which takes us to the purpose of the law in heaven.  The “law” of God, that is to say the “love” of God, will never disappear throughout all of eternity.  We will not lie to each other throughout infinity.  We will speak only truth forevermore.  The reason – because truth is what love speaks – and lies only damage what we say we love.  We will not steal anymore, because stealing hurts others, and our internal passions will never be to hurt, but to uplift.  And here is another mind blower.  There is NOTHING in the law about how “much” you can give to somebody else.  There are no caps on giving.  The sky is the limit.  And giving will be natural, theft unthinkable.  When this is true, the law, or His love, is the core of who you are.  And while the law never disappears, we will need it no longer, because we would not think to transgress it.  For us the need of the law itself is gone, because the focus of our minds and hearts is on how to love others greater, not how to love less.

Here on earth, where God’s love looks restrictive, meaning it points out something I want to do, but am not supposed to do – this is where even the term “law” comes from.  The law here on earth only restricts my evil.  In that sense, the law is truly the beginning definition of what it means to love.  All our laws are designed to keep my selfishness from invading and harming your life.  For it is self-love that creates the need for any law in the first place.  Take away all self-love, and you can take away the need for any law forevermore.  But when you do love self, and not so many others, the law acts as a mirror to show you, how actions you take reflect a lack of love for others in your life.  It is evil that sees God’s law as restrictive.  And for evil, it is.  Evil, that is self-love, wants to do whatever it wants, regardless of who else might suffer because of it.  That is the nature of all evil in the first place.  The two ways of thinking could not be any more diametrically opposed.  God’s love that loves only others, and Evil’s ideas of love that focuses only on self regardless of others.  When those two ideologies exist, there is need for a law.  Once evil is gone forever, the need for the law will go, as the thinking behind it will obliterate the need for it.

The Pharisees thought themselves masters of the law.  Not because it had penetrated their hearts so that they only loved others.  But because they knew every word that was written, and every habit of action, that might prove they kept the law.  Sound familiar?  In the modern Christian churches which still teach the applicability of His laws (rightly so), His laws are more often taught with accompanying lists of do’s and don’ts.  Further actions defined in order to offer proof, that you are in fact, obeying His laws.  Any descension from the lists, and you are doomed to hell (usually forever).  This application of the law focuses on punishment and the fear of punishment, as your motivation to curb your behavior (if not your enthusiasm).  This is because love itself, is just not understood.  And love for others is not something that has ever been a natural part of how you think.  But without this kind of love, true obedience is just not possible.  It takes reformation of our thinking, of how we love, of what we want, before true obedience is possible.  That comes only from surrender to Jesus of our will, of our thinking, of how we love, and who we love.  Total surrender brings total reformation and re-creation, and then love brings a natural state of obedience, a harmony with His laws of love.  The Pharisees had no personal experience with this, nor did they want one.

If Jesus could not be trapped in matters of popularity (taxes), or in matters of doctrines (resurrection, and how women are to be treated), then perhaps they could trip Him up in a matter of law.  For let’s face it, everyone of us has broken His law at some point in our lives.  Most of us breaking it every day.  They reasoned the human part of Jesus had to be subject to this.  But they forgot His humanity only cloaked His divinity and Jesus had lived a spotless life, though tempted perhaps worse than we are, yet without a single transgression.  The love in Jesus, was not a love for Himself.  It was a love for us.  And a burning passionate love for us, could just not be compromised by an action that might hurt us.  So Jesus remained pure, and their attempts at trapping Him were going to leave them disappointed.  Never the less, they assembled the greatest legal minds of their day, and began to devise a strategy to trip Jesus up in His own law.  Silly when you think about it.  But evil often starts with a silly or ridiculous premise, and degenerates from there.

Matthew picks up the last trap for Jesus in chapter twenty-two of his gospel to the Hebrews in verse 34 saying … “But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. [verse 35] Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, [verse 36] Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”  This was a well-conceived trap.  Which law would you pick as the greatest idea defining love.  If you say do not kill, you leave the body of your neighbor alive, but steal his wife, lie to him about it, and injure him greatly anyway.  If you pick a different law, you can simply kill your neighbor to end any disputes about the damage you do to him.  It devolves down to one of those worst of two evils scenarios.  In that case we would likely pick the do not kill him commandment, reasoning that if he lives, at least he is alive.  But this focus comes from a punishment perspective, not from a true love of others one.

Jesus answers them in verse 37 saying … “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. [verse 38] This is the first and great commandment.”  Why is this the first one?  Think about that for a moment.  If the goal of harmony with the law of God is to love others completely, and love myself not at all.  Then why be taught to love God first?  Could it be that God is love?  And love comes “from” Him, and only “through” you.  Perhaps you are a conduit of His love, not the originator of your own.  Could it be, that for humans steeped in the evil of self-love, the only cure for it, is to come to God first?  Without experiencing the liberation of re-creation, the work of Jesus in us and for us, we are powerless to love anything other than ourselves.  Sin is an addiction that makes no logical sense, yet we find ourselves bound in chains to it anyway.  Only Jesus can break our chains for us, through our surrender to Him.  We cannot free ourselves, we must be made free.  Coming to God first, directing our love to Him first, can allow Him to do the work we need to be saved from ourselves, FIRST.  Only afterwards, is love for anyone other than me, even a real possibility.  Trying to love others first, is nothing more than hidden motives, buried in selfishness that I probably don’t even see.  My love for you, will be a result of my love for Him.  I cannot truly love you, unless I love Him first.

Jesus continues in verse 39 saying … “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. [verse 40] On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  Hear closely His own words, that the second commandment is “like unto it”.  Meaning the distinction between the first and second is very subtle.  We must love God first in order to build our own connection to the source of love itself.  But that connection to love was not meant to be turned inwards to ourselves.  It was meant to be turned outwards to the entire world.  Loving our neighbors when we once thought only to love ourselves.  If you were to make a priorities graphic to illustrate this.  You would place a drawing of God at the far left and call that priority one.  Then draw an infinity symbol on its side (it looks like a figure eight).  Under that infinity symbol would be labeled everyone else.  Then at the far right a stick man drawing of you.  You would be priority last.  And that is how it should work, and will work, when Jesus re-creates in you, what it means to truly love.  Jesus restates here for us, that all of the law, and all of the prophets were trying to get this simple message across.  Love God first, love everyone else next.  Self-love is the thing we are trying to rid ourselves of, as every evil can be traced back to it.  And the only freedom from self-love is a surrender to Jesus.

But Jesus had a question for the “masters of the word” before they scurried away.  The story continues in verse 41 saying … “While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, [verse 42] Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David.”  Jesus was not referring to Himself here, He was simply asking the Pharisees a generic question about “the Christ” they believed would be coming to deliver Israel from the Romans.  The Pharisees responded rightly that the Messiah would be from the lineage of David.  Jesus continues in verse 43 saying … “He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, [verse 44] The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? [verse 45] If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? [verse 46] And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.” 

First of all this stumper left the Pharisees, the lawyers, and the Sadducees speechless.  It was tradition in that day to refer to the King as “Lord”.  And this term only worked upwards in the genealogy.  Solomon would have referred to David as “his Lord”.  David would only have referred to Solomon as his son, or his prince, or the anointed and chosen of God etc.  So if the Messiah as the Son of David, yet referred to by David while under the influence of inspiration (so no doubting he misspoke or something) as His Lord, that would imply the Messiah existed before David, and then again after Him, or as an eternal being, the Son of God.  This was yet another attempt at Jesus trying to use the things the Pharisees loved, namely scripture, to invite them back to Him for reconciliation.  He was revealing who He really was to them, in a way they could understand.  But none were ready to accept.  At least not yet.

The traps all in the past now, I wonder if we understand our own relationships with His law.  We are bound to it forever.  But is the law part of the core of who we are, or do we see it as a restrictive set of conditions we have no idea how to live up to?  That difference is night and day.  It is the difference between walking in darkness, and having experienced the salvation of Jesus in you.  Jesus is NOT saving you from hell.  Jesus is saving you from yourself, and your self love.  He is teaching you how to really live.  How to live in harmony with His laws, making them only a beginning for you to explore what it means to love others.  That journey of exploration is meant for the here and the now, not just for the afterlife.  To be free to love others brings such a state of bliss and happiness it has no words to describe.  Even in a world of sin, you can still be made free from the slavery of self.  That is the Kingdom of heaven Jesus told us was here already.  Become the 2-year-old that runs to the arms of Jesus your Father, trusting in Him to save you, and making you free to love for real.  There is nothing better than this, and it can begin this moment as you surrender this work to Him and watch what He does in you.