Welcome, in this time of contemplation and self-reflection that is Lent, as we take our first steps down “The Way of Woes.”
In Matthew 23, Jesus describes a series of actions and attitudes introduced by the repeating phrase: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites…”
And just as we should study the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5 for examples of habits and attitudes to cultivate, I think we also need to take a hard look at this Way of Woes in Matthew 23, to learn to recognize in ourselves, and in others, those habits and attitudes that lead into perhaps the most pervasive and tempting failure of human nature, which is hypocrisy.
And what better time to do this than during Lent, the season that we have set aside in the church to take that hard look at ourselves, at humanity, and to really come to terms with what is working and what is not?
So first, some background to understand this passage:
Keep reading, read along, just or watch, or listen. Just press play on the video below.
And check out last Sunday’s message, introducing Matthew 23 here.
“Scribes and Pharisees” – who were they really?
The repeated refrain is “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees…”
Which begs the question: Who or what are these scribes and Pharisees?
So, there’s a lot of nuance here. And to what degree the “scribes and Pharisees as a whole deserve the negative reputation they have inherited in Western Civilization, particularly from the New Testament, is, again, nuanced, and a much longer discussion…
What matters for now is this: “scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees,” and sometimes “Jews” in the Gospels, are shorthand references to the “religious and scholarly elites” of the time.
It is important to note that when Jesus, his followers, and early Christians speak in general of these groups, they are speaking of the powerful, dominant religious groups of their time and
culture, as opposed to their own, small, persecuted religious group.
With this fact in mind, these criticisms of “Pharisees, etc.” appear in their proper light. The
point of the “Pharisees=hypocrites, etc.” passages was not to promote anti-Semitism, religious hostility, or hatred of any kind. These passages come from the weaker minority group in the equation explaining why they found it necessary to break ranks with their persecutors in the first place.
And the first reason to break ranks with these religious and scholarly elites, according to Jesus, at least, appears to be the Pharisees’ demonstrated hypocrisy.
So, one more time: “scribes and Pharisees” refers to the “religious and scholarly elites” of Jesus’s time.
And so, with that in mind, let’s take those first steps into The Way of Woes – a journey that I intend to be challenging, introspective, but also, ultimately, NOT a source of woe, but of grace—to recognize what is broken in this world, and why, and how they might be fixed.
This is the first of a four-part series, each part to be released on the four remaining weeks of Lent. And today we will be focusing on the first three verses, Matthew 23:13-15, in this Way of Woes.
You will hear the verses read aloud three times. Between each reading I will add certain pieces of information, things that occur to me, things that I know from history, etc., to be true. And between each reading, I will suggest to you another aspect of these verses to keep in mind or focus on.
And so, focusing now on the people Jesus is speaking about as the religious and scholarly elite, the one who hold authority and influence and power over their communities, hear these first steps along the Way of Woes:
“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell [Gehenna, the land of Destruction] as yourselves.”
The Devourers
The word that stands out to me, on our first reading here, is “devour.”
“For you devour widows’ houses…”
It’s particularly interesting, because verse 14: “For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers.”
This phrase (Matthew 23:14) does not appear in certain ancient texts of the Gospel of Matthew.
What does this mean?
Well, all questions of authority and divine inspiration aside, Matthew is an ancient document, written pre-computer, pre-printer, pre-fountain pen, and pre-copyright law. Every ancient copy of Matthew was written out by hand, and mistakes were made. Words and whole verses are sometimes deleted and sometimes also added.
In some ancient copies of Matthew, verse 23:14 simply does not exist.
Was it accidentally deleted from that copy, or added to other copies? The truth is, we don’t and never will know for sure. It is worth pointing out, though, that 23:14 does kind of interrupt the conversation in progress. Verse 13 is about salvation (not letting people into “the kingdom of heaven”). Verse 15 is about salvation (traveling the seas to “win converts”). But between those two related verses, is this statement about defrauding widows…
It interrupts. It feels as if it may not originally have been there. Personally, I think it probably was not originally there, but then, someone remembered at some point that it was something Jesus had said—because it does indeed sound like something Jesus would say—and so added it. And I
think that, mainly, because it does indeed break the flow—what we might call the “narrative integrity”—of the passage.
And yet, the more I think about it, the more I think it sums up the entire point – the hypocrisy – of these verses.
The hypocrisy is devouring.
The hypocrites are those who, in the name of righteousness and good, devour others for their own gain.
Think about that, keep in mind this idea of these “scribes and Pharisees” as “devourers,” as we read through this passage again…
“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell [Gehenna, the land of Destruction] as yourselves.”
~ Matthew 23:13-15
Gehenna
What does it mean to be “the devourer”?
The second word that stands out to me in these verses is Gehenna, when Jesus calls the hypocrites he’s talking about “sons of Gehenna”—and I promise, I did not just change the subject there.
Because the concepts of Gehenna and devouring are, in fact, related.
Now, Gehenna—depending on which translation of the bible you’re reading from, the translator might have left the word Gehenna as it is, it might be translated hell, or destruction, or as I have extrapolated it, land of destruction…
And Gehenna, where the term comes from, what it represents in Jewish literature, and then later in Early Christian literature, is a fascinating topic—if you’re like me, anyway. I think I dedicated an entire chapter of my master’s thesis to it, or a large section of a chapter, at least.
Gehenna is, essentially, hell. And unlike the Greek term, Hades—which is just the underworld, the land of all dead, which may or may not include punishment—Gehenna is much more similar to our contemporary concept of hell. It is overtly a place for the wicked, a place of punishment, and—specifically—a place of fire.
But what’s most interesting about Gehenna, as a concept, is that the meaning of it, the imagery, is born out of real-world events. The idea of Gehenna is based on a real place, a valley outside Jerusalem, where a few things reportedly happened. One was sacrifices to foreign gods—blood sacrifices—child sacrifices—again, reportedly. We’re talking foreign gods like this entity in the Old Testament referred to as “Molech.”
Now, as far as we can tell, “Molech” appears to be some kind of code name. It’s related, first of all, to the Hebrew word for “king” (melech). And we don’t know of any actual god who was actually named “Molech” in the nations around ancient Israel and Judah. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. But it’s likely this was actually a code name for the king of foreign god who would require human—particularly child human—sacrifice.
It’s likely the name itself is meant to be some kind of distortion or mutilation of the idea of God’s Kingship, and also of the idea that God—the true God—appointed these kings in Jerusalem to be righteous rules, stewards of God’s people. And instead, these kings turned from the true God, and transformed themselves from being God’s righteous melech, into worshipers of the evil Molech.
But regardless of whether “Molech” is a distorted code name, or a actual god we just haven’t found any record of yet, the phrase used to describe these human sacrifices which God—the true God—finds so abhorrent, is “pass through the fire.” (Lev. 18:21; Deut 18:10; 2 Kings 17:17; 2 Chron 33:6; and many more.)
For example, Jeremiah 32:35 states: “And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination…”
And that “Valley of Hinnom” is thought to be the origin of the word “Gehenna.” So, you can see the concept developing, even early on—well before the idea of hell as we know it today existed in the human psyche or in literature—still, we see this concept developing of this place of death made evil by the “passing through” or the sacrifice of children by fire to an evil god…
And, again, I promised you that I was not changing the subject—because, what is one of the most common descriptors applied to “fire”? Fire is something that is said to “devour.”
Particularly, in symbolism, to devour evil and the wicked.
So put it all together, and what does this mean? Particularly in this passage, these three first steps along our “Way of Woes,” what does this all mean?
We will read the passage now one more time, and as we do, keep in mind that theme linking verses 13 and 15, which is salvation—shutting up the kingdom of heaven, that is, denying salvation to the people that you are responsible for teaching, while at the same time searching the entire world for people to convert to your way of thinking—about salvation. And think of you can spot any correlations between all that talk of denied salvation, and this image of a devouring fire.
“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of Gehenna as yourselves.”
~ Matthew 23:13-15
Ponderings in Parting
And now, as we end the guided part of our study today, it turns to you, your own introspection, your own thoughts. With a few questions now to maybe guide the way.
First: How many times in history have we encountered these kinds of leaders? The leaders who say, “I have the answers.” The leaders who beckon “this way to salvation!”
But then never actually follow though.
Leaders who, instead of doing the hard work to fulfil that promise and make life better, just take our trust, our faith, and our work—consume us—devour us—to serve their own goals, make their lives better, and make themselves look better
How many leaders throughout history have been more concerned with appearances, with appeasing the elites of the world, than with saying or doing what needs to be done to get things done?
How many leaders have there been throughout history who are more interested in looking like peacemakers than in actually ending wars?
Next, though, is the hard part. Because I think we’re all very good at finding fault in our leaders.
But what about yourself?
In what ways might you consume others? Does the appearance of having the right answers ever matter more to you than having the right answers?
What promises do you make that are impossible to keep?
Promises like “I know what I’m doing, I know what you should do, just follow me…”
Know, as we conclude things today, that no answer to any of these questions makes you an evil person. I think we all do “devour” other people from time to time, use others for our own ends, make impossible promises, and do all in our power to cover our own inadequacies…
The point in answering these questions, is not to blame or hate ourselves, it is to recognize ourselves and do better next time.
The point is to learn to recognize the things that are not easy to see—to recognize righteousness, and to recognize hypocrisy, and do better next time.
Because that is all we can do. And it is all that the Lord requires of us.
