Pop quiz:  What famous religious leader is quoted as calling the other religious leaders of his day the following:

“Hypocrites”
“Sons of Hell”
“Blind fools”
“Full of hypocrisy and wickedness”
“Snakes and a brood of vipers”

Did anyone say Jesus?  Surprised?  I’m sure many of you already knew the answer, but look at that list again and ask yourself honestly – can you believe how strong those words are?  “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild” said those things?  Not exactly the Mr. Rogers clone people expect, is it?

I’ve been preaching through a series on the parables of Jesus, and I’ve been struck by how many times he tells his stories with the religious leaders as the example of what NOT to do.   From the man who has been forgiven little in Luke 7 to the older brother of the prodigal son in Luke 15, to the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18 (and many others…), Jesus takes many opportunities to warn people not to follow the example of the religious leaders of his day.  As a “religious leader” myself, I hear these comments and have to wonder, “Would Jesus say the same about me if he were here today???”  It can be tempting to read these words and think that they were only meant for the religious leaders in Jesus’ day, or that they can be applied to the various Pharisee-like religious people out there today, but the challenge is turn the spotlight on ourselves and ask, “In my desire to know and serve God, have I become the very thing that Jesus despised?”

During Sunday’s sermon, I referenced a verse from Matthew 23, the chapter where all of the above epithets are found.  In verse 13, Jesus begins to speak a series of condemning words he has for the religious leaders of his time with the following: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”  I’ve been haunted by that one line – “You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces” ever since I read it, and have been trying to examine myself to see if I am guilty of that very thing.

The target of Jesus’ harshest words was the Pharisees, who were among the religious leaders of his day.  Each of the different religious groups (Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots, and Pharisees) was concerned with how to free the Jewish people from the Roman oppression under which they lived.  The Pharisees (from the Hebrew word “parash”, meaning to separate) believed that if the Jewish people were pure and faithful to God’s law and separate from pagan influences, then the Messiah would come and liberate the Jewish people.  So, the Pharisees steadfastly kept all of God’s rules, and even added more rules in order to help the Jewish people maintain their purity.  To the Pharisees, the laws were boundary markers, keeping pure people in and impure people out.  You can imagine, with such a focus on purity, that they were not happy with the Jews who broke God’s laws, because those “sinners” were preventing the Messiah from liberating the Jews.  It is so important to recognize that the goals of the Pharisees were admirable - purity, freedom, faithfulness to God – but something about the way in which they lived out those goals invoked the wrath of Jesus.

Read Matthew 23:13 one more time - “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”  There was something in the way the Pharisees lived out their faith that was preventing people from experiencing God, and was in fact so offensive to Jesus that he proclaimed in this verse that not only were they preventing others, but that even the Pharisees would not experience God!

Okay – raise your hand if you can identify with what I just wrote.  Anybody feel like you’ve missed out on experiencing God because of the way Christian leaders have lived out their faith?  Anybody have a friend who has given up on church or God because of Christians who blocked their way, who “shut the kingdom of heaven” in their face?  And has anyone out there been guilty of shutting the door on those you saw as sinners?

I think that the Pharisees were so sure what was right and what was wrong that they looked down on anyone who lived in the “wrong” way.  I believe that they were so focused on keeping Judaism pure that they would rather have their holy huddle of pure Jews than open the door to complicated, messy, sinful people who weren’t sure what they believed about God.  Whatever their reason was, the effect was this:  instead of finding a God with open arms running to welcome back the prodigal, the Jews living on the margins in all their complicated, messy sinfulness, were finding the older brother with a disapproving look saying “you’re not wanted here until you clean up your act.”  And that unwelcoming, judgmental, arrogant attitude set Jesus off in a way that the sins of the Jews on the margins never did.  You can’t read the stories of Jesus without hearing loud and clear that Jesus hates it when religious leaders in their arrogance “shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces.” 

I’m sure it’s been clear from all I’ve been writing over the past few months that I place a high value on Jesus’ call not to shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces.  People will reject God for all sorts of reasons, but woe to me and woe to our church if the reason someone rejects God is our unwelcoming, judgmental, arrogant attitude.  The desire for purity and faithfulness to God is a good one, but if it causes us to choose the holy huddle over welcoming complicated, messy, “sinful” people who aren’t sure what they believe about God, then woe to us.  Likewise, the desire to know and live the truth is right, but if it causes us to look down on anyone who we think lives in the “wrong” way, then woe to us.  Let us follow God with all of our hearts, but let us learn from Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees that we must be careful not to appoint ourselves the judges of who deserves access to God’s throne of grace.

This will be the first of a series I will be doing on “killing the Pharisee within us,” looking at Jesus’ strong words in Matthew 23.  Please pray with me that in our desire to know and serve God, that God would help us to not become the very thing that He despises.  And if you have any comments or insights that can help us towards this goal please post a comment.

Write a comment