Matthew 23c

 Oúaì, that’s the Greek word for ‘Woe’. Jesus pronounced seven ‘woes’ on the scribes and Pharisees. However, Matthew wrote in Greek, but Jesus spoke Aramaic. ‘Woe’ in Aramaic is ‘Vey’. In Hebrew, ‘Woe’ is ‘Oy’. See where this is going? Put the two together and you have the Yiddish exclamation ‘Oy Vey!’ A common phrase in Yiddish is “Oy vey ist Mir!” meaning ‘Oh, Woe is me’. (Note: Yiddish is a language of Hebrew and Aramaic mixed with German that developed among eastern European Askenazi Jews during the second millennium, that is, 1000-1900s).

 The exclamation refers to some personal or social misfortune, a disaster that has struck or will soon strike. It could be used as a curse, “I pronounce a woe on you,” or as a lament, “I am sorry that woe has come to you and/or me.” Sometimes the two come together, like when parents say, “I hate to do this, but I have to take those car keys away from you.” When we get to the end of this chapter, we will see that, for Jesus, it was some of both. 

23: 25-26.  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and of the plate, so that the outside also may become clean.

 There is an inconsistency here that signals Jesus’ saying is a metaphor. Who washes dishes by carefully cleaning the outside of cups and the bottoms of plates while ignoring the inside of the cup and plate? No one. So, it is the ridiculousness of the analogy that is the main point. No one does this, so why are the scribes and Pharisees doing something like this? The point is not dinner dishes, nor is it really the holy vessels that are used in rituals, such as we do with the chalice and plate used during Communion. The point is in the analogy that exposes misguided thinking. 

 What are the scribes and Pharisees doing that is like this? They are very careful about things that people are able to see; about wearing the right clothes, about saying the right things, about carrying out the proper rituals. However, all this effort hides what they don’t want people to see. Sound familiar? Who wants to squash an ethics report or a court order about them? Who pretends to be pious on the outside, but on the inside harbors strategies for gaining power, plans for getting rich at the mercy of others, and lust to sexually abuse others?   

 Jesus says what we all know deep down: Some people are play-acting in order to scam us one way or another. We expect that of politicians but have not expected that of religious leaders. Maybe we do now; perhaps we have become jaded by the fall of so many Christian leaders in America in the last 50 years.

23: 27-28.  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of uncleanness. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

This saying is another angle on a similar point. This time the analogy is not so ridiculous. Tombs often are dressed up on the outside, but inside there are just bones. Not that that is a bad thing; that is just the way things are. Yet, when applied to religious leaders, it is a telling comparison.

23: 29-36.  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape the judgment of hell (Gehenna)? For this reason I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation.

 What is the result of the inside/outside hypocrisy among religious leaders? Sometimes when you are trying to fool other people, you fool yourself. Some of the religious leaders console themselves that they would not have opposed God’s prophets had they lived in earlier times. Many of the prophets were opposed, chased down, and killed, yet their words and prophecies turned out to be true. 

 Jesus catches them first in an unintended admission. By bragging this way, they are in fact saying that their ancestors were the ones who killed the prophets, and so they are in a line of descent from prophet-killers. It’s their family tradition. 

 Second, Jesus tells them to go ahead and act that way and thus confirm their heritage. When their guilt reaches a certain point (fills up), then the consequences of those actions will kick in. In God’s judgment, the only choice will be Gehenna/Gihinnom, a place where garbage burns all the time.

 Jesus then shifts the conversation considerably because he says, “For this reason I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, ….” Is he speaking for God, or is he speaking as God? Is he prophesying about those leaders, not all but some, who will persecute and even kill some of the disciples and missionaries that he sends out? 

 Jesus then confirms their connections with their ancestors by saying “you murdered” the prophets. The reference is to Abel, killed in Genesis Chapter 4, all the way down to Zechariah, a prophet, though not the writer of the book by that title, who was killed in II Chronicles. Chronicles is the last book in the Hebrew Bible (the way they order what we call the Old Testament). So, this is a way of saying that some leaders have always been complicit in killing God’s messengers from A to Z.

 Note: This Zechariah was the son of the high priest Jehoiada. I suspect that Jesus just said “Zechariah” and Matthew conflated the two prophets. We have no story about the death of the Zechariah who wrote the book. However, we do have a description of the awful death of this Zechariah in II Chronicles 24: 15-22.

 Finally, notice that Jesus says, “This will all come on this generation.” It is tempting to assume that he is predicting the destruction of Jerusalem and exile of all Jews from Judea that happens in 40 years from his crucifixion, and he may be since there is a notion that sins build up over the generations until finally punishment comes. However, remember also that “this generation” sometimes refers to ‘this era’ (See Matthew 24: 34). 

 23: 37-39.  Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord'.

 For all the critical comments about the hypocrisy of some of the leaders, and the charge that they have misled the people, Jesus now concludes with his deep sorrow at what has to be done. The turn from warning to lament feels like many of the prophets, beginning with Moses (Deuteronomy 32: 1-40). 

 For example, if you read the prophet Joel, you read through 13 chapters of Israel’s misdeeds and God’s pending punishment. Then the last chapter begins with a plea for repentance, and the second half of the last chapter promises God’s willingness to forgive and heal. Likewise, reading the first 8 and a half chapters of Amos would lead you to believe that this is it, Israel will be destroyed and God will move on with Plan B. However, half-way through the last chapter, there is a major shift. Amos writes that God says, “On that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen, and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old.” 

 Jesus speaks for God here in lamenting how often he had wanted to reach out to save and protect the people but they would not listen to his messengers. The trope of God spreading his wings to protect his children is a common one. David asked God to “Guard me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings” (Psalm 17: 8); and again, “How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings” (Psalm 36: 7; see also 57: 1, 61: 4, 63: 7, 91: 4). All of these refer to thanking God for his protection or asking God to protect the speaker. None of them tells of God’s lament that he would have done more, though more than once God does lament: "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender" (Hosea 11: 8).

 Finally, Jesus, like the prophets, ends with a conditional prophecy. If they repent and return to God, then the day will come when they are able to say, as they did when he first entered the city, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” (Psalm 118: 26; Matthew 21: 9). 

 So, Jesus the prophet, warns the leaders and people about God’s coming wrath, and then opens a window for the light of God’s steadfast love to flood in. This pattern is the one that John Wesley advised all his preachers to follow. First, warn the people about their sinful nature, that they are by the force of Original Sin, ‘children of wrath’. Then ask them how they plan to escape. 

 Second, inform them about the great grace of God shown in the death of Jesus Christ which paid the penalty for our sins, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ which provides the power to generate a new life in Christ. Then, ask them whether or not they realize their precarious position and thus would rather accept God’s offer of salvation. That is, they must confess their sins, repent of their evil nature (a product of Original Sin), and accept Jesus as their Savior which ushers them into a new life in the Spirit as the redeemed children of God.

 Wesley referred to this order of salvation (ordo salutis) as the first work of grace (justification) and the second work of grace (sanctification). Sanctification (making holy) Wesley called the Second Blessing.

 “In the year 1738 Wesley discovered what he often thereafter took care to explain, that in the New Testament the term ‘salvation’ did not refer simply to eternal blessedness in heaven. It signified, rather, the experience of a new life in Christ that enabled believers to live ‘soberly, righteously, and godly in the present world’. … This promise of a divine bestowment of both justifying and regenerating grace was, for Wesley, the heart of the New Testament’s good news…” 

(‘Foreword’ by Timothy L. Smith (1980), to a reprint of Harold Lindström, Wesley and Sanctification: A Study in the Doctrine of Salvation, 1946, page v).