Woe... Whoa!

 Matthew 23:1-12 is the lectionary text for Sunday, November 1.  I will look at all of Chpt. 23.

For the sake of the people and his followers, Jesus clearly exposed the corrupt religious leaders of His time for who they were and what values they lived.  They were in positions of power in the church, so the people had to adhere to what they said, but Jesus admonished the people not to adopt the empire values that the religious leaders had adopted.  The religious leaders were all about the empire values of wealth, power and status.  Jesus called for humility, promising that these corrupt leaders would be eventually deflated.

The lectionary stops there, but the rest of this chapter is crucial for understanding that against which we must stand.

Jesus addressed the corrupt religious leaders directly.

Jesus exposed them for not being of the Kingdom, and leading others away from the Kingdom, converting people to live their devotion for the gods of empire, and thus putting them in Hell.

Jesus pointed out their greed and love for all that glitters, rather than what the church stands for and what God intended it to be about.

Jesus rebuked them for their displays of opulent wealth in their tithes, while ignoring justice, mercy and faith for the children of God!

Jesus called them out on their outward appearances which are facades designed to hide evil within.

Jesus accused them of giving lip service to the messengers of God from old, but ignoring, silencing, punishing and killing the prophets God has sent to them now.

Jesus in utter frustration, wept over Jerusalem because of what the center of God's covenant community had become.  It was not as God wanted.  

Jesus declared their institution desolate.

Jesus said they would not have another chance until they welcomed Him and His Good News.

This is the text for the day after Reformation.  It echoes the corruptions of the religious leaders over the centuries -

The Temple Cult leadership in Jesus' time,

the growing corruptions that came with the institutionalization of the church under Rome, 

their culmination in the Holy Roman Empire under Pope Leo X,

and now with the Desolating Sacrilege of 1981 and following in the U.S., during which the Religious "Right" and Political "Right" got together to corrupt the church and society with their devotion to the false gods of empire once again.

Jesus still weeps over the institutions that now bear His name, for we are again desolate.

Our only hope is transformation in repentance - changing our thinking so that our direction will change.

Our only hope is transformation in coming to live what Jesus taught, commanded and modeled for us as faithfulness, as we have in the Gospels of Agape and Grace.  The Good News is, as Jesus pointed out, that we who follow Jesus can still do so, in spite of what "the church" as institution does.  The transformation must therefore start with us.  

Without that, we will remain desolate - the church and the nation.  We have seen what that looks like, and we know it can get much, much worse.

Pastor Jamie