Now there was someone with a determination to put his sport above everything else. He was making a statement about priorities. In the pressures of today's world, there are too many who don't allocate regular time to relax. In the Sabbath rule, we need to recognise that the loving Creator has given us permission to "take a break…" - permission that we ignore to our detriment in the drivenness to achieve in today's world. We can actually feel guilty about doing nothing particular. The Sabbath rule tells us, of course, to "take a break" to the Lord our God. We need to recharge the batteries spiritually - not only physically and emotionally.
So much of our lives centres just on ourselves. Some of us may have a major problem with low feelings of self-worth, but this is another symptom of our self-centredness.
An admirer once asked the famous conductor Leonard Bernstein what was the most difficult instrument to play. He was quick to respond: "Second fiddle. I can get plenty of first violinists, but to find one who plays second violin with as much enthusiasm or second French horn or second flute, now that's a problem. And yet if no one plays second, we have no harmony."
Jesus was opposed by the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the teachers of the law. They were looking for every opportunity to catch him out, hoping to expose him to public ridicule or to the condemnation of the Roman authorities. Jesus had answered them carefully and wisely. While angered by his responses, they could find no fault in him and dared not ask him any more questions.
Jesus now warns the crowds and his disciples against the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. Jesus says that "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat" (Mt. 23.2). They are, in other words, the ones who claim to be heirs of Moses' authority by an unbroken tradition and so can deliver ex cathedra pronouncements on his teaching (McNeile).
Jesus doesn't condemn their teachings here as he does elsewhere. Rather, he acknowledges that there is a measure of respect due to them. "As teachers they have their place, but beware of following their example" (A.B. Bruce). They are in fact only teachers (preachers) and, from God's point of view, do not practise what they are teach/preach.
He describes them as task-masters, not burden-bearers, not sympathetic helpers. It seems that they took pride in loading people down with the many regulations they had added to the law. In fact their own observance of the law was wholly outward rather than inward. They made a great parade of their own holiness but had, in reality, missed the heart of the matter altogether.
They were very particular about wearing phylacteries - small leather cases in which were four strips of parchment containing Exodus 13 verses 1-10 and verses 11-16, Deuteronomy 6 verses 4-9, and 11 verses 13-21. Here is a description: "That for the head was to consist of a box with four compartments, each containing a slip of parchment inscribed with one of the four passages. Each of these strips was to be tied up with a well-washed hair from a calf's tail; lest, if tied with wool or thread, any fungoid growth should ever pollute them. The phylactery of the arm was to contain a single slip, with the same four passages written in four columns of seven lines each. The black leather straps by which they were fastened were wound seven times round the arm and three times round the hand. They were reverenced by the rabbis as highly as the scriptures, and, like them, might be rescued from the flames on a sabbath" (M.R. Vincent).
It is true that in Deut. 6.4-9 we hear Moses saying, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."
But they had failed to grasp that these were not principally to be symbols on forehead, arms, doorposts and gates. God's law was to be the principle of their thinking, their actions, their family life, and all their comings and goings.
Again and again we hear the Old Testament prophets saying, in effect, "You've got it all wrong! You preserve the religious shell, but have no heart for me or for other people!" We hear the Lord saying through Isaiah, "The multitude of your sacrifices - what are they to me? I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations - I cannot bear your evil assemblies… wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!…" (Is.1.11-13,16-17a).
Or we think of the words of Micah, "With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (Mic.6.6-8).
Yes, they are wearing it on their foreheads, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your strength," but never in fact translating it into their lives.
"To walk humbly with our God…" - that's the very quality that was missing from their lives.
That's not to be the way you live, Jesus tells his disciples. In fact, don't be called "Rabbi" because you are all brothers and have only one Master. Don't elevate another as "Father" because you have only one Father in heaven. Don't even claim the title "Teacher" because your one and only Teacher is Christ himself (Mt 23.8-10).
Walk humbly with our God… "The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted" (vv. 11-12).
C.S. Lewis wrote, "The Second Person in God, the Son, became human himself: was born into the world as an actual man - a real man of a particular height, with hair of a particular colour, speaking a particular language, weighing so many stone. The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a foetus inside a woman's body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab." The Son of God humbled himself. He does not ask of us more than he was willing to do himself.
A young seminary graduate came up to the lectern, very self-confident and immaculately dressed. He began to deliver his first sermon in his first church and the words simply wouldn't come out. Finally he burst into tears and ended up leaving the platform obviously humbled.
There were two older ladies sitting in the front row and one remarked to the other, "If he'd come in like he went out, he would have gone out like he came in."
Jesus calls us to a real trust in God and to humble service in his church and world. The temptation is ever before us to exalt ourselves - to impress others, to make a name for ourselves. That was not how Jesus came, nor was it why he came.
As Micah put it, "He has showed you… what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."
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