The Seat of Moses
Proper 26, Matthew 23:1-12
This Sunday is one of those when the readership isn’t all on the same page, literally at least. Quite a few of you will keep All Saints’ Day on Sunday, but others will have the readings for the Sunday. If you do keep All Saints, you are likely to read the Matthean beatitudes (5:1-12). While you (probably!) can’t read both Gospels, these two have some interesting connections, because of their shared Matthean vision. However I am going to start with the Gospel for Proper 26 and hence Matthew 23, but will come back to Matthew 5 (so keep reading) with a couple of other detours,
In this tense narrative of Jesus’ last days, direct verbal conflicts between Jesus and the rival Jewish authorities and factions have ended (at least until his trial), but now Jesus engages in a critique of the Pharisees and scribes. Despite its sharp content, the discourse opens with a surprising affirmation of the authority of these teachers: “‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it” (2-3a).
While there is a tension between this statement and what follows, the admonition to respect the teaching of those in the chair of Moses may best be understood as an expression of Jesus’ high view of Jewish law, a strong theme in Matthew, which the Sermon on the Mount in particular demonstrates. Just after the beatitudes, Jesus famously says
‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (5:17-20)
Note that the exact same group as in chapter 23, scribes and Pharisees, are also the target of criticism here, even as the law and the prophets themselves are upheld vigorously.
This earlier passage also warns us against the common and deeply flawed interpretation wherein Jesus is supposed to be treating the teachings of Judaism as onerous, pedantic, and hypocritical per se, and hence implying that the point of the Gospel is to free us from them. This is not what Jesus says, here or anywhere. Rather—and especially in Matthew’s Gospel—Jesus tends to radicalize the demands of the law, not loosen them. Yet he does criticize the actual performance of the law by his contemporary rivals and detractors.
It is probably the same tension or contrast, not between law and its absence but between the law and its heart, that the reader is being asked to remember here in Matthew 23. Although it seems unlikely that the original readers of Matthew’s Gospel were expecting to obey the details of Pharisaic interpretation a few decades after these events depicted, Jesus never speaks as though obedience to these teachers would constitute a failure; it just might not be a success.
Respect was necessary for the teaching office itself, since the scribes were the interpreters of the scriptures in the synagogues. Scholars are not of one mind about whether the Christians whose life is reflected in Matthew are still connected with (other) local synagogues to the extent that this was a practical concern, but the memory of this fact, and the principle of respect for law and prophets, certainly remained.
The most obvious case sometimes claimed as a conflict between Jesus’ teaching and theirs is in Matt 15, where a question about food and hand-washing comes up. Yet there Jesus says nothing that would make it wrong for the early Christ-followers of Jewish origin—like Matthew’s readership—to wash hands as the Pharisees did; he is concerned not with adherence on small issues, but with failure to obey the more important commands, such as caring for parents.
So while it is important to insulate this text from the temptation to produce anti-Judaic readings, we might feel we are left with the historical record of an ancient conflict between Jewish teachers, to which we are no longer a party.
Remember however that the key objection Jesus raises to the teaching of the Pharisees is not its content, but its coherence with their actions. So this is not some grand theory about Pharisaic doctrine, let alone about Jewish law, but about a specific set of people and their failures. They say one thing but do another. Just as in Matt 15 the principle that remains under attack is hypocrisy, not Pharisaic doctrine itself.
So this is actually a very contemporary issue, and one that should send a ripple of anxiety through the modern reader or preacher. The question being asked is not about our relationship to Judaism, but our relationship to the truth; that is, whether what we do is as true as that easier matter, what we say.
Matthew is consistently concerned with actions, treating them (as does the Letter of James) as the real measure of faith. This will be reinforced in a couple of weeks when we read the parable of the Last Judgement, which depicts many pious people stunned to find themselves judged on their deeds, and not their profession of belief in Jesus.
Where though do these stern warnings about the coherence of word and action leave us? Clearly we are meant to take them to heart, but it would be dispiriting simply to be left with that familiar moralizing chorus of “do better,” which serves mostly to divide and depress. A lot of us are actually doing as well as we can, even if that’s not so great.
In the center of today’s Gospel passage, this problem is expressed as one not just of incoherence between words and actions, but as one of appearances and of receiving honor. Jesus presents it as a social problem, not just one of the inner life. Whether we are those called upon as “father” or “teacher” or whatever else, we fail when the ways we are perceived and labelled become our reality. The temptation is apparently to “curate” a life in which these affirmations insulate us from what law and Gospel both demand. It is thus not only what we say but what others say that may serve as substitutes for doing what is true.
Here, then, the Beatitudes may provide a counterpoint to the hypocrisy and flattery that cloud actions with words. Jesus pronounces a blessing on those whose relationship with the truth is profound, but who do not yet receive approbation or reward. They are blessed, the Matt 5 All Saints’ Gospel passage ends by saying, precisely because so far they receive not flattery or praise, but experience how the reality of doing God’s truth clashes with the world’s pretensions. These are they who, humbling themselves, will be exalted (23:12).