Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent -- March 22, 2011
Matthew 23:1 – 12
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
“Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have people call them ‘Rabbi.’
“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
A movement toward spiritual maturity is a movement toward congruence, in which the soul of a person aligns with her/his outer actions.
Jesus used the example of the religious leaders of his time, whose lives were not congruent. Jesus said, “Everything they do is done for people to see.” In other words, their words said one thing, their actions said another thing, and beneath all of that was a hidden motivation: To be seen, and thus esteemed, by others.
You can say with a high degree of certainty that when the self is the center of one’s motivation, that life is not congruent. The self skews and distorts, defends and manipulates for its own purposes.
On the one hand, none of us are immune from this self-centered, skewed living. We tend to roast the religious leaders of Jesus’ day for their hypocrisy. Somehow, we are under the illusion that they were bad people and that had we lived in Jesus’ time, we would be different. We believe that our commitment and faith is far superior to theirs.
Sorry, but not so. An honest spirituality affirms that we have much more in common with these hypocrites than we are dis-similar. We live with at least one foot in pharisaical pretense, willing to manipulate public opinion for our own benefit.
On the other hand, we are invited to a spirituality of congruence. Just as we confess our feet of clay and our identification with hypocrisy, so we can affirm that we desire to live a fully congruent life in which our inner motivation is transformed.
Very truly, we have our feet in both worlds. We confess the hypocrisy that lives within us. And we affirm that our soul longs for congruence, for expression in the outer world that matches the God-shape within us.
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
“Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have people call them ‘Rabbi.’
“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
A movement toward spiritual maturity is a movement toward congruence, in which the soul of a person aligns with her/his outer actions.
Jesus used the example of the religious leaders of his time, whose lives were not congruent. Jesus said, “Everything they do is done for people to see.” In other words, their words said one thing, their actions said another thing, and beneath all of that was a hidden motivation: To be seen, and thus esteemed, by others.
You can say with a high degree of certainty that when the self is the center of one’s motivation, that life is not congruent. The self skews and distorts, defends and manipulates for its own purposes.
On the one hand, none of us are immune from this self-centered, skewed living. We tend to roast the religious leaders of Jesus’ day for their hypocrisy. Somehow, we are under the illusion that they were bad people and that had we lived in Jesus’ time, we would be different. We believe that our commitment and faith is far superior to theirs.
Sorry, but not so. An honest spirituality affirms that we have much more in common with these hypocrites than we are dis-similar. We live with at least one foot in pharisaical pretense, willing to manipulate public opinion for our own benefit.
On the other hand, we are invited to a spirituality of congruence. Just as we confess our feet of clay and our identification with hypocrisy, so we can affirm that we desire to live a fully congruent life in which our inner motivation is transformed.
Very truly, we have our feet in both worlds. We confess the hypocrisy that lives within us. And we affirm that our soul longs for congruence, for expression in the outer world that matches the God-shape within us.
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