IS our religion vain ostentation or sincere practice? The tirade against the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23:1-12) is not only relevant during the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees, or as a challenge to the early Christian community, but also for us today. Are we in fact today “the Pharisees”?
Teachers needed
Jesus accepts the right of the scribes and Pharisees to teach. The laws must be taught and interpreted to the people. Authorities and experts are needed who can take their seat “on the chair of Moses.” Jesus underscores this, saying, “Every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old” (Matthew 13:52). We need the wisdom and the guidance of teachers who pass on to us the law and the tradition of our community. A teacher is a leader of others, and every leader must be a teacher.
What Jesus is presented as objecting against is the hypocrisy of teachers who do not practice what they teach, or who teach what they themselves do not practice. Such a life of contradiction starts with being at home in a dichotomy between thoughts and deeds. Otiose fascination with lofty ideas and stirring declarations without incarnation and validation in actual life. We hear this disjunction from teachers/leaders who claim, “Just do what I tell you, and it is not your concern what I do!” Jesus notes this insensitivity of teachers/leaders who can conjure up onerous legal and moral burdens for the people, but themselves “will not lift a finger to move them.” Not exemplary teachers but unyielding taskmasters of others, whose personal deeds should not be followed, even if we still must listen to what they say.
Servant leaders needed
The illusion of truth without the involving and engaging translation into action leads to a pursuit of grandeur and adulation. Avid is the desire for recognition and deep the hunger for the submission of others. One becomes preoccupied with being perceived as powerful and indestructible, therefore with the paraphernalia of irresistible force. In a divorce between ideals and right conduct, we have not only dead ideas but shameless acts of brutishness as well. Lack of integrity dooms not only the teacher/leader, but also the people who are misled and confused, subjugated and bullied. Because the teacher/leader is also blinded and confused enough to behave without compliance with moral principles, such a person can only precipitate the collapse of the community he/she is supposed to lead. There would likewise be the fatal hubris to insist on being the master of one’s own destiny and exempt from any scrutiny and criticism.
Jesus cannot leave the matter of teachers/leaders on the down-note of our human inadequacies and weaknesses. He spells out unmistakably what constitutes greatness among leaders, and he challenges his followers to such possible and needed greatness. Among true Christians, the greatest is the one who is really a servant, someone who is there for others and not just for oneself, carrying out the will of God and obedient to His word. Vainglory and pride are serious shortcomings, for then one no longer listens to God’s commandments. Coupled with hypocrisy, such self-centeredness and self-deception can only result in self-destruction and, alas, in the sufferings of others.
Alálaong bagá, in the Christian community, leadership is not a question of destiny or mere intellectual competence but of moral ascendancy. The leader is a servant who exhorts and inspires others by words and deeds to a life according to the Gospel and therefore to integral wellbeing. The people will be adrift and without anchor on what is right and good for everyone, if their teachers/leaders act in contradiction to the commandments of God and walk not in the path of truth and justice. And we must examine ourselves that we do not also become accomplices of any leadership that is delusional and without moral foundation.
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