God’s Call for Humility and Indictment against Hypocrisy – Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

In the First Reading (Isaiah 1:10, 16-20), we hear God calling us to cleanse ourselves, convert our hearts, change our deeds from evil to good, aiming for justice, increase our compassion for the vulnerable and the suffering, and  reconcile with God, so that we will be renewed to make a new start with a clean slate, by God’s mercy.  In Lenten context, this is why we repent for 40 days and seek out the Sacrament of Reconciliation: confessing our sins and having them absorbed by Christ in a priest, who is in persona Christi.  This way, we can convert our hearts, change our conducts, and our lives can be renewed by God’s grace.

On Ash Wednesday, at the beginning of Lent, we heard God’s call for our conversion, turning our hearts back to God from ways of sins (i.e. Joel 2:12-18).  Upon this call of God, we have decided to take the way back to God, which is the path of life over other ways that lead to death, as reflected in the First Reading on Thursday After Ash Wednesday (Deuteronomy 30:15-20). This way back to God, the way of life, is our Lenten journey, and it is “the road less traveled”, evoking an image of Robert Frost’s poem, “Road Less Traveled”, in juxtaposition to the narrow gate and constricted road of life that Jesus spoke in contrast to the wider gate and broad road leading to death (Matthew 7:13-14).

In the first sentence of the First Reading, we mark God’s strong word of indictment to Jewish leaders, calling them collectively, “princes of Sodom” (Isaiah 1:10). Sodom, along with Gomorrah, is a synonym of sinfulness that incites God’s destructive wrath (i.e. Genesis 19:1-29). Thus, being called by God “princes of Sodom” means being extremely sinful, bringing God’s anger to the boiling point.

Though the Hebrew word in the original text, “קָצִין” (qatsin) is translated as “prince”, this Hebrew word literally means “ruler” or “commander” or “chief”. Therefore, God addresses his convicting words to Jewish leaders of the 8^th century BC, perhaps between 740 – 700 BC.  These leaders, collectively called, “prince/ruler of Sodom” (Isaiah 1:10) are leaders when kings of Judah were Uzziah (c.a. 783-742 BC), Jotham (750 – 735 BC), Ahaz (732–716 BC), and Hezekiah (c.a. 716–697 B)(Isaiah 1:1). Among these kings of Judah (the House of David), Ahaz was notoriously sinful (i.e. 2 Chronicles 28:19). Though Uzziah and Hezekiah are considered as “relatively good”, they were obviously not good enough in the eyes of God and not as good as Josiah, who reformed the kingdom of Judah to align with the Torah and renewed the covenant with God (2 Kings 22:1-23:25; 2 Chronicles 34:1-35:27). Nevertheless, in spite of Josiah’s reform, God’s anger toward Judah was not completely appeased, given the grievous sin of Manasseh, who  succeeded Hezekiah (2 Kings 21:1-18; 2 Chronicles 33:1-20), and proclaimed to destroy Judah and its holy capitol, Jerusalem, and its Temple  (2 Kings 23:26-27; cf. 2 Kings 21:12-15). And in 586 BC, Judah was attacked, and Jerusalem and its Temple were destroyed, by the Babylonians of king Nebuchadnezzar, leaving those who survived in exile until Cyrus of Persia liberated them from Babylon as God’s hands (2 Chronicles 36:15-23); cf. 2 Kings 25:1-30).

The First Reading (Isaiah 1:10, 16-20) is drawn from Isaiah’s early prophecy of Judah’s fate with God’s indictment , giving a powerful impression of God a the judge against sinners or sinful kingdoms (Isaiah 1:1-31). Though He has found Judah guilty of her sin and  issued these words of His indictment (Isaiah 1:2-9, 21-24, 28-31), God offers her a chance to prevent the indictment’s execution, with the condition; if this sinful kingdom turn away from sins, purify herself, and reconcile with God (Isaiah 1:16-19). And He adds with warning; if she did not take this offer of chance from God (Isaiah 1:20). Nevertheless,  God also indicates to restore Judah even she failed to hear His indicting words and ended have His judgement against her carried out (Isaiah 1:25-27).

These indicting words of God against Judah (Isaiah 1:2-31), from which the First Reading (Isaiah 1:10, 16-20) is taken, are directed more toward Judah’s unfaithful leaders – not only kings but also priests.

In the Gospel Reading of Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent (Matthew 23:1-12), we hear Jesus denouncing the narcissistic hypocrisy of the scribes and the Pharisees. In this Gospel Reading, we also hear him Jesus teaching us about humility. In fact, this evokes the Gospel Reading of Ash Wednesday (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18), as it is about keeping our Lenten commitment to prayer, fasting (abstinence), and almsgiving rather hidden from public eyes.

Do you post your Lenten prayer, fasting (abstinence), and almsgiving, to social media outlets, such as Facebook and Instagram? If you do, what is your motive to post these things to show them to the world? It is because you want the world to see you how holy and pious you are?

Pastoral activities and ministries, as our apostolic commitment, need to be visible in public, because we are called to be light, as well as, salt, of the world (Matthew 5:13-16)  and to evangelize and catechize with God’s truth, which is to be revealed, as a lamp stand not to be hidden (Luke 8:16-18).  However, Jesus makes it clear that our Lenten commitments are not public ministry. Our commitment to the Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, is rather private, therefore, to be kept from public eyes, as reminded by Jesus in the Ash Wednesday Gospel Reading (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18).

Jesus speaks against the scribes and the Pharisees for their narcissistic hypocrisy, because they seek to be honored by taking up the chair of Moses, to be seen as the authorities of the Torah (Matthew 23:2), they love to be honored in marketplaces and in synagogues (Matthew 23:6), they are they are eager to receive greetings of  respect and salutation, “Rabbi” in public (Matthew 23:7), and their primary motive of ministry works is to draw a favorable attention to themselves (Matthew 6:5a), while making themselves look ostentatiously pious by widening their phylacteries and lengthening their tassels (Matthew 23:5b). Jesus also rebukes then for their way of teaching the Torah excessively burdensome to people, and they did not help to observe the mitzvoth (commandments) in the Torah (Matthew 23:4) though God’s mitzvoth are not burden but reflection of His love (i.e. 1 John 5:3).

In the eyes of Jesus, these hypocrites, the scribes and the Pharisees, are motivated by their desire for self-glorification, rather than love for God, in engaging in their ministries regarding the Torah. And, the way they teach the Torah is not authentic because they make observing the mitzvoth of the Torah burdensome, thus, making it very difficult to keep them. In this regard, they are not authentic teaches of the Torah. Yet, they sit in the chair of Moses as if they were authentic teachers of the Torah. Because of their egoistic motive for their ministries on the Torah, they also love to be called “Rabbi”. But, Jesus says that they do not deserve to be regarded as “Rabbi”, given their wrong motives and unauthentic teaching. Because of this problem, Jesus came to fulfill the Torah (Matthew 5:17) through his rabbinic teaching (Matthew 5:21-48) and calls us to learn from him because his way of teaching the Torah is not burden to us (i.e. Matthew 11:28-30). Those who follow Jesus’ teaching of the Torah, not the scribes’ and the Pharisees’, do not accuse those who failed to observe mitzvoth but help them keep to fulfill the Torah (Galatians 6:2).

Because Jesus is the ultimately authentic Rabbi, the master of teaching the Torah, Jesus says:

Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Messiah (Matthew 23:9-10).

None of the scribes and the Pharisees can be in par with Jesus in regard to authentically teaching the Torah – though their egoistic motives of teaching the Torah drives them to seek the seat of Moses for honor and self-glorification, as if they deserved to be called “Rabbi”. All they did was to keep them occupied to draw attention in public and to burden people with the Torah. And to Jesus, this set of problems of hypocrisy of the scribes and the Pharisees are attributed to their lack of humility. Insufficiency in humility will lead to narcissism and arrogance. In light of Isaiah 1:1-31, from which the First Reading (Isaiah 1:10, 16-20) is drawn from, a lack of humility was a common problem among Judah’s leaders, whom God called “princes of Sodom”(Isaiah 1:10).

Thus Jesus says:

The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Matthew 23:11-12).

Following the Gospel Reading text (Matthew 23:1-12), Jesus condemns by issuing seven woes against the scribes and the Pharisees (Matthew 23:13-36), to expound what he means by “whoever exalts himself will be humble”(Matthew 23:12a), and these woes can be juxtaposed to God’s indicting words to the “princes of Sodom” in Isaiah 1:2-9, 21-24, 28-31. In each woe, Jesus lists what make them guilty to be condemned: keeping people out of God's kingdom (v. 13), taking advantage of widows (v. 14), misleading people to eternal condemnation (v. 15),  covetous casuistry for materialistic things (vv. 16-22), legalism to kill compassion (vv. 23-24), corrupted inner being masked with ostentatious external purity (vv. 25-28), harboring murderous intention against the righteous (vv. 29-32).

God’s indictment to “princes of Sodom” and Jesus’ rebuke on the scribes and the Pharisees, leading to his seven woes against them, need to be taken seriously for our Examen, to ensure we will not fall to their path as hypocrites but also of false teachers and false prophets – especially those are in pastoral leadership, including bishops and priests.  Jesus calls us to be humble regardless of your leadership status and careful about our leaders and to discern the truth even in teachings of hypocrite teachers.