Then Jesus said … to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. (Mt. 23:1-4)
It might be surprising to hear Jesus telling his disciples to obey what the Pharisees said. We are so accustomed to Jesus’ confrontations with them and their rejection of Jesus that we can easily miss that Jesus actually agreed with much of their teaching! Of the theological-political groups present in 1st Century Palestine, the Pharisees were by far the closest to Jesus.
But Jesus had several deep criticisms of the Pharisees. First, in their rigor with minor rules, they neglected the “weightier matters of the Law, like justice and mercy and faithfulness.” Second, they elevated their traditions (traditions designed to protect God’s Law) over the Law itself. And third, they didn’t practice what they preached—they were hypocrites.
It is this hypocrisy that Jesus denounces in much of Matthew 23, and his fierce words should wake us up! He called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs—beautiful to look at but full of death—because they were dishonest, greedy, and self-indulgent in their hearts even as they taught the opposite with their mouths.
All of us are hypocrites in that we are weak; we try, and then fail to live up to the standards that we claim. But Jesus isn’t talking about weakness in Matthew 23. He is talking about a flagrant disregard in one’s personal life for standards preached in public. In other words, he is talking about the politician running on a “family values platform” who cheats on his wife and taxes, or the pastor who is dishonest or abusive to his staff and family.
Most of us have that sort of flagrant hypocrisy in us, as well. We are good at the sort of self-justification that enables us to keep willingly choosing something in private that we would publicly repudiate. This is where we need Jesus’ words: “First clean the inside of the cup...”
But how do we clean the inside of the cup? How do we cleanse and change our hearts?
The Biblical answer begins with open and honest confession. God is willing to forgive and cleanse some of the most staggering sins we can imagine, if we would simply humble ourselves and honestly confess our faults. We clean the inside of the cup by bringing it into the light and confessing how dirty it actually is, because it is in the light—in God’s light—that God begins to cleanse and transform us.
Steven+