WALK THE WALK
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Text: Matthew 23:1-12
In Adult Forum, Betsy is leading us through a fascinating and entertaining study of fables, proverbs and parables. Last week we enjoyed visiting, or revisiting, the charming and instructive fables of Aesop, with their amusing yet sharply pointed endings. During the hour, Betsy challenged us to listen to fables and guess the moral of each fable. It is interesting to consider how many of Aesop’s ancient punch lines are still part of our culture, even if we state them in more modern language: “The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny. Self-help is the best help. Slow but steady wins the race. Birds of a feather flock together. The greatest kindness will not bind the ungrateful. Fair weather friends are not worth much. Don't make much ado about nothing. Pleasure bought with pains, hurts. Look before you leap. Pride goes before a fall.”
Today’s text from Matthew’s gospel comes with some pointed punch lines of its own. If you recall from last week, Jesus had just silenced, first the Sadducees, and then the Scribes and Pharisees with the power and passion, wit and wisdom of his responses to their attempts to trap him with difficult, tricky questions. At the same time, they were incapable of answering the challenges and questions he put to them. Clearly he had carried the day in open confrontation with these religious leaders who contested his ministry.
Now he turns to his disciples and the crowd gathered around him in the Temple courtyard. But he is quite aware that the plotting religious leaders are not out of earshot and so he speaks in a voice loud enough for all to hear. “The Scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” We must be very clear that, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus in no way challenges the law itself. In fact, he claims that he has come to fulfill that very law. His difficulty is with the way many, though not all, of the religious leaders interpret and practice – or fail to practice – the law. In modern vernacular, he is concerned that these religious leaders can all “talk the talk, but they don’t walk the walk.” Does that sound familiar? Do we know anyone who fits that description?
They sit in Moses’ seat – probably a chair in the front of the synagogue, facing the congregation, maybe something like these big chairs we have on the platform of our sanctuary. They have studied the law in great detail; they have dedicated their lives to the law; they use their understanding and practice of the law to separate themselves from all those who fail to follow the law as they understand and proclaim it. Of course such separatism, such setting oneself apart, often leads to thinking oneself better than all the rest. In addition, some of them are so concerned with technical questions concerning the application of the law that they have lost sight of its original meaning; they are so caught up in determining the precise number of angels that can dance on the head of the proverbial pin that they have forgotten Who ordained the law and for what purposes. Jesus says they can tell you what the law says, sometimes with great eloquence, and you should listen with care and respect. But beware, he cautions, of how they fail to live out what they are teaching. Do not emulate their behavior when it is not a living out of the law as God ordained it.
Last week we were pretty hard on lawyers. So, I think this week it is only fair to let Jim and Elizabeth off the hook. While it is true that the title Scribe can be translated as lawyer, Scribes were really biblical scholars, experts on God’s law. Perhaps they functioned in some ways like modern lawyers, but they were really religious leaders. Rather than calling this the story of the lawyers and the lay folk, it is probably more accurate to call it the parable of the preacher and the people. If that is the case, then the punch line to Jesus teaching is “practice what you preach” or, rather, it is a challenge to preachers who fail to practice what they preach while expecting their parishioners to live up to words they proclaim.
What of these preachers, these religious leaders? “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others, but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.” What Jesus is saying about the Scribes and Pharisees in particular is that they have taken the 613 laws contained in the Torah, the original books of the Mosaic Law, and added myriad new rules and regulations in interpretation of the original law. In other words, some of them have become so obsessed with finding the precisely correct answer for any question that may arise about the law that they have made an absurdity of the code itself and laid an unbearably heavy burden on anyone seeking to practice the tradition and live the law in faithfulness.
Sherman Johnson says that “Pharasaism appealed to those who wanted a ‘safe’ way of salvation and would have feared Jesus’ nontechnical, adventurous, and prophetic approach to religion.” Johnson also notes that, while the Pharisees “relaxed numerous rules of the written law which were almost impossible to keep,” they “did not take away the heavy burdens of ceremonial law which Jesus wished removed. Instead, they often increased them.” Thus, we get Jesus arguing with them over proper respect for the Sabbath when one is hungry and in need, and the letter of the law that prohibits picking corn to eat on that holy day. In the end, Johnson argues, “Jesus believed in fewer rules and a larger area of individual judgment and responsibility, while the Pharisees wished to have all doubtful questions answered by the constituted authority” (Sherman E. Johnson, The Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 7, Matthew, p. 529.)
But it’s not just the way these religious leaders talk the talk without walking the walk that concerns Jesus. He is also concerned with the walk that they do walk. “They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi.” Rabbi does not just mean “teacher” but, more literally, it means “my lord” or “my great one” (Johnson, p. 530.) So, there is this sense, at least for some of these religious leaders, that they are due deference and special attention because of their roles, their learning and their authority. And not only do they believe they are due these honors, they make sure that everyone else knows they are. They are more concerned with calling attention to themselves than they are with any real understanding and application of the law.
Of course, none of us has ever been vulnerable to this sort of thinking or behavior. None of us has ever thought more highly of him – or her – self than they ought. None of us has ever drawn attention to ourselves when we would have been better served by humble silence. “Look at me! See what I can do? Don’t you love how fabulous I look today?” I once had a friend who actually wore a button that read “I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.” How much insecurity have we hidden by insisting we had answers that we did not have? How often have we appeared in public, dressed in what we supposed to be all our finery, only to have a little child shout that “the emperor has no clothes? How often have we acted or reacted in pride that drove a wedge between us and a sister or brother or an entire community, when a little humility might have linked us all in the service of God and a greater good in partnership? “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
“Practice what you preach,” Jesus tells us. “Appearances are deceiving. Actions speak louder than words. If you talk the talk, you’ve also got to walk the walk.” What does he mean when he tells his audience to call no one rabbi or teacher, no one father, no one instructor or professor? Do you suppose he means to add another burdensome rule to the load of the law? I don’t think so.
I know as a good Baptist of a certain tradition, my father would have never been caught wearing a robe and he objected to being called reverend. I’m sure those beliefs of his were grounded in this passage from Matthew, but I think that Jesus is less concerned here with the trappings and the letter of the law than with its spirit. One might yet be called teacher or professor or father in the spirit of recognition that the ultimate manifestation of those titles is beyond the realm of our daily lives. I think he is talking about a dimension of life that begins in but goes far beyond the every day, as does God’s law itself. He is speaking here to the disciples, perhaps disciples like you and me, who come to him on bended knee, pleading, “to whom else shall we go, for you have the words of truth and life?” That is, there is no real authority on the law except Christ himself and the One who drafted the law and sent him to earth to fulfill it, literally, to embody it.
One must then hold those titles lightly and respectfully and humbly as gifts from above. "Genuine humility” as Carter Heyward reminds us “is a gift from God which has nothing to do with downcast eyes, a misty voice and noble stories of sacrifice. Humility is, rather, living courageously in a spirit of radical connectedness with others, which enables us to see ourselves as God sees us: sisters and brothers, each as deeply valued and worthy of respect as every other."
Over the past several weeks, we have looked at the goodness of the law, at how it functions to secure the covenant of relationship between God and God’s people. We have also seen how Jesus insisted that we look at the law through the lens of love and compassion, that we ground our understanding of the law in respect for our common origin as children of God. Love God with your whole being and love God’s creation, including your fellow creatures, as you love yourself. Jesus’ word is a leveling one. It challenges us to work and live as partners in service. If we love God with our whole being and, by extension, love God’s creation fully, how can it be otherwise?
Carter concludes her reflections: “When we meet one another in a spirit of humility, we are meeting God in one another, that which makes us spiritual sisters and brothers; at the same time, others are meeting God in us. God is not only with us in our encounters but is also moving in us and through us. In other words, we and others are embodying God, through our humility, which comes from God; we are making God incarnate, here in flesh, tangible and visible” If she is correct in her theologizing, and this is what Matthew is trying to teach us that Jesus said, then we’d better pay close attention to how we walk the walk. However, this is more an invitation or call to service than it is a challenge to straighten up and fly right. Yes, walking the walk entails responsibility; and, yes, it carries consequences when we don’t quite make it, but that is one of the key reasons it is essential that we walk the walk together and that we walk it in humility, not thinking that any of us is ultimately better than, or not in need of, the others.
And so we come to this table, surely set by human hands and presided over by human representatives, but as we gather here let us never forget that, ultimately, it is God’s table and Christ presides here. The rest of us are welcomed guests, none better than the other, none more worthy to dine here than the other, none due more respect than the other. Here we gather as sisters and brothers all, God’s children, and here we are all embraced and loved, forgiven and fed. Indeed, here we find the power to walk the walk. May it ever be so. Amen.