Pentecost 24  (Mark 12:38-44) “Beware of the scribes.”

One of the great challenges for religion is hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy holds the outward and visible sign of belief but denies the inward and spiritual reality of faith.

The scribes in Jesus’ day had a reputation for ostentatious outward displays of religious devotion. They used this outward display to magnify themselves, justify themselves and intimidate other people. They acted from the place of pride that said: I am righteous and you are not. Because I am righteous, God empowers me to rule. Thus, if you challenge me you challenge God.

It wasn’t always this way. Originally, scribes did the manual labor of writing letters, books, court records and of course- making copies of the Bible. After the destruction of the first Temple and the exile of the Jews to Babylon, the scribes began to acquire greater responsibilities. They became guardians of the tradition and then interpreters of the Tradition.

They fulfilled a vital role in the preservation of religion and culture. In the process they acquired great authority and power.

It wasn’t easy to become a scribe. A boy entered into a course of study at the age of 14. He did not complete his training until the age of 40. He was then ordained and authorized to teach and to judge.

Scribes did not receive payment for their work. They were required to support themselves financially. Some scribes were also priests and received wages from the Temple. Many practiced a trade such as tent maker or carpenter.

As their role in society evolved their understanding of that role shifted. They believed that they and they alone held the true interpretation of Moses and the prophets. They came to believe that the purpose of the Bible was not to reveal God’s Plan of Salvation to all people everywhere but to conceal the truth from the masses. They believed and taught that God only revealed the true meaning of the Bible to religious scholars. Indeed, they taught that the Bible was a book of secrets and mysteries that only the righteous could understand.

The evidence of righteousness was, for the scribe, his long years of study, his title, his authority and his way of living.

The scribes had a rich history of service and study. As with so many religious scholars of all religions, they allowed themselves to be seduced and subverted by their pride of accomplishment. That pride led to the assertion of their will to power. They came to believe God had chosen them to rule not to serve.

When they met Jesus they reacted to him with fear. Jesus taught with authority infused with compassion. He did not assert his will to power in order to dominate anyone. He taught the masses of people the Scribes viewed with disdain and disgust. He taught that the purpose of the Bible was to reveal our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation to all people everywhere.

The Scribes viewed Jesus as a threat to their authority and to their understanding of God. Their fear of Jesus turned to anger, their anger to hate and their hate to murder.

They were so close to the Plan of Salvation. They were so close to the revelation of God in Moses and the Prophets. But when God the Son came to them in human flesh, they rejected him.

Jesus is God’s perfect mirror to the human soul.

It is as we look at Jesus, hear his words, examine his actions that we see in Jesus our own pattern of life. That pattern is grounded in the choice our species made to separate from God.

For the Scribes, religion became the trap that enslaved them to separation. They had the outward forms. They lacked the inward reality that gave meaning and purpose to the forms. They had rigid inflexible uncompromising belief. They lacked faith.

Jesus both illustrates the problem and comments on the problem in the person of the widow who came to the Temple.

According to the beliefs of the day, this woman was a widow and she was poor because she was a sinner. Somewhere in her life she had offended God and God had punished her. Her offering was pitiful and despised. The belief of the time said only those who gave the large sums of money deserved praise and admiration. They were the righteous. Their money proved they were blessed by God. Their offering of that money in the Temple proved they were better than anyone else.

Money buys influence. Money buys power. The Scribes used their money to buy both.

Jesus did not criticize the offering. He criticized the belief that defined the offering. An offering is a gift. The Scribes and others had come to see offering as a payment for privilege, position, prestige and power.

When Jesus says: beware the Scribes, he is warning us against using our religion, our position in life and our money to assert our pride and our will to power.

We are called to serve not to rule.

The call to service is grounded in the threefold love of the Triune God.

We are called to worship, charity and personal holiness.

Sadly, the scribes had come to believe they were called to rule. For the Scribes, religion stopped at the outward and visible signs: long expensive robes, the chief seats in the synagogue, and the best places at feasts. There is nothing wrong with any of these things. What is wrong is the assertion that these things define a man’s worth. What is tragic is that attachment to these things subverts faith.

Jesus praised the widow for acting from the place of faith. The amount of her offering is not just the standard 10% the Law commanded. It was not 30% or 50% it was 100%. By faith, the widow gave 100% of her money as an offering to God. That is why Jesus said she gave more than the rich and powerful who gave 10% of their wealth.

Hypocrisy is a mask we wear to assume a role. It is not who we are. It is a deceit designed to impress. It is a lie we tell others. It is a lie we tell ourselves. The lie is that we can cheat God. We can hold the outward and visible forms of religion and claim to be something we are not.

The problem is not with the outward and visible forms. The problem is the way we use those forms to deceive ourselves and others that we are something that we are not. It is the way belief subverts faith.

Jesus did not condemn the scribes- he warned them. He warned them they were not in truth. He warned them they had distorted the Plan of Salvation. He warned them they were using their position to dominate. He warned them that their mask of righteousness only created resentment, cynicism and skepticism among the people.

And, Jesus warned others as he warns us to see the tragic flaw in such hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is based on a lie. Nothing built on the foundation of deceit can stand. All who follow the lie are indebted to the father of lies. Religious hypocrisy can be very subtle in its corrosive effect on the soul. That is why Jesus warns: “Beware of the scribes.”