23 August 2025 - but do not follow their example

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

All their works are performed to be seen.

The scribes and the Pharisees were teachers who were often more interested in having the self-image of people who were wise and righteous than an actually acting with wisdom and righteousness. They were so preoccupied with thoughts of how they would be perceived by others that they didn't have a thought of sympathy to spare for the way their preaching might be received. They were too busy acting according to a preconstructed pattern to much notice or care that the burdens they were laying on the shoulders of others were heavy and hard to carry. They didn't even feel the need to attend to the core ideas that they preached themselves as long as they looked right to those around them. And naturally, if they never really tried to carry the burdens themselves, they would have no sense of how heavy others would find them. Their preoccupation with themselves and with their image made them insensible to the needs of others. Such preoccupation always leads to problems, but was especially egregious in the lives of teachers, who needed, not less, but more sympathy, in order to effectively understand the needs of their students and help them to advance.

Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,
but do not follow their example.

Bad examples did not necessarily invalidate true teaching. There would be a temptation to see selfishness and hypocrisy and react, not against the bad example, but against the valid teaching itself. One could easily imagine that if this is all that was meant by righteousness he might as well dive head first into hedonism and sin, since he wouldn't be missing out on anything by doing so, and would in fact be protesting what he found to be false about such hypocritical teachers. It would take one level of humility to embrace teachings about the path of righteousness at all. But it would take another to receive that teaching from hypocrites and still observe it. Yet since all teachers are human, even those who mean well still end up acting hypocritically at times. And so we must all learn not to reject what is genuinely truth no matter from whom we hear it.

We are called to be concerned with integrity. We must practice. And if we preach we must make even more certain to do so. We must not put burdens on others shoulders with no interest in helping them to carry them. Instead, we must lead them to the yoke of Jesus whose burden is easy and whose yoke is light, who will himself help them to do so. It is all too easy for the tone of a teacher to shift into a mode that is more self-congratulatory than useful. We have no business saying anything at all unless is arises from a genuine concern for others.

Absolutely speaking, the only true teacher, master, and Father is God. The point of caution about titles is that we sometimes forget and imagine that we become little gods ourselves, thinking that we are masters of the truth rather than its servants. But if we can only learn to put service ahead of self-image, doing everything for the sake of our one master, the Christ, we ourselves will remain safe, and even become a useful conduit of the truth to others.

Relient K - For The Moments I Feel Faint