The 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 5, 2023

Matthew 23, 1–12

Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’ As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. 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 Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

“The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.”   We note here the way the Lord has phrased this statement: They have “taken” their seat on the throne of Moses.  He does not say that they were appointed by anyone to the chair of Moses — his teaching authority.  In the absence of anyone else in his seat, they set themselves in it.  A prime weakness from which the Judaic religion suffered came from the lack of officially appointed teachers who would explain the Law and the Prophets to the people.  In the beginnings of the people of Israel, after they had settled in the Promised Land, God had sent men and women as judges to protect their independence and also to explain the Law to them.  Samuel was the last of these.  After the Temple was built in Jerusalem and the worship of God conducted there, the high priest and the priests from the tribe of Levi centered their lives around their service in that place.  They did not teach the Law to the people.  The Prophets urged the people to embrace the Law and especially to reject the worship of idols but they did not “take their seat” on the chair of Moses.  It was up to the high priest to appoint teachers of the Law, but this never happened.  The people were easy prey for the Pharisees, who simply moved in and taught their interpretation of the Law as the Law, though it varied from it, sometimes quite considerably.

“Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example.”  We might question why the Lord admonishes the people of the crowd to do this, especially in light of what the Apostles would say following his Ascension into heaven, when the Pharisees ordered them not to preach about Jesus: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5, 29).  And later, they would teach that all animals were clean and could be eaten, in contradiction to the Pharisees: “That which God has cleansed, do not call unclean” (Acts 10, 15).  But the time for this had not yet come.  The Law would hold force until the Death and Resurrection of the Lord, and then the New Law of the New Covenant made in his Precious Blood, had force.  The Pharisees then lost the chair in which they had presumptuously seated themselves.  “They do not practice.”  This is an implied warning for his followers that they must practice what they believed and what they would one day teach.

“They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.”  The Mosaic Law did not lay heavy burdens on the people.  It provided both a civil and a religious code that was probably less onerous than the codes of the people around them, who worshipped many gods, including some which demanded human sacrifices.  It was the Pharisees who “tied up” the Law with their convoluted interpretations that made burdens that were hard to carry.  

“All their works are performed to be seen.”  Some interpret this verse to mean that we should perform all of our good deeds secretly so no one knows who performed them, but this seems going to far, as a rule.  As people who live public lives it can be very difficult to follow this, and st the same time we ought to be giving good example to others.  The question, rather, is one of motivation.  Am I performing this good act in order to be congratulated for it, or am I doing this in order to render assistance to someone in need, and it doesn’t concern me whether others sees this or not.  The Lord’s injunction to not let our left hand know what our right hand is doing in performing acts of charity refers to the state in which we should be that we do not even realize we are performing good deeds because doing so is so normal for us.

“As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. 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 Christ.”  That is, do not seek out of pride to be called Rabbi, Father, or Master, and do not get it into your heads that you are your own authority.  For us, to be a Teacher, Father, or Master is to share in the Lord’s identity and authority as such, not to have it for ourselves, and certainly not to appoint ourselves to sit in his “seat”. 

“The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”  The Lord sums up his teaching in these two simple lines.  The Pharisees did not see themselves as servants but as rulers.  They took the seat of Moses for themselves but did not act as Moses had — as the servant of God who led Israel as their servant.  When the Lord says “the greatest”, he means the wisest, the most capable, perhaps even the most wealthy.  These “greatest” among the followers of the Lord have a special obligation to be particularly dedicated servants.  We see this in the case of St. Paul, who, of all the early preachers of the Gospel, had the best education, was the most gifted theologian, and had the most endurance.  He himself declares, “I made myself the servant of all” (1 Corinthians 9, 19).

Let us strive also to serve by our speech and our good example so that we might receive the rewards promised in the Gospel to those who love God and follow his Law of Love.