Sensible Hypocrites

The Good Shepherd—with sheep black and white—by Paige Payne

Lections: The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost (Lectionary 26), AD 2026 A

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Judaism has an ancient tradition of discerning truth through argumentation and debate. “As iron sharpens iron,” the Book of Proverbs relates, “so one person sharpens another.” Rabbinical students will often pair off to argue a point of Law, even if at heart they both agree.

Indeed, the Bible makes more sense once we realize that many of its books disagree on purpose. The first two chapters of Genesis offer wildly differing Creation accounts. The Book of Ruth disregards Deuteronomy. The Psalmist pushes back against Leviticus. And the Wisdom Literature—Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job—seem almost like a drunken brawl.

Nor is this limited to the Hebrew Bible, for the New Testament is entirely Jewish as well. We regularly misinterpret St Paul because he likes to play Devil’s advocate, laying out arguments, and quoting opponents, whom he will then refute. But in order to get there, we have to read more than one chapter at a time.

The Talmud—which for Rabbinic Judaism is the written record and interpretation of the Oral Law, or what Jesus called the traditions of the elders—often has but a tiny verse or bit of text in the middle of the page, surrounded by a ring of commentary, which itself is surrounded by a ring of commentary on the commentary, and so on, like the layers of an onion. Modern Study Bibles, which sometimes have far more footnotes than Scripture on any given page, stand in this tradition of debate down the centuries.

And so perhaps we can begin to understand why Jesus’ method of teaching proved so disruptive, so shocking, so scandalous. When He taught in parables, He did not cite His sources. He may often have agreed with Hillel or Shammai, the great sages of His day, but He never drew His authority from them. And while Jesus knew the Scriptures forward and back, in at least two or three different languages, He asserted His authority even over them. “You have heard it said,” He proclaimed, quoting a verse from the Bible, “but I say to you—!”

So when He rides into Jerusalem on that final Sunday of His earthly life, Palm Sunday; and drives out the moneychangers from the Temple, and denounces the priests and the scribes in His parables, and curses a fig tree as a sign of Jerusalem’s apostasy; little wonder then that the chief priests and the elders—the highest of religious authorities—demand of Him, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” It’s a reasonable question in a culture of open inquiry.

But Jesus answers their question with another question, which again is something a time-honored Jewish tradition. “Answer Me and I will answer you,” He replies. “The baptism of John, did it come from Heaven, or was it of human authority?” And this is a tricky one. John was Jesus’ Forerunner and cousin. Everything that Jesus does, John did first, and that includes being killed by the state, by a local puppet-ruler backed by Rome.

If the elders and priests and scribes of Jerusalem admit that John was a prophet from God, they open themselves up to criticism: Why then did they ignore him, and say nothing when he was beheaded? But they likewise fear to denounce him now, for the people loved John—even if, like so many martyrs, we only lionized him posthumously. It’s a Catch-22. Christ is good at those. So they take the prudent and easy way out: “We don’t know,” they claim, much to the crowd’s disappointment.

“Well, if you can’t give Me a straight answer, then how can I give one to you?” Jesus says rather slyly. But it seems He can give them an indirect answer. “What do you think?” He asks them. “A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ The first said no, but then later changed his mind and went. The second son, when told the same, immediately piped up, ‘I go, sir!’ But he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?”

Reluctantly, his interlocutors take the bait. “The first,” they concede.

“Well, what do you think of that?” Jesus says, slapping a knee. “Truly I tell you, the traitorous tax collectors and the pariah prostitutes will go into the Kingdom before you; for John came preaching the way of righteousness, and they listened to him, yet you do not. And even after you see, so clearly in retrospect, you cannot admit that John was right, that John was sent to you by God.” If we do not believe the Forerunner, in other words, how can we be counted on to welcome the One whom he has heralded?

Jesus never got too bent out of shape when it came to sexual sins. Not that He excused them, mind you, but He welcomed prostitutes, forgave adulterers. He simply wanted better for them. He relieved them of their burdens, then told them to go and sin no more. Nor did He harshly condemn political sins. Yes, politics can be sinful. The people reviled the tax collectors, who were little more than thugs hired by Rome in order to betray their own kind. That’s how imperialism works: you hire one half of the poor to kill the other half. Matthew was a tax collector, Matthew the Apostle, whom we credit with writing this Gospel.

And again, that’s not to say that Jesus was fine with what Rome was doing. He died an agonizing death specifically because He came to inaugurate a Kingdom apart from Caesar. But He has such grace for sinners, such sympathy, such confidence that any and all of us now begin our life anew in Him. We kill Christ, and Christ raises us.

But the one thing that Christ can never abide is hypocrisy, play-acting; which for Him means religious people who cloak themselves in sanctity, whilst defrauding, oppressing, and fleecing the poor. That, for Jesus, is using the Name of His Father in vain. It violates the greatest two Commandments, which sum up the Law and the Prophets: that we love God with all we’ve got, and love our neighbors as ourselves.

Yet even then—even then!—He does not say that the scribes and the elders and the chief priests, the very people who will hand Him over to death by the end of this same week, will not enter the Kingdom. He simply says that tax collectors and prostitutes will go before them. You can’t get much more hypocritical than clergy who conspire to kill God. Yet Christ has come for them as well, even if they must be saved as through fire.

I can count on one hand the number of lifelong friends whom I have accrued and kept from elementary school through undergrad. These are people who know me inside and out, who have loved me even at my most unloveable. I used to count six of them, but one died, quite young. And they are also amongst the best people whom I have ever known. Yet with a single exception, none of them are religious. Only one outright identifies as atheist, and I love her. The rest remain comfortable with ambiguity. All the Baptisms over which I’ve presided, and I’ve never once stood as godfather.

Yet my irreligious friends bring such good into the world. They are teachers and surgeons, authors and artists, mentors and entrepreneurs. They save lives. They guide children. They found businesses and bring joy to the masses. And they do so in deepest love. I often think of how I talk the talk, how I wear the religious clothing and speak the religious words, but they’re out there every day walking the walk, repairing the world, all for love of neighbor and for Goodness, Truth, and Beauty—which really are names for God. They don’t think that they have faith, but they act as though they do.

And it makes me smile to think that they will go into the Kingdom ahead of me. For so often, Christians like myself will hear the Word of God and gladly say, “I go, sir!” but we do not go; while many others may say, “I will not,” yet they go and do the will of God. We are all children of the Father. But let us not be surprised to find that the tax collectors and the prostitutes, rather than sensible hypocrites, were the ones who were doing His will all the while.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout

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St Peter’s Lutheran

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Nidaros Lutheran

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