Woe to you, hypocrites!
Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
There are certain parts of the world which are not claimed by any state. Bir Tawil – a remote bit of land between Egypt and Sudan. Antartica, except, of course, by the king penguins; And the high seas. And there are times when you’d be forgiven for thinking it might be better to live in a land without kings.
So what were you doing in May 2020? Social media has been a-buzz with stories: amusing, emotional, self-righteous, traumatic; It was in many ways peak-pandemic, but also glorious weather. Worth making the most of. I haven’t kept a journal for some time but it’s easy for me to recover where I was between pew sheets, sermons and orders of service, I can pretty accurately work out what was going on here.
We had a zoom quiz that month. We put up the cross outside church with the Easter garden, as a meeting point and focus of prayer; on 8th May, VE day, I put up a sign saying “we’ll meet again”. The local foodbanks had shut so the vicarage became a collection point, and I took a dozen calls a day asking for food, medicine or other necessaries, which I pinged out to a list of a hundred local volunteers who mostly took up tasks in minutes. The cake and soup run started that month, lasting for nearly a year, delivering to up to 80 people. The Archbishops had closed all churches, so alongside every service the pew sheet reads “live on Facebook” Even playgroup song-time! By May we had multi-screen online services so we’d zip from the vicarage to Yorkshire for music to other houses for readings and intercessions.
The week before May I’d taken three funerals, including one for a woman, where no one attended because the only mourners, her brother and son, were both also vulnerable. I dropped round to their flat beforehand to give them an order of service. They didn’t have internet so couldn’t watch the service. There wasn’t really much I could say. Strangely, they both died within a week of each other just a year later.
On the first of May I took the funeral of a complicated man who took his own life. Even now we underestimate the cost of the pandemic on our mental health and especially those already distressed. Then two more funerals for Maureen and Geoffrey on the fourth and sixth of May. In the week following the fourteenth of May I took five funerals, The last one, on the twentieth May, was Theophilus Morris, which was all conducted at the graveside, in competition with the A3.
The rules on funerals have changed frequently. I think in May numbers attending rose from 6 to 15. No wakes of course. I do remember someone pouring themself a glass of wine from the boot of their car outside the crematorium at Putney Vale; Mostly I remember families coming together, not physically touching and then drifting away again. I always tried to meet the next of kin in person – in gardens or at least outside. Even that was at times something of a grey area, but the coldness of the situation, arriving at Mortlake to see a full list of services, a funeral every half hour from nine till six, or the thankfully little used temporary morgues in Putney Vale, required whatever humanity was left to us.
In the four weeks leading up to May 20th I took 11 funerals, more than I took in the whole of 2019, at all of which were people who had not said goodbye, could not attend, could not sing, could not touch, could not go for a drink or gather afterwards. This is not my suffering. But I was a witness to great suffering.
Prophets arise as a response to moral outrage. To injustice; To suffering. Moses is called to lead the people of God out of slavery. After him, the prophets often come to bring warnings of foreign invasion, when the people have lost their way. Some of the later prophets speak of the restoration of the people from exile. Their ire and recriminations are usually targeted at the temporal and moral leadership of the day – the king, the priesthood, the ruling class.
So John the Baptist describes the religious leaders as a ‘brood of vipers’. He’s accepted by the people as a prophet but the leadership don’t like it. He’s particularly critical of Herod, the ruler, and his wife Herodias. Herodias had also been married to Herod’s half-brother, confusingly also called Herod. That is a lot of Herods David. Questioning the integrity of the leadership lands John in prison and then summarily executed.
And Jesus is equally critical of the leadership of the day, particularly the religious leadership: “Do whatever [the scribes and pharisees] teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practise what they teach. 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.” [pause] And then we have a phrase repeated seven times: ‘But woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!’:
‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.’ It’s this verse, of course, from which we get the phrase ‘whitewash’.
After this in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus predicts the fall of Jerusalem and the coming judgement of God, causing the plot, passion, and execution of the prophet. It rarely ends well for prophets, though equally, when they have divine backing, it rarely ends well for those of whom they prophesy.
But what’s different about the prophetic role of John the Baptist and Jesus, is that they’re calling people out to something different. Having seen the exploitation of the people John calls them out to the wilderness, a place without kings,and through baptism offers an independent form of moral authority.
Jesus in predicting the destruction of the temple, in clearing out the money changers, is changing religion; From culture and custom, to a change of heart. From a system devised by men that exploited people, To the simplicity of the desert and asking God to give you another chance, a second beginning. He is calling people out – in both senses of the phrase.
John and Jesus are levelling up. These leaders are corrupt. They don’t have your interests at heart. Turn again and find God among you. Your king sits as one of you. He suffers as you suffer. Do not look for authority above, where there is only hypocrisy, but within and alongside.
Today we give thanks for the sacrament of baptism. In it we are adopted as children of God; As beloved sons and daughters in whom God is pleased. We are taken out to the wilderness, to no man’s land, to repent and to know and receive the authority of God.
On the 10th May 2020 I said in a sermon: “In our present darkness, there are a great many hells which are coming to light.” There were others that were yet to come to light. Among other things, these last years have seen a democratic twist in accountability. Even now, we have a number of very wealthy, well-connected people in different spheres testing that accountability. Our baptism reminds us that we are called out into the wilderness, where there are no kings, no law, and the soul is naked before God. And that the one who we bow down to came not to be served but to serve.
We cannot escape society for long, and we shouldn’t lose hope in people. Our leaders represent us, and we all share a responsibility for our nation’s actions – we too have a foot in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are few in any form of leadership who escape hypocrisy; I am always aware of the logs in my eyes when noticing the motes in others. We return to our baptism again and again, in knowledge of our weakness and failure, seeking out that wilderness where there is only God; And perhaps others too will soon find themselves in the wilderness, whether they like it or not. It is a God of forgiveness we find there.
Next week, you’ll be pleased to hear, we have a more upbeat Gospel, the wedding at Cana with the turning of water into wine. And no one could deny that, at least for Jesus, that’s gotta be a work meeting. Amen.