Give And Take

Anybody remember the televangelist scandals of the 80’s? Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Oral Roberts and his highly publicized plea for - what was it, $8 million? - to keep God from striking him dead. Remember the uproar in all the secular news media and the shame felt by so many evangelicals at being linked - however unfairly - with the practice of defrauding the gullible with fraudulent promises of spiritual returns? Things have certainly changed. Did you see anything about the financial shenanigans of Henry Lyons, the head of the National Baptist Convention? He didn’t get much attention from the mainstream media. Maybe the racial implications made it too dangerous to touch... Maybe the political climate has changed, maybe the saturation coverage of political corruption has desensitized us. But the lack of media attention hasn’t stopped either the sexual or financial corruption. Just google church scandals and see what you find.

You know how they used to talk about compassion fatigue, when one famine followed another, and you could hardly open a magazine without seeing another wide-eyed, skeletal child, and eventually people started to get numb and eventually tuned out? Maybe now we’re into corruption fatigue, when misappropriation, money-laundering, and outright theft hardly rate a ho-hum. Or maybe because the corruption of our political class has outpaced the religious misconduct.

But what it all goes to show you is that some things never change. Corruption wasn’t invented in the 80’s, and hasn’t gone out of fashion just because it isn’t being reported. Public religiosity has never immunized anyone against the sin of greed. Jesus’ criticism of the religious leaders of his day has an oddly contemporary sound.

He chastens them, first, for their fancy clothes. They liked to parade around in long robes, he said. “So what?” we say, “They all wore funny clothes back then.” Well, it’s like this: most men wore short tunics. It was cheaper, for one thing, and for another, it was more practical for the active life that most led. Think Brooks Brothers or Savile Row instead of jeans and running shoes. The scribes Jesus criticized wore these robes to show how important they were, to set themselves apart from the common herd, to emphasize their authority. Unlike Jesus’ authority, which came from the compelling authenticity of his teaching, theirs needed a boost from a flashy public persona. That fancy clothing also signaled the kind of pride that hungers for honors and distinction, and the arrogance that flaunts its learning and position. And what’s worse, they exalted themselves even in the presence of the Lord, taking for granted their right to the places of honor in both synagogue and temple.

Jesus also condemns these teachers of the law for craving applause. They bask in the esteem bestowed on them by those of lesser stature, who honor them with formal greetings. Remember when Jesus spoke to the rich young man who wanted to know how to inherit eternal life? To his flowery salutation Jesus replies, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” If someone addressed these guys as “good teacher,” they would no doubt smile and nod in approval at the recognition of their worth.

As if this alone weren’t bad enough, absolutely the opposite of the kind of behavior Jesus has been trying to teach his disciples to learn, these teachers of the law couple their public piety with a callous disregard for the poor. They take the honor given to them as a license to prey on the weak and vulnerable. These same people who claim to be experts the law are breaking it right and left.

He accuses them of robbing widows’ houses. Widows symbolized the helpless in the Old Testament, and prophets cried “Woe” to those who wronged them. But these men, instead of helping widows and orphans, were somehow profiting off of them. Scribes in those days were forbidden to charge fees for their teaching; they were dependent on secular employment or gifts. There are dozens of ways they could have preyed on the unsophisticated, unprotected women of their culture. The more I look at these characters the more closely they resemble the more unscrupulous of our media preachers, the ones who promise unspecified blessings to the gullible in return for a sizable donation to their particular “ministry.”

And lastly Jesus castigates the scribes for their long, elegant public prayers. Prayers are supposed to be addressed to God, but these are spoken to win the admiration of their hearers. In a way, this is a violation of the fourth commandment, “thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain.” Although they pretend to speak to God, in reality they are speaking only for effect. But that effect is far-reaching.

Unfortunately, the modern-day editions of these objects of Jesus’ scorn have an enormous influence on the non-Christians’ view of the church. How many people do you know whose picture of Christians is formed by occasional exposure to high-profile television personalities? Now, I’m not talking about people like Billy Graham or Chuck Swindoll, whose public and private life are both beyond reproach. But far too many who started out with the best of motives let themselves become seduced by the trappings of celebrity and wind up distorting - however unintentionally - the message of the gospel.