Seeds for 01/12/2024 - Matthew 23:29-32
Scripture: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!”
Observation: We’re of two minds about our perception of the past, aren’t we? On the one hand we say, “Hindsight is 20/20.” Good judgment that is difficult to summon before an event comes to pass is not required afterward. The mystery has been revealed. As the Danish Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
On the other hand, we warn against seeing the past through “rose-colored glasses.” We are susceptible to remembering a prettier version of the past than actually existed—recalling the sunny golden days while forgetting or glossing over its flaws.
Both can be true at various points. We can perceive the past through rose-colored glasses and we can also see some things more clearly once we’ve come through them and have the benefit of hindsight.
The past is tricky. As Williams Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Some things have a way of coming back around again.
The sentence that stands out to me in this “woe” is: “And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’”
The Pharisees and teachers that Jesus is calling to account seem to be projecting “hindsight 20/20” understanding onto themselves had they been contemporaries of ancestors during dark days of Israel’s Divided Kingdom (after the reigns of David and Solomon). The prophet regularly found himself to be persona non grata in eyes of a royal court unfriendly to the concerns of the Lord. Much blood was spilled attempting to shut the mouths of these pesky prophets.
Jesus knew that the past was “not even past” when it came to these Pharisees and teachers and their attitudes toward God’s prophets. He sees that they are cut from the same cloth as their forebears.
To make matters worse, they are arrogant. They think they would do better than their ancestors centuries earlier based on what they know now. In truth, they have no way of knowing. Because we know the end of the Gospel story, we know they will follow in their ancestors’ footsteps in short order.
Sometimes I think it would be great to have lived in Capernaum in the first century, able to see Jesus heal someone or listen to the Sermon on the Mount. Would I have responded like the crowds hungry to hear the word and experience the Lord? Or like the Pharisees, perturbed by the upstart preacher of uncertain birth from Galilee? I shutter. I’m glad my faith is on this side of the Resurrection.
This passage and that central sentence remind me about the importance of honesty and humility in the life of faith, virtues that are profitable for assessing our past, present, and future.
Application:
What would have been wonderful about living when Jesus did?
What would have been difficult about making sense of Jesus back then?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, keep me honest and humble in a way befitting my past, present, and future as I walk with you. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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