The Phylactery Fallacy - 10/30/05
Matthew 23:1-12
Many of you have a connection with downtown Third Baptist Church (Friendship International). You'll be glad to learn that they have called a new pastor. In our CBF clergy meeting the other day, we heard something intriguing about him. He and his wife have two black labs. This is a good thing because we all know that great ministers have black labs... Although clearly this couple may have a spiritual leg up in that their dogs are named after two former seminary professors (one after our friend Molly Marshall). Cecelia and I have one black lab she's named after a French empress.
I don't remember every using Josephine in a sermon before, but you knew it was coming. This lively one and one half year old force is the source of a lot of fun in my house. Unlike other people in my home, the later I am, the happier she is to see me. Unlike other people in my home she's always ready to jump in my lap. I will admit that her singing doesn't quite match up with others in my home, but she makes up for this by having a cheaper wardrobe.
Josephine loves to show off for new friends. If you were to come over this afternoon, the first thing she'd do is run and grab her rawhide bone, her nylon bone, or a stuffed toy. She'd run all over the house to find that object, and bring it to show you. Her first and rather spastic priority is to show any new person what she has, and what she can carry. She loves nothing more than to hold up a grand prize for the visitor to see - waving that tail like a bird's wing, waiting for you to acknowledge the important object in her mouth. And she'll stand there until you see how significant she is, by what she's carrying.
I've come to realized that this must be a basic need of smart mammals. We have a need to know that others know we are useful and that we have significant assets. Think about the last time a new acquaintance came up and in conversation held up their gifts, produced their assets, and possibly without wagging their tail said (in effect): "see, look what I've done, look what I've got." Please acknowledge me.
Oh, it's true that we humans are more subtle at it than black labs. We don't carry a resume around in our mouth. But we find all kinds of subtle ways to let people know who we are by showing what we've done. We put our diplomas in frames, on the wall (yes, I'm guilty), we put Dr., or PhD, after our name (yes, again). We drive cars, or buy homes, or live in areas, that tell the world who we are.
There's nothing wrong with that, per se. Sometimes it's a good thing to let people know how you can be of help. The problem is what motivates our need to carry around our respective toys or bones for the world to see. The issue is the driving force for that self-aggrandizing display. For too many of us those things justify our existence - make us useful to the clan.
And so we, like the religious leaders in Jesus day, fall prey to the phylactery fallacy. Given that I just made this up, you might wonder what that is. Well, let me tell you. A phylactery was worn by the religious leaders. It was a small square leather box containing slips or small scrolls inscribed with scripture. It was traditionally worn on the left arm and/or on the head by Jewish men during morning weekday prayers.
There is nothing wrong with wearing boxes filled with scripture. Jesus could not have been against it. But he was clearly against what became of the motive: (v.5) "everything they do is done for men to see." The logical fallacy was the notion that men or God loved them, cared for them, on the basis of external acts or outward religiosity. The social fallacy was to make the phylacteries wide, so that people could see how spiritual they were, how committed they were, how much God must love them. The psychological fallacy is to hold up our wares before others - as to say: aren't I really grand - and so expect the holes in our self image to be filled with the awe inspired crowds. Jesus, once more, says to the ritualistic Pharisees: "It's a matter of the heart."
Josie will never bring home the bacon. She'll never hunt for our food. She'll never be in any basic way, useful. The vet bills are annoying, the pet food is expensive, and the pet-kennel is a pain in the pocket-book. But we love her, because she is now a member of our family.
Why does God love you? Let me assure you, it's not because of anything you've done, nor because of anything you hold up to others to say: "this is what I've done and been!" God loves you because you are a part of his human family. You needn't and in fact can't earn this love. You need not try to work for it. You need not go out looking for it. It's there. It's only yours to recognize. It's only your job to live in it.
When that happens -when you rest in God's love- a kind of peace inhabits your heart, a kind of detachment enters your soul. And you know that you don't need religious pretension. Nor do you need a flurry of activity, nor do you need to try to take God's place by making things happen that only God can make happen. Try spending time in prayer - doing nothing but relishing in the love of God.
Another great thing about Josie is that she never tries to control the TV remote. When it comes to the TV, I'm a hunter, and Cecelia is a gatherer. I want to flip and flip and never land, she likes to land and stay. Ugh. Well the other day I was flipping, and we don't have cable, so there's not a lot of flipping, but I came across a preacher who was interviewing another preacher and the one was sharing about how he had "believed God" for a new jet. And guess what. God gave him a jet. I'm not making this up: that jet had been such a blessing. Well, I guess a jet would be. But the verse that came to my mind is vs. 25 of Matt. 23: "Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites you clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence."
To pray for a jet, when thousands can't even eat...this is so wrong on so many levels. And yet, it is also wrong for me to expend a great deal of time on this so that we all feel superior to those goofy TV preachers. I don't doubt that most of us have more sense than many of them. But we all have our jet issues. Things which we want, things which make us temporally feel good about ourselves, but which have the worth of a rawhide bone.
Jesus says: God loves you. You needn't try to prove it on the outside, just work on knowing that on the inside.
Miroslav Volf teaches theology at Yale and writes a regular column for Christian Century. He is a good friend of a friend, a good writer, so I tend to read what he writes. This summer Volf read a book by a first-time Croatian author. The book is a love story. In fact, it is a true story confession about a love affair between a young female lawyer and a Roman Catholic priest. [CC Oct. 4, 05]
After a divorce, a young, successful, atheist lawyer is left with a small son and a desire to find meaning... She enters a church thinking the priest might be able to help her. She meets a dynamic, progressive priest. She falls in love and for more than a decade she lives as his secret lover. She gets pulled into his world and while continuing her own life, she studies theology and eventually starts writing sermons for him.
Gradually she comes to realize that something is profoundly wrong with the priest and her relationship to him; for he is not just a celibate priest who has momentarily slipped. He is only interested in power, wealth, and in women and wine. As a servant of the people, he despises them as "rabble to be exploited." The more the woman reads the Bible, the more uncomfortable she becomes.
Volf describes her growth like this: "Living in the midst of hypocrisy, she is attracted to the truth; living with a religious manipulator, she longs for the God of grace. In what must be one of the strangest conversions ever, she encounters the living God by writing sermons for her hypocritical lover."
Volf says that on one level the book is about the pull of love - about the author's desire for love, for meaning and ultimately for God.
And on another level the book is a critique of false religiosity. "The priest stands for the whole system of institutionalized religiosity, a system drained of authentic Christian faith, a system in which custom and ritual serve as a cover for religious nakedness and as justification of exploiting simple people."
And finally, Volf says he read this story on yet another level: that of the power of the gospel. In this reading, God is the primary character, and the gospel has power even in the midst of corrupt people and religious institutions. He thought of Job's line: "Who can bring what is pure from the impure?" (14:4) The obvious answer: only the God that is love.
I don't know what God is saying to you this morning, but it very well could be that God is saying: "Sit! Be still, listen. I love you. You need not run and get your resume; you need not lift up your goodness. I love you. Rest in that and when you move, move in that."
Let us seek to make our Master happy - but not just in what we do, or say, but in how we yield to his infinite love.
Many of you have a connection with downtown Third Baptist Church (Friendship International). You'll be glad to learn that they have called a new pastor. In our CBF clergy meeting the other day, we heard something intriguing about him. He and his wife have two black labs. This is a good thing because we all know that great ministers have black labs... Although clearly this couple may have a spiritual leg up in that their dogs are named after two former seminary professors (one after our friend Molly Marshall). Cecelia and I have one black lab she's named after a French empress.
I don't remember every using Josephine in a sermon before, but you knew it was coming. This lively one and one half year old force is the source of a lot of fun in my house. Unlike other people in my home, the later I am, the happier she is to see me. Unlike other people in my home she's always ready to jump in my lap. I will admit that her singing doesn't quite match up with others in my home, but she makes up for this by having a cheaper wardrobe.
Josephine loves to show off for new friends. If you were to come over this afternoon, the first thing she'd do is run and grab her rawhide bone, her nylon bone, or a stuffed toy. She'd run all over the house to find that object, and bring it to show you. Her first and rather spastic priority is to show any new person what she has, and what she can carry. She loves nothing more than to hold up a grand prize for the visitor to see - waving that tail like a bird's wing, waiting for you to acknowledge the important object in her mouth. And she'll stand there until you see how significant she is, by what she's carrying.
I've come to realized that this must be a basic need of smart mammals. We have a need to know that others know we are useful and that we have significant assets. Think about the last time a new acquaintance came up and in conversation held up their gifts, produced their assets, and possibly without wagging their tail said (in effect): "see, look what I've done, look what I've got." Please acknowledge me.
Oh, it's true that we humans are more subtle at it than black labs. We don't carry a resume around in our mouth. But we find all kinds of subtle ways to let people know who we are by showing what we've done. We put our diplomas in frames, on the wall (yes, I'm guilty), we put Dr., or PhD, after our name (yes, again). We drive cars, or buy homes, or live in areas, that tell the world who we are.
There's nothing wrong with that, per se. Sometimes it's a good thing to let people know how you can be of help. The problem is what motivates our need to carry around our respective toys or bones for the world to see. The issue is the driving force for that self-aggrandizing display. For too many of us those things justify our existence - make us useful to the clan.
And so we, like the religious leaders in Jesus day, fall prey to the phylactery fallacy. Given that I just made this up, you might wonder what that is. Well, let me tell you. A phylactery was worn by the religious leaders. It was a small square leather box containing slips or small scrolls inscribed with scripture. It was traditionally worn on the left arm and/or on the head by Jewish men during morning weekday prayers.
There is nothing wrong with wearing boxes filled with scripture. Jesus could not have been against it. But he was clearly against what became of the motive: (v.5) "everything they do is done for men to see." The logical fallacy was the notion that men or God loved them, cared for them, on the basis of external acts or outward religiosity. The social fallacy was to make the phylacteries wide, so that people could see how spiritual they were, how committed they were, how much God must love them. The psychological fallacy is to hold up our wares before others - as to say: aren't I really grand - and so expect the holes in our self image to be filled with the awe inspired crowds. Jesus, once more, says to the ritualistic Pharisees: "It's a matter of the heart."
Josie will never bring home the bacon. She'll never hunt for our food. She'll never be in any basic way, useful. The vet bills are annoying, the pet food is expensive, and the pet-kennel is a pain in the pocket-book. But we love her, because she is now a member of our family.
Why does God love you? Let me assure you, it's not because of anything you've done, nor because of anything you hold up to others to say: "this is what I've done and been!" God loves you because you are a part of his human family. You needn't and in fact can't earn this love. You need not try to work for it. You need not go out looking for it. It's there. It's only yours to recognize. It's only your job to live in it.
When that happens -when you rest in God's love- a kind of peace inhabits your heart, a kind of detachment enters your soul. And you know that you don't need religious pretension. Nor do you need a flurry of activity, nor do you need to try to take God's place by making things happen that only God can make happen. Try spending time in prayer - doing nothing but relishing in the love of God.
Another great thing about Josie is that she never tries to control the TV remote. When it comes to the TV, I'm a hunter, and Cecelia is a gatherer. I want to flip and flip and never land, she likes to land and stay. Ugh. Well the other day I was flipping, and we don't have cable, so there's not a lot of flipping, but I came across a preacher who was interviewing another preacher and the one was sharing about how he had "believed God" for a new jet. And guess what. God gave him a jet. I'm not making this up: that jet had been such a blessing. Well, I guess a jet would be. But the verse that came to my mind is vs. 25 of Matt. 23: "Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites you clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence."
To pray for a jet, when thousands can't even eat...this is so wrong on so many levels. And yet, it is also wrong for me to expend a great deal of time on this so that we all feel superior to those goofy TV preachers. I don't doubt that most of us have more sense than many of them. But we all have our jet issues. Things which we want, things which make us temporally feel good about ourselves, but which have the worth of a rawhide bone.
Jesus says: God loves you. You needn't try to prove it on the outside, just work on knowing that on the inside.
Miroslav Volf teaches theology at Yale and writes a regular column for Christian Century. He is a good friend of a friend, a good writer, so I tend to read what he writes. This summer Volf read a book by a first-time Croatian author. The book is a love story. In fact, it is a true story confession about a love affair between a young female lawyer and a Roman Catholic priest. [CC Oct. 4, 05]
After a divorce, a young, successful, atheist lawyer is left with a small son and a desire to find meaning... She enters a church thinking the priest might be able to help her. She meets a dynamic, progressive priest. She falls in love and for more than a decade she lives as his secret lover. She gets pulled into his world and while continuing her own life, she studies theology and eventually starts writing sermons for him.
Gradually she comes to realize that something is profoundly wrong with the priest and her relationship to him; for he is not just a celibate priest who has momentarily slipped. He is only interested in power, wealth, and in women and wine. As a servant of the people, he despises them as "rabble to be exploited." The more the woman reads the Bible, the more uncomfortable she becomes.
Volf describes her growth like this: "Living in the midst of hypocrisy, she is attracted to the truth; living with a religious manipulator, she longs for the God of grace. In what must be one of the strangest conversions ever, she encounters the living God by writing sermons for her hypocritical lover."
Volf says that on one level the book is about the pull of love - about the author's desire for love, for meaning and ultimately for God.
And on another level the book is a critique of false religiosity. "The priest stands for the whole system of institutionalized religiosity, a system drained of authentic Christian faith, a system in which custom and ritual serve as a cover for religious nakedness and as justification of exploiting simple people."
And finally, Volf says he read this story on yet another level: that of the power of the gospel. In this reading, God is the primary character, and the gospel has power even in the midst of corrupt people and religious institutions. He thought of Job's line: "Who can bring what is pure from the impure?" (14:4) The obvious answer: only the God that is love.
I don't know what God is saying to you this morning, but it very well could be that God is saying: "Sit! Be still, listen. I love you. You need not run and get your resume; you need not lift up your goodness. I love you. Rest in that and when you move, move in that."
Let us seek to make our Master happy - but not just in what we do, or say, but in how we yield to his infinite love.
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