Mark Sorensen “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.” (Matthew 23:13 ESV)
My wife and I love to watch the PBS show Antiques Roadshow. Ever seen it? It’s pretty great. People from all over gather together with all of their favorite collectables that get appraised and, in most cases, the owners find that they have in their possession something of greater value than they could have ever imagined. One episode comes to mind. The man shared a rather faded oil painting of the RMS Titanic which had been in their attic for years. As the “expert” asked the back story of the painting, the owner shared that he had picked it up in a garage sale years back and it just sat in his attic. It had always been a hunch that it was worth something so he thought he would bring it in and find out once and for all. Then the expert takes over. I’ll never forget this moment. He looked at the owner and said it was a terrible oil painting. In fact, he said the painting was worth literally NOTHING. But it was on the back that its worth was found. As he turned it around, he showed, taped to the back, a lunch menu from the Titanic with the date of April 15, 1912, the day that it actually struck the iceberg. This lunch menu was the only existing item from the Titanic from the day it went down. It’s value? Greater than $100,000. Seriously? Amazing. Here this painting had been in this man’s possession for years and he had no idea what was on the back side of the painting. And, if he did, he clearly didn’t study it that hard to learn of its worth.
This is exactly what Jesus is addressing in regards to our friends, the Pharisees, in our first of seven “Woes” in Matthew 23:13.
Think about it. Jesus is in their midst. God in flesh. The Messiah. The promised one who would bring deliverance and freedom. Yet, the Pharisees, the “experts” in the law, couldn’t see Him standing in their midst. They didn’t see His value. Instead, they opposed His teachings. They tried to trap Him. They constantly tried to trip Him up and discredit His authority. They taught scriptures that were void of the very One standing in their presence. Therefore, Jesus is saying that they shut up the Kingdom of Heaven by false teaching that prevents others from seeing and accepting the very one who was standing among them. And, as a result of this false teaching, they are not entering the Kingdom AND are responsible for the very ones they are teaching as they are shutting the door and locking the Kingdom for others to enter into as well.
That was so then, right? We’re a much further along people today.
Or are we?
Here’s the thing. In the Lord’s Prayer when we pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”, God’s Kingdom can only come to earth if it is brought through the way we live and love as Jesus instructed. Our unwillingness to walk in the steps of Jesus and point people towards the One worthy of our praise is to literally shut the door to the Kingdom of heaven in people’s faces.
Check out what Jesus says in Matthew’s Gospel:
“Trivialize even the smallest item in God’s Law and you will only have trivialized yourself. But take it seriously, show the way for others, and you will find honor in the kingdom. Unless you do far better than the Pharisees in the matters of right living, you won’t know the first thing about entering the kingdom.” Matthew 5:19-21 (the Message)
So, the challenge? Let’s keep the door to the Kingdom open by loving as Jesus loved and, in doing so, inviting others through it. Then? Great news. “His Kingdom will come, His will will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…”
