Hitting the Nail on the Head
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provision of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness, but these are things you should have done without neglecting the others.” Matthew 23:23
Woe – So you think you know what is happening when Jesus proclaims “Woe” over the scribes and Pharisees? You think that Jesus is letting off righteous anger. You think He is pointing out their false religion. You better look again!
Woe in Greek is simply ouai, a word that sounds like it means, namely a cry of distress. Jesus didn’t say this word. He said ‘oy, the Hebrew equivalent (look at Numbers 21:29). Once we see this, we discover something quite unusual. There are two Hebrew words for “woe”: hoy and ‘oy and they are not the same. In this case, ‘oy is a word that carries a threat of judgment against a specific object. This is not a general cry of lament. This is particular judgment. “Woe to you,” – these specific people that Jesus is pointing out. The use of ‘oy is always followed by a clause that explains the reason for the impending judgment. This is what matters. Judgment is about to fall. What we must know is why.
The Pharisees were absolutely meticulous in keeping the letter of the Law. They even brought one-tenth of their herb gardens to the temple. But all that carefully counted-out mint and dill meant nothing because they overlooked the truly important matters. They were fastidiously theological, but they did not reflect the heart of God. In a world of enormous pain and suffering, they did not seek justice, show mercy or practice faithfulness. Consequently, the exacting tithe that they did bring carried no value at all.
But be careful. Did you notice that Jesus doesn’t dismiss their exacting attitude toward the Law. He simply says that, in addition to this meticulous observance, they should have understood and practiced the bigger concerns too. They are not hypocrites because they tithed one-tenth of the smallest part of their possessions. They are hypocrites because they tithed but were not compassionate. They did not put their arms around the leper in the gutter. They did not give water to the beaten slaves. They did not rescue infants being tossed in the garbage. They did not soothe the agony of the terminally infected. They did not carry the burdens of the starving poor along the muddy roads. They tithed from carefully tended gardens, but they looked right past the man in the ditch on the side of the road.
Woe to you, my friend. Woe to me. I tithe from the comfortable security of my home. I bring my exact measure of carefully guarded earnings. Down to the penny! But I have passed by that haunting face, sick and hungry. It’s someone else’s job. I have looked the other way when I saw the huddled and abused. There’s a government program for that. I closed my eyes to the faces disfigured with disease, ravished by hunger, bruised by injustice. Woe to me, my friend. I did not see Him among the least of these. I looked for Him in the comfortable pew. He wasn’t there, of course, but I didn’t notice. I was too busy counting my mint and dill.
