The Desperate Need for Status - Reflections on Matthew 23:1-12, 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

by John C. Holbert on Tuesday, September 8, 2026

         I have been an ordained clergy member of the United Methodist Church for 56 years, and during those years I have preached and taught in over 1000 churches, conferences, and retreats in nearly every US state and in over 20 countries. I have been blessed again and again to be asked to preside in worship services from Fiji to Florida, from the UK to Utah. And in all of those occasions, I have always been introduced with all my titles intact, my status as ordained and as a holder of a PhD. My preaching robe is banded with those colorful chevrons that announce my academic achievements to all. I regularly feel like a peacock, strutting my stuff with joy and deep pleasure, and I thrill to be named “Dr.” wherever I go. And then I am reminded of this small pericope from Matthew’s Gospel, and suddenly I feel more than little ashamed of my supposed grandeur, my supposed lofty self.

         Mt.23:1-12 may well be a too-often overlooked piece of Matthew’s gospel exposition. It comes near the terrible end of Jesus’s life, as his opponents become increasingly furious with his teaching, a fury that will lead to his horrifying death. As that end approaches, Matthew has Jesus confront some of those opponents quite directly, and accuse them of a desperate search for prestige and status, mixed in with a huge dollop of hypocrisy. I admit to feeling decidedly pinched by these words which appear to be directed right at my inflated self.

         The audience for this speech is “the crowds and his disciples,” and begins with what can only be called a sharp attack on the “scribes and the Pharisees,” some of whom are no doubt listening. “The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat” (Mt.23:2). Because the Greek verb is in the aorist tense, which usually refers to a past action, the implication is that the scribes and Pharisees may once have sat on “Moses’ seat,” but perhaps in Matthew’s time (8th decade CE?) may no longer have that status. And just what does he mean by “Moses’ seat?” Though E.L. Sukenik claimed to have discovered an actual seat in the ruins of two synagogues at Tiberius and Chorazin, which he claimed to be exactly what Matthew means here, those finds have been called too late to connect an actual seat to Matthew’s “Moses’s seat.” Rather, Matthew may be using a common metaphor for teaching and ruling authority in the Jewish community. Hence, his implication is that “scribes” (originally merely those capable of reading and writing, but later named trained intellectuals who involved themselves in the affairs of Jewish politics, and became in the Gospels antagonists of Jesus), and “Pharisees” (both a political and religious movement, and regularly described as Jesus’s chief opponents, though many of his early followers were certainly Pharisees) stood over against what Jesus was announcing about the rule of God. For Matthew in this brief account, scribes and Pharisees represent negative examples of what true leadership must be in the emerging Christian community.

         What these Jewish leaders speak sounds very good, but “you must not act according to their works” (Mt.23:3). In short, they talk a good game, but cannot act in accordance with their teaching. “They preach, but do not practice” (Mt.23:3). “They bind heavy burdens and put them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them by their own finger” (Mt.23:4). In other words, they make life for their followers far too difficult, demanding strict adherence to minute purity laws, and careful observance of tithing and Sabbath codes. In contrast, Matthew has earlier said that the burden Jesus asks is “easy and light” (Mt.11:30). Thus are these leaders rank hypocrites. 

         But even worse than their hypocrisy is their demand to be recognized as great. “All their deeds are done to be seen; they widen their phylacteries and enlarge their fringes” (Mt.23:5). They make a great show of wrapping themselves with signs and memorials, in response to their readings of Ex.13:1-16 and Deut.6:4-9, and in response to Num.15:38-39 and Deut.22:12, they make certain that their “fringes,” poking out from their clothing, are easily seen by all. Their religious devotion is apparent in their excessive attention to what they believe to be the clothing demands of their scripture.

         “They love the first place at banquets and first seats in the synagogues” (Mt.23:6). How often have I enjoyed the privilege of being served first in the post-service food line, and how often have a reveled in my seat of power in the front of the sanctuary! They adore being “called rabbi by the people” (Mt.23:7). Well, surely they have earned the title, have they not? But Jesus warns his hearers that they have only one teacher, namely Jesus, and the rest of them are all “brothers,” equal to one another, with no one of them superior. Nor should one be called “father,” for there is only a heavenly father, nor should anyone be called “master,” for only Christ is master.

         The passage ends with familiar words, made all the more powerful by what has just been said. “The greatest among you will be your servant. Whoever will exalt himself will be humbled, and whoever will humble himself will be exalted” (Mt.23:11-12). But given Jesus’s words that preceded this final admonition, what it means to be “exalted” has been completely redefined; exaltation now comes only with service among the brothers and sisters. Exaltation has nothing finally to do with academic prowess, or ecclesiastical titles. “The greatest among you will be a servant.” How often must we read that in Jesus’s words before we begin to take them seriously?

         I cannot speak for you, but I somewhere in my life needed for this passage to be tattooed on my body visibly, because I have spent too much of my time welcoming the plaudits and reverence of the crowds, acting too often like the scribes and Pharisees of Matthew’s depiction, and not as the servant that Jesus has called me to be. These words sting, but they are not merely designed to make me feel bad; they are a call to a rethinking, a healthier way to live life, a way that Jesus asks of me. What about you?