The Woes

And The Blues



'Woe to You', go the litany of 'woes'- scribes and pharisees.....

This would have sounded shocking as these were the highest citizens of the land. They were totally esteemed. Not like lawyers today whom everyone makes fun of, no one trusts, and everyone loves to hate.

Why was Jesus critical of these fine fellows? Scribes were the religious figures who wrote down the laws (blessed are you who teach my precepts, said God earlier in scripture and now Jesus is blasting them?) Pharisees were the highest moral authority in the land. They were the highest moral order. Why does Jesus blast them from here to Calvary?
They were considered supremely good.
A friend and I walked around much of yesterday making modern analogy in a modern litany of woes. Woe to you vacuum cleaner salesman--you kick up all that dust dirt and turmoil. Woe to you carwasher- you cover everything in fake wax to create the illusion of slickness. Woe to you dental hygenist-you swim in foamy spittle and make people spit blood. Woe to you traffic court judges, you make people sit in insufferably inane traffic school to regurgitate rules of the murderous road.



No, there was something different about the Scribes and Pharisees that Jesus didn't like- something that made them turn into whitewashed tombs full of dead men's bones.
Here is what it was; spiritual hubris. Spiritual hubris is much worse than intellectual hubris which is bad enough. You have to have real spiritual credentials to have spiritual hubris, and ride on the laurels of your own coat-tails.
They were so offensive because they were so sure they were right -and they killed him-
They were so sure that their understanding of the traditional moral order was the right way-they became like white washed tombs full of dead men's bones clinging to their rightness and their view of a moral order deeply rotted at its core that crushed life- and did nothing to help it while heaping up burdens too much to bear.
Jesus turned it all on its head. He didn't become a Pharisee, he overcame the Pharisees.
This is why he is such a revolutionary- and this is why Progressives sometimes get him better. They get Him.

The moral order is wrong when the moral order perpetuates for example slavery as an entrenched economic institution. The moral order is wrong when the moral order condones violence against women or children. The moral order is wrong when it suppresses oppressed classes of people or discriminates against them. The moral order is wrong when it allows injustice or crime to prevail or attacks the common dignity-of anyone and all.
Progressives understand that sometimes the Sauls of the world lose their moral authority when God leaves them and passes the reigns to David and so there is a time when the moral order of King Saul hunting down David chasing him to the ends of the kingdom to kill him off is not in God's will but is something purely evil. Sometimes the King is just crazy.

Progressives understand the reality of evil masqued as the moral order.

That's why CHANGE isn't just a nice song- it is a way to heaven on earth. That's why there are horse races and court cases and plaintiff's lawyers. That's why there are no more Pharisees.
When was the last time someone handed you a card that said "Joe Smith-Pharisee?" or heard, "lets go to that Pharisee's house for dinner." or heard of the "National Association of Pharisees" or the Washington, DC annual Pharisee Convention? They went the way of the Pharisees.