Over coffee today a friend and I were swapping stories about our battles to overcome behaviours and fears related to our need for approval. Our deeply held beliefs (against our better and more Christian instincts) are that we're only loved, and therefore only safe, when we're performing well. Perhaps you can relate.
Sometimes I've called this fear my weekly 'trial by congregation' when Sunday by Sunday I stand up in front of people and deliver sermons. If I speak well and people like what I say - then I feel safe, but if (as is often the case) I can't tell how a message has been received, or I can't discern the impact it's had then Sunday afternoon can be a struggle!
"It all stems back to our misguided education system," my friend said "we were taught from a young age that our value depends on our grades, and we carry that mentality with us into adulthood, struggling to overcome it."
He might be right but I suspect it goes a little further back than that and so, being a pastor, I played the 'Jesus' Trump card (it's a beautiful gift I bring to conversations!). In Luke 20 Jesus issues a warning to his followers and it's one I find myself thinking about more and more:
"Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the market-places and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretence make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation."
Beware of the scribes, beware them. This is a strong warning and we ought to take it seriously. Our conditioning that tells us we must perform well in order to be 'safe', to be be loved and accepted goes a long way back.
The scribes, who were experts in unpacking and explaining the religious traditions and texts modelled an approach to personal piety that was common enough in its day. Godliness needed to be seen to be believed, and seen in order to be imitated. This kind of devotional living had plenty of scriptural endorsement as well since under the Old Covenant strict Torah observance was emphasised and this was a thing that could be easily seen and measured by others. The godliness of the nation was measured in terms of how well it observed its festivals and displayed their godliness in the nation.
Responsible Christian leaders know the importance of living a life that doesn't bring the church into disrepute and, more than just doesn't do harm, does the community good. Besides, doesn't Jesus even say that living well and letting your good deeds be seen by others will result in glory to God (Matthew 5:19).
Making godliness aspirational has plenty going for it... 🚨‼️ Warning ‼️🚨 ‼️ Warning ‼️🚨 BEWARE the Scribes 🚨‼️ Warning ‼️🚨 ‼️ Warning ‼️ 🚨
"Watch out for public displays of devotion!" Jesus warns, and beware especially spiritual leaders who lead like that!
Warnings in the Bible are there to do us good. Jesus is warning his followers against something that will harm his people and he concludes the warning with the statement "they will receive the greater condemnation." Condemnation is coming - think eternal judgement and punishment - to the scribes. Watch out!
The reason for the warning, and the reason it's important for us to hear today is because our hearts are needy desperate things and we have new technology that is warping our relationship with and theology about God in fresh but familiar ways. The behaviour of the Scribes is easy to catch, like a virus, and, like a disease it will spread until it infects every part of our lives. The leadership example of the Scribes hacks into a core and basic need with each one of us and it plays into the Great Lie the Enemy has poisoned our waters with since the beginning about what God is like.
"Dad, watch..."
The desire to be seen is strong. My kids are forever saying 'dad watch' before they do something: 'dad watch me hit top bins... dad watch me play this piece of music... dad watch me get out of this choke hold...' on and on, day after day. Honestly it's exhausting. How many times must I watch a failed bottle flip, or keepie ups or missed shots or any number of other things each with the follow up 'no, that wasn't it, keep watching.'
Author Ellis Potter writes that "given choice between daddy-looking and eating, a child will always choose 'daddy/mummy looking', because it's a more basic need."
I'm exactly the same as them really, only I hide it better. 'What did you think of my sermon this morning?', 'do you like my new shoes?', 'did you read what I wrote, what did you think?', 'did you see my run on strava?' honestly it's probably just as exhausting for my wife/family/insta friends.
Being seen is a basic need, that's why giving someone the 'silent treatment' can be so cruel.
There's a scene (below) in the Youtube film 'A Year in a Day' that makes this observation really nicely. In 2020 content creators, on a specific day, were invited to submit footage of their daily life for editors to curate and cut into a cohesive whole. It's superb and one section features content creators from all over the world. Check out the clip below:
Semyon, a farmer in Siberia says "what I fear the most is that my life will pass unnoticed."
"What I fear the most"
It's disarmingly honest.
We've all had that experience where we shared our holiday photos with someone only to find that they were less enthusiastic about them than we hoped they would be. We've all also been shown someone else's photos and found that we were less enthusiastic than we felt we ought to be!
All of us want to be seen by others but more than that we want to be delighted in by others. We want others to enjoy us and celebrate us and we want to be an source of another person's happiness. Getting someone's attention is only the beginning of what we want, keeping someone's attention because they love us is what we crave.
The Scribes in Jesus day 'love greeting in the market-places and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at feasts.' They love those things, but why? Those things gave them the attention and public acclaim they craved, those things made them feek valid and worthwhile. In a world of insecurity, stalked by death, to be seen is to be safe and, 2000 years on that need for validation and safety is just strong. In his book 'Identity' Francis Fukuyama offers an overview of global economic trends and says that in order to make sense of the modern world we need a 'better theory of the human soul'. He suggests that our need for dignity, what the Greeks called the souls 'thymos' is the part of the soul that is calling out for our care. They believed (Socrates et al) that every human psyche is made of core drives of: reason, desire and dignity. Contending with the third part of the soul, our need for dignity, is the thing that best explains much of what's happened in recent decades. Everything from the legalisation of gay marriage to women's anger at Harvey Weinstein and the #metoo movement, to the fight for civil rights and more stems from this powerful driver within each of us to be seen as 'just as good', to be treated with equal dignity.
In this way I'd suggest that we're all like the Scribes. We all want and need, love even, to be seen and validated by others. What we fear most of all is being ghosted, or cancelled and overlooked. To understand however why Jesus might warn us away from the scribes we need to consider what their behaviour and example teaches us, starting with what it teaches us about God.
Breathing in lies with our eyes
By their behaviour the behaviour of the Scribes (and any other public display of piety of online attention seeking) infects us unawares with several lies:
- God doesn't care, and is hard to please
The scribes are praying, in public, for the public approval and attention of others. They're praying (talking to God) in such a way that they're lapping up the eyes of others. Talking to GOD, hoping that PEOPLE are listening.
Perhaps you've been in a prayer meeting before when someone prays a 'horizontal' prayer, a prayer aimed not just at God but at others in the room as well: "Dear God I pray that we would learn to arrive on time for church" says the person who's frustrated by the church's time-keeping (asking for a friend you understand). Praying like that is toxic, but in the case of the Scribes their prayer betrays the fact that they don't believe, not really, that God cares and is listening.
The reason we might post a video of ourselves online could be because we're lonely. We don't have anyone watching in real life and so we search for it online. The Scribes, by the way they pray, teach us that God is hard to please and that his attention alone is not enough. Maybe he's distracted perhaps, like me with my kids, he's exhausted by all the cries of 'dad look!' by his children.
Beware this lie, by watching people live out their spirituality in public you could be breathing in harmful fumes.
2. People's opinions matter
Fear of man is a trap, so the book of Proverbs repeatedly tells us and yet Scribe-ish behaviour and leaders impart by their behaviour that what others think of you is valuable. Getting the eyeballs of others on you decides your worth, therefore fight for, pay for, use algorithms for the eyeballs of others. Beware this trap. Inherent in this as well is the lie that God's opinion is either not enough or that God is hard to please.
In an age like ours, one downstream of urbanisation during which people left their settled and stable villages and communities and swapped being known by all to being known by none we don't enjoy the benefits of belonging like we used to. The need to be known and liked by all is real, but unless we're at peace with God and know that he loves us we'll be infected by a people pleasing that will rob us joy.
3. Some people matter more than others
The Scribes abused the poor. Jesus said: "they... devour widow's houses." For them the means justified the end and that 'end' was no doubt couched in social acceptable terms like having a 'responsibility to the nation'. In their role of public service they may 'crack a few eggs' or make life hard for a few poor people, but the omlet they're making, the moral and religious education of the nation, was worth it all.
They became entitled and deserving; celebrities and people in the public eye, people with power, often do. It's for this behaviour that Jesus issues is starkest warning: condemnation is coming to them.
The lie we come to believe is that some people matter more than others. Celebrity culture, online preachers cultivate this idea - beware it!
For these reasons and many more, Jesus warning about the Scribes has been on my mind a lot recently. It's something we need to watch out for afresh particularly at a time where so much of what we do we do online for the eyes of others.
Attention seeking isn't wrong, we need attention. Who's attention we seek and how we get it is the problem.
Seek God's attention. He loves you and is watching. He isn't hard to please, and has made provision in Christ that you need never fear him taking his eyes off of you ever again.
Luke 21 picks up where Luke 20 left of with an example of someone who Jesus commends, a woman (a widow in fact) who gave all she had to God and received not only his attention but his delight as a result. She put in a penny, but she did it just for him. He sees you and your pennys today too.
Enjoy having his eye on you today.
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