One More Step

18 July 2025  Matthew 12:1-8

“I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.” Matthew 12:6

Some of the harshest language Jesus ever used was directed at the Scribes and Pharisees. Maybe that was because they had so much in common.

It was pretty deliberately, you could even say obnoxiously, provocative for Jesus to tell the Pharisees in just eight short verses that He is greater than the greatest king of the Jews (Matthew 12:4), the greatest object of devotion of the Jews (12:6), and the holiest religious observance of the Jews (12:8). And that isn’t even close to some of the insults Jesus hurled at the Scribes and Pharisees. Elsewhere He called them “hypocrites” (Matthew 23:13), “blind guides” (23:16), “brood of vipers” (12:34), “whitewashed tombs…full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (23:27). It is hard to escape the conclusion that Jesus regarded them as His worst enemies.

But maybe that was because they were so tantalizingly close to being his friends.

The Scribes and Pharisees both began in the generations following the Exile (597-538 B.C.) when the Jews had made up their minds to live 100% according to the Law of Moses to avoid a catastrophe like the Exile in the future. That meant, of course, that there would have to be copies of the Law of Moses available, and so there came to be Scribes, who made meticulously accurate copies of the Law, becoming great experts about what it said. They became alert to subtle shades of meaning in words, in small parts of words, which enabled serious people to become more seriously holy. The Scribes really did love the Law, and loved talking about it.

The Pharisees began as a table fellowship sect that resolved to be as pure all the time as after the various purifications they would do to prepare for a meal. In time they became adversaries to the temple priesthood, who thought that holiness was just about sacrifices and close reading of the Torah (the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament). The Pharisees said that there were more ways to be holy than that. There were additional scriptures (the works of the prophets and the wisdom literature of the Old Testament). There was also prayer, and serious study of the whole Bible. The Pharisees were even the first to talk about resurrection. Holiness, they said, was not just about sacrifices, or just for priests.

The Scribes and Pharisees, in other words, were the progressives in the Jewish world of Jesus’ day. They wanted the fulfillment of the law more than anything else, more than anyone else, more than the temple, more than the priests. And what could be a greater fulfillment than “God with us,” His life in our hands, in our hearts all day, every day? So, when Jesus came saying that He came not to abolish but to fulfill the Law, that not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, would be changed until all had been fulfilled (Matthew 5:18), when He came healing, exorcizing and teaching, He probably felt that the Scribes and Pharisees would have been the first on His side. They were already so close, so very close. His harsh words for them may have been an expression of frustration, like He was saying to them, “Come ON! One more step! Can’t you take just one more step?! Something greater than the temple, greater than the Sabbath, is here now!”  

But they wouldn’t.

We have Bibles in our houses – they may be in perfect condition, no writing in them or dog-eared pages, but we have them. We are baptized and confirmed, our kids too. We may even have rosaries in our pockets, or hanging from our rear-view mirrors. We are at worship often enough not to be strangers, and say grace before meals. And there is an epidemic of loneliness and loss of meaning alive in the land.

We are close, so very close.

Can we take one more step? Something greater than all our rosaries, Masses and sacraments, something greater, someone greater than all our Churches and priests, and bishops and cardinals and popes is here now.