“woe to you…”

There are versions of Jesus many of us prefer.

Savior.
Provider.
Healer.

But in Matthew 23, Jesus takes on a role that is just as important: Prophet.

He names names.
He confronts power.
He exposes hypocrisy.

“Woe to you…”

“You clean the outside of the cup, but inside you are full of greed and self-indulgence.”

“You build monuments to the prophets, but you silence the truth in your own day.”

These are not private corrections.

They are public indictments.

And they are aimed not at “the pagans” nor “the world” – but at God’s own religious and political leaders who claimed to represent Him most faithfully.

 

when power protects itself

The leaders of Jesus’ day were not cartoon villains.

They believed they spoke and acted on behalf of God.
That they were protecting tradition.
That they were defending truth.

But somewhere along the way, they began loving influence more than integrity.

They honored God with their words.
They invoked Scripture.
They spoke of rightness.

But their systems burdened the everyday person.
Their leadership protected the powerful instead of the vulnerable.
Their piety masked ambition and pride.

And Jesus would not let it pass.

 

the temptation of applause

The reflection this week forces a hard question:

What happens when my faith becomes entangled with my social status?

When access to money feels like blessing?
When proximity to political leaders feels like influence?
When we defend “our side” because losing would mean weakness?

Jesus’ harshest words were reserved for those who used God to secure their own position.

Not because He hated them.

But because blatant hypocrisy in the name of God does more damage than genuine ignorance.

 

prophecy is not tribal

Jesus stood before many leaders during his time on earth – religious, political, cultural.

He was never impressed by credentials.

He was never swayed by titles or platforms or uniforms.

He was concerned about different things:

Does your leadership look like servanthood?

Does your power protect the least of these?

Does your faith look like the Kingdom instead of the empire around you?

The condemnations of Matthew 23 were not because of the positions of leadership that people held.

They were that the people holding them could no longer discern that they had become the very thing the Scriptures warned about not becoming…

 

an examen

This story is not about pointing at “them.”

It’s about our ability to be self-aware enough to know when we’ve begun to defend what the Bible condemns.

Have we excused arrogance because it delivers results?
Have we minimized corruption because it protects our interests?
Have we confused being influential with being faithful?

The woes of Jesus are not political slogans.

They are spiritual diagnoses.

They expose the subtle drift from devotion to dominion.

 

the mercy of woe

“Woe” is not anger and condemnation.

It is grief. It is an invitation to change.

It is the sorrow of watching people mistake popularity within the world’s systems for righteousness.

It is the heartbreak of seeing the faith that you love weaponized against the people those weaponizing it are supposed to love.

“Woe” comes from a love strong enough to confront. To hold accountable. To call others to be consistent with what they say they believe.

The season of Lent invites us to sit with this sort of self-reflection.

Not as spectators watching others. But as participants in our own formation.

Because the most dangerous kind of hypocrisy is the one we refuse to see in ourselves.

 

today’s leadership landscape

If Jesus stood in the center of our religious and political landscape today…

What would He affirm?

And what would He condemn?

Before we answer this for others, we might ask:

Where have I been silent about the ways the empire is misaligned with the heart of Christ?

People of the Kingdom of God should never fear being exposed by the truth.

They should fear never allowing themselves to be exposed because they pridefully believe they are always on the side of truth.

Only God is on the side of truth every time.

God doesn’t “choose” our side. We choose to be on God’s side.

Are you actively seeking to ensure you’re choosing God’s side and not asking God to choose yours?

Are you holding accountable your leaders to ensure they are doing the same?

*This blog is a part of a series of Lenten reflections. I encourage you to go back and start with the Ash Wednesday reflection for context if this is the first one you’ve read.

who is my neighbor?

A religious leader once asked Jesus this question: “And who is my neighbor?”

Not to learn.
But to test Him.

Jesus answered with a story.

A man is beaten down, poor, and left for dead, sitting on the side of a well-traveled path. A religious leader passes by. A political leader passes by.

People who know the Scriptures pass by. People who are “like him” pass by.

But one person stops. An outsider. A person considered impure by the religious leaders. A person considered on the wrong side by the political leaders. A person considered “less than” or “other” by those waiting for Jesus’ answer to the question that was asked.

A Samaritan. Someone of mixed lineage. Someone not “like them.”

 

dangerous compassion

The Samaritan does not begin his interaction with the man with merely kind words.
He begins with compassionate action.

He kneels.
He binds his wounds.
He uses his own resources.
He risks embarrassment and judgment.

He does not first ask how the man ended up there.
He does not consider the optics of the situation.
He does not calculate what helping him might cost him financially.

He sees the suffering of another person and he moves toward it.

That is what makes the story dangerous to the ones asking the question of Jesus.

Because compassion always disrupts relational power dynamics.

 

people who pass by

Jesus could have chosen random travelers to ignore the wounded man. He could have made the ones who passed by Samaritans or Roman leaders. He could have made the wounded man the “other” and the one who stops someone “like them.”

But he didn’t.

He chose their religious leader to pass by.

He chose their political leader to pass by.

People who loved God.
People who taught Scripture.
People who believed they were faithful and on the “right side” of God’s story.

Sure, they did not actively harm the man.

They simply ignored him. Looked the other way. Kept walking.

And that is where the story becomes uncomfortable.

Many times, we are not the “villain” of the story.
We are just the passerby.

We are the ones with good theology and busy schedules.
We are the ones managing relational influence, public messaging, preserving institutions.
We are the ones who believe we are on the “right side of history.”

But the wounded are still there, along our well-traveled paths.

Those who have lived hard lives.
Those who can’t “dress up” or hide their messes.
Those who have had to leave their homes behind to make a better life for their kids.
Some are unhoused or hungry.
Some struggle with mentally illness or medical complications.
Most are the ones whose stories are too complex for campaign slogans. For church budgets. For social media influencer posts.

And we are tempted to judge them instead of kneel beside them. 

To decide they just should have worked harder. Just shouldn’t have done this or that. That it is ultimately their fault or even God’s will that they continue to struggle or suffer…

 

the wrong kind of compassion

The Samaritan in Jesus’ story was the wrong ethnicity, religion, and on the wrong side of political lines to be the one helping the man. He was the wrong kind of compassion.

That was the scandal. That’s what made Jesus choosing him as the “hero” so wrong.

Compassion that broke tribal loyalty. Sacrifice that broke political allegiances.

The question from this story is not simply: “Am I kind?” or “Do I have compassion?”

The question is: Has my loyalty to ethnicity, to ideology, to political party, even to national identity trained me to walk past certain people without noticing? To allow harm to happen to people simply because they are not “like us.”

Have I learned to see suffering through the filter of the empire’s power dynamics?

The religious and political leaders may have told themselves they were protecting something sacred. But they protected it at the cost of their faith. At the cost of God’s love.

In denying compassion and mercy to the man, they denied the One who is the very embodiment of those things.

 

mercy over power

In the image posted, there are leaders, officials, protesters, officers – all convinced that their cause matters.

And maybe it does.

But in the foreground, someone is hurting.

The Kingdom of God is revealed not in the speeches or the strategies, but in the kneeling.

The Samaritan did not win a theological argument. He did not win a campaign for office.
He simply refused to step past a person.

He chose mercy, not political allegiance.

No one applauds for the Samaritan at the end of the story. Certainly no one thanks Jesus for his teaching.

But He does end his conversation with a command:

“Go and do likewise.”

 

a question for today

If Jesus told this story today, who would be cast as the Samaritan?

And how would we be uncomfortable with that choice?

Who have we learned to distrust, to discount, to disregard – who might actually be nearer to the heart of God than we are?

And who have we stepped around while arguing about being on the right side of politics or of power?

This week, ask yourself:

Where have I walked past someone because helping would complicate the world’s narrative that I’ve believed about them?

The Kingdom of God does not belong to the ones “on the right side of history.” It does not belong to the church leader who passes the theological purity test. It does not belong to the church member who made the politically expedient choice.

It belongs not to the conspiracy theorists nor to the “truth tellers.”

It belongs to the one who kneels.

Which are you? Which one will you be?

*This blog is a part of a series of Lenten reflections. I encourage you to go back and start with the Ash Wednesday reflection for context if this is the first one you’ve read.

“let the little children”

There is a moment in the Gospels that reveals the gentle strength of God’s Kingdom.

People start bringing children to Jesus.

The ever-practical disciples are trying to manage the situation. They want the children to be sent away. After all, children are not important. There are more urgent matters at hand. Political tensions. Religious controversies. After all, the mission must be protected.

In response, Jesus is very direct in His gentleness:

“Let the little children come to me. Do not hinder them. For the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

He does not say this softly. He does not say this symbolically.

He says it prophetically. He says it literally.

In the world of first-century Rome, children were among the least of these.

They had no status. No leverage. No influence. They were entirely dependent on the adults around them.

To welcome them would be to reorder the value system of these people who had been formed by the empire.

Which is exactly what Jesus does.

 

the identity of a kingdom

The Kingdom of God is not identified by military might.
Not by economic dominance.
Not by political influence.

Those who are a part of it are identified by how they treat the smallest. The least. The children.

And this is where the reality of earthly empires becomes uncomfortable.

Because children are usually the first to suffer when worldly power consolidates itself.

When bombs fall, children are dismembered or die.
When boarder policies harden, children are displaced and separated.
When systems protect reputation over truth, children are silenced.
When exploitation and trafficking hides amongst wealth and politics, children are abused while adults negotiate the outcomes.

And we convince ourselves to look away, to believe the narratives that justify, to learn to cope thru distraction.

But even if looking at what is happening to the children is complicated, it is necessary. We cannot avoid it.
Yes, it can feel political. But really, it’s ethical.

In this crucial story, Jesus does not speak in the language of politics.
He speaks in the language of protection.

“Do not hinder them.”

 

it’s tempting to justify

The real danger is rarely that we cheer for harm.

The real danger is that we learn to rationalize it.

We learn to prioritize stability over safety.
Order over innocence.
Tribe over truth.
Access over accountability.

We tell ourselves that protecting our personal opinion, our party, our leaders, or our institutions is the higher good – even if it requires muting the volume of the suffering of children.

But if following Jesus requires us to soften the concern for the vulnerable in order to maintain power, we have already traded the sacred for the profane.

Last week, the temptation in the wilderness was about power.

This week’s story presses deeper:

Are we willing to tolerate abusive power if it promises us safety or success?

 

indirect harm still wounds

Most people are not directly harming children.

But indirect harm still wounds.

When we defend actions that produce casualties.
When we excuse accused abusers because they are a means to an end.
When we dismiss testimonies because they are inconvenient to our established allegiances.

We may not hold the sword.
But are we steadying the hand that does?

We may not enact the abuse.

But are we emboldening the people who do?

This series is not actually about public outrage. Though there are enough things happening to our children in today’s world that public outrage is justified.

It is actually about individual and collective repentance.

Where have I looked away or justified what Jesus would condemn?

Where have I allowed allegiance to empire to take precedence over my compassion to the least of these?

Where have I looked at children caught up in war, policy disputes, detention, trafficking, abuse, or political theater and decided the ends justify the means?

 

the kingdom belongs to such as these

Jesus gathers the children close in that Gospel story.

He does not ask about their family lineage.
He does not check their ethnic identity.
He does not calculate their political utility.

He welcomes them and blesses them.

And then he says something even more powerful:

“Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

God’s Kingdom is not established by dominance.
It is revealed through dependence.

The reflection for us this week is only partially about how we ourselves treat children.

A major portion of the reflection is how we allow those in power to treat them. 

And the most crucial part of the reflection is whether we have become too important in our own imagination to become like them.

Because if we are unwilling to become like children, we will not inherit the Kingdom.

 

the invitation of the children

If Jesus stood among the most vulnerable children in our world right now – those displaced by violence, separated from families, silenced by exploitation, or ignored because their suffering complicates our loyalties:

Would we be standing with Him?

Or would we be explaining why it is more complex than it looks?

Do not rush past the children this week.

Let their vulnerability expose our compromises.

Because the Kingdom of God does not advance by sacrificing the smallest.

It is revealed by those who protect them.

*This blog is a part of a series of Lenten reflections. I encourage you to go back and start with the Ash Wednesday reflection for context if this is the first one you’ve read.

“all this can be yours”

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry He goes into the wilderness to be tempted and reveals a crucial choice for those who identify themselves with Him.

“The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor…”

From that height, everything is visible: power, authority, wealth.

And then comes the offer:

“All of it can be yours.”

No humiliation.
No suffering.
No cross.

In the wilderness, the temptation offered was not pleasure. It was not comfort.

It was power.

But it was offered with a condition:

“If you will bow…”

 

too good to be true

The offer is tempting because it offers something worthwhile – the kingdoms of the world. But without the obedience. Without the waiting. Without the sacrifice.

It promises a similar result of what Jesus wanted, just without the surrender.

The question for the adversary (and for Jesus) was not whether Jesus would rule.

It was how. It was when. It was in service to whom.

Will he take the kingdoms?

Or will he usher in the Kingdom?

The difference in the choice changes everything.

 

today’s mountains of influence

Now imagine that mountain overlooking a modern empire.

Glass skyscrapers.
Stone courthouses, government halls, and cathedrals.

Industrial and tech complexes.
Military installations.

Stadiums, venues, and entertainment districts.
Flags flying high in the wind.

The offer might be slightly different, and could begin to sound reasonable:

You can shape policy.
You can win elections.

You can garner influence.

You can be wealthy.
You can secure moral victories.
Maybe even that you can save the nation.

And if you save the nation, maybe you can save God’s people?

And you can do it all without weakness.
You can have it all without losing.

But isn’t that the same offer of the wilderness?

What happens when we stand beside the empire and choose power in exchange for allegiance?

What happens when we believe that monetary or political influence is the way to ensure the gospel will not fail?

“If you will bow…”

The conditions today are rarely that obvious.
Maybe they simply require your silence.
Your compromise.
Your vote.

But once bowing in subtle ways becomes normalized, it no longer feels like bowing.

It feels like winning.

 

ashes or allegiances

Lent begins with ashes.

These ashes remind us that we are dust – not kings, not saviors, not political victors, and certainly not indispensable to history.

Jesus refused the kingdoms of the world because he already belonged to a different Kingdom.

The cross was not a detour. It was the way.

And that is why we must ask hard questions of ourselves this Lent:

Do we still know the difference between the Kingdom of God and the empires of the world?

When we seek power for the sake of preserving our faith, who are we bowing to?

When we pledge allegiance, which kingdom are we aligning ourselves with?

 

the invitation of the wilderness

Sit with the wilderness story.

Sit with the offer.

Just as it was made to Jesus, it continues to be made to us today.

• Where am I tempted to equate Christian faithfulness with national allegiance?
• How have I bought into the idea that the Kingdom of God needs political power to survive or to thrive?
• Where have I been asked to compromise my Christian ethics in order to garner influence or political power?

This series is not about abandoning our country. It is certainly not about hating our nation. But it is about being honest about the difference between human empires and a heavenly Kingdom. It is about which one is actually deserving of our allegiance and of our worship.

This week, reflect upon the strong but quiet response of Jesus to the adversary:

“Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.”

*This blog is a part of a series of Lenten reflections. I encourage you to go back and read the Ash Wednesday reflection for context.

when ruins remain…

The Lenten season begins with ashes.

Not celebration.
Not certainty.
Just us, and the realization of our humanity.

“You are dust…and to dust you will return.”

Ash Wednesday is not about dramatic repentance. It is about honest recognition.

And whether we would like to admit it or not, much of the American Church feels like it is in ruins.

Cracked walls. Roof broken open.

What once felt solid, now in disrepair.

Not the physical buildings, of course. At least not in America currently.

But trust has been eroded. Stories of abuse are now normal to hear about. Ethical pillars are hidden under the rubble.

All because of a culture war we have willingly participated in. A war that ended up harming our very selves.

Our own souls. Our own families. Our own faith communities.

And in the center of the ruins: an ash cross.

No crowd.

No stage.

No branding.

No production.

Just the aftermath of the ruins.

before we critique, we confess

This Lenten journey is not about “them.”

It begins with me. It begins with us.

It begins with the uncomfortable admission that idolatry – the wandering of our own hearts – is rarely as obvious as we’d like it to be. Instead, it disguises itself as loyalty. As strength. As religious fervor. As pragmatism. As protecting what matters most.

It can happen when I tell myself I am “defending the faith” but find myself in fact defending something else entirely.

Too easily I can fall into the trap of my own self-righteousness. Telling myself things about me, and about others, that are simply not true.

the stories we tell

The core focus of this series of reflections will explore is simple, but deeply personal:

How does the temporary nature of my life inform how closely I hold to my earthly identities?

Have my earthly identities begun to replace my eternal identity in Christ as primary to how I see myself and how others see me?

What happens when the temporary narratives I’ve been taught about my national identity quietly reshape the eternal narratives of the identity of the Kingdom of God?

Ash Wednesday refuses to let us answer those questions quickly.

It should force us to slow down long enough to embrace a deep wrestling with our identity, that requires being shaped by a deeply theological reality of life:

From the dust we were formed. To the dust all things always return.

a theology of ruin

Throughout the Bible, God’s people too often confuse “winning” with faithfulness.

Descendants of Abraham wanted a king like the nations.
The Temple realigned its sacrifices with economic growth.
Each new Empire promised security to those who bow their knee.

But again and again, generation after generation, the prophets stepped forward to say:

You have forgotten who you are. You have forgotten where you come from.

This image of church in ruins is not a declaration of defeat.

It is in fact an invitation.

To return to where God has always started. With dust.

Because before God rebuilds, He tears down.
Before He restores, He reveals.
Before He resurrects, He lets death run its course.

If we are to be purified, acknowledging the ruins caused by our participation in the war will not be enough. We must willingly allow the fire of God to consume us.

The dust caused by our own doing is not the same as the dust created by God’s purifying flames.

The ashes of Ash Wednesday are an invitation for us to willingly enter into those flames.

judgment must begin with us

It is almost too easy to critique “secular” philosophies, or political systems, or those who simply don’t see the world as we see it.

It is much harder to examine our own hearts.

And it is even harder to explore the ways we’ve collectively gone astray.

How have we accepted “lesser evils” as unavoidable, rather than asking if siding with any sort of evil is necessary at all?

How have we allowed political narratives about “choosing sides” to shape our understanding of our faith and faith communities?

How have we assumed that whatever benefits our nation will always align with the values of the Kingdom of God?

The most difficult idolatry to identify is that which we have inherited without questioning.

Ultimately Lent is not about accusing a world we already know is full of idols of forcing idolatry upon us.

It is about asking whether we have embraced those idols in ways we never intended to.

defining a nation

The Scriptures defines a nation not primarily by military might nor government structure, but by belonging – a people called by God’s name, a people shaped by God’s will, a people identified by God’s ways.

Because that is true, then our deepest citizenship is not earthly. It is not temporary.

It is formed by taking up a cross and forged by an empty tomb.

That cross and that tomb stand in tension with every earthly empire that seeks our ultimate allegiance. No matter how “good” it may present itself to be, it will always fall short of the goodness of God.

Even the nation we were born into. After all, this is why we must be reborn into the Kingdom.

And if we are to be honest then we must admit: many of us hold too tightly to both allegiances.

The invitation of today is for us to loosen our grip on everything we hold too closely to in this life. Even the earthly blessings we’ve gained, and especially the earthly entities we’ve pledged allegiance to. Because, after all, everything will eventually become dust…

the dust as prayer

Christians surrounded by ruins need not cry persecution.

Instead, the ruins should cause us to listen.

Listen to the ashes as they speak a reminder to us:

Repentance is not about shame.
It is about remembering.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”

Not search others.
Not point out the offenses of those people.
Know me. Lead me.

If I am unwilling to confess the harm that I have participated in and that I have allowed to happen around me, the ruins will remain. If I continue to place my earthly allegiances above my allegiance to the Kingdom, no restoration will come.

But if I am willing to admit:

I may have mistaken strength for faithfulness.
I may have defended what Christ would condemn.
I may have confused empire with Kingdom.

Then I can return to where I began…

the road to resurrection

In the Gospels, Jesus speaks of two roads. One that is narrow. And one that is wide.

Over the coming weeks of Lent, this series will invite us to move thru multiple stories from the Bible that will cause us to ask which road we are currently on.

From the wilderness temptation, to the welcoming of children, to neighbors we pass by, to leaders being confronted, to a table being overturned, and finally to a cross that is born as a symbol of an empire’s might.

But none of that journey can happen if we do not begin here.

In the quiet.

In the ruins.

In the dust.

With the ashes before us.

Because God only rebuilds when we surrender.

And He only resurrects those who have laid down their lives.

Ash Wednesday is an invitation to start again. To believe again. To follow Jesus again.

From the dust we have come. And, if we are to become like Jesus, to the dust we must return.

Repent and believe the Gospel.