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While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, \u201cBeware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows\u2019 houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.\u201d (Luke 20:45-47)

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There is a sense in which much of our evangelical world can fit under Jesus\u2019 is warning here in this passage.\xa0 So much of the things that have driven our practices and our passions these past years have been a desire to grow the church, to compete with the secular world, and to prove the greatness of God by the greatness of our churches and preaching and the spectacles that we can pull off.\xa0

But, it is exactly those sorts of things that Jesus warns his disciples to beware of here.\xa0 And, of course it's not just the evangelicals that that have this problem: many of us are tempted to the same.\xa0 But Jesus notes that some of what's underneath this show, flash, and pizazz\u2014are things like the seven deadly sins that we've been talking about in our Sunday worship services.

You can hear in this passage examples of things like pride. \xa0\u201cThey like to have flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets,\u201d Jesus says.\xa0 There is also here the sin of greed: \u201cthey devour widows houses.\u201d\xa0 \u201cGive more!\u201d they say, \u201cgive more!\u201d Perhaps even more than you're able to give, all so that I can build my empire. \xa0

Jesus warns us against these things and tells us that these men will be punished most severely. \xa0Indeed these sins lead to all sorts of things that distract and that actually take away from what we show up in the church for. \xa0We show up in the church to hear a word from God, a word of grace, a word of compassion, a word that meets us in our need and that is humble enough to meet us where we are.\xa0 Jesus does exactly that and his church should too.

Ministers and leaders like myself have to hear this text and always weigh ourselves against it. \xa0As James says in his letter, those of us who teach have to be careful for we will be judged more strictly. \xa0But passages like this are a warning to all of us\u2014not just against the temptations that some of these Pharisees and teachers of law had given themselves into of pride and greed, but we are also warned not to follow those who follow these sins of pride and greed and whatever else. \xa0

Jesus says: \u201cI have a humble Kingdom and this is not necessarily what it looks like and so if you see these things\u2014ministers and churches that like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the business world and have the most important seats in the places of honor\u2014beware of such things.\u201d \xa0

Beware, and always remember that Jesus came to us humbly and that his work of humbly giving himself up at the cross is eventually what saves us, not greatness in our own eyes.

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