Shannon Costello

I noticed something sort of scary today while reading Matthew. The response of the leaders of Israel to Judas is exactly characteristic of them.
Jesus tells them that they pay close attention to little things like tithing, but that they ignore very important things such as justice, mercy, and righteousness. They should pay close attention to the latter without forgetting the former.

Judas tells these leaders that he has sinned and has betrayed innocent blood. Their response is, “What’s that to us? That’s your problem!”. Their response shows no justice, mercy, or righteousness. Judas throws the money down and leaves. The leaders then wrangle over what they should do with the money. They can’t just put it in the temple treasury, because it is blood money. Having completely neglected what was important, they proceed to carefully scrutinize a relatively minor question.

I guess that’s so scary because of the utter disregard for what’s important in those who are supposed to be the spiritual leaders of a people. They did not care about people, only rules.