Whitewashed Tombs

In chapter 23 of Matthew, Jesus leveled his harshest criticisms and condemnation against the religious elite of biblical Israel. He listed several “woes…” to introduce his chastisement of those who are supposed to speak and act on behalf of a loving God to society’s most vulnerable.

In one of the condemnations in verse 27, Jesus says, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside, they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So, you also, on the outside, look righteous to others, but inside, you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

His phrase “whitewashed tomb” has always caught my attention because of what the image connotes. A tomb is a place, a vault, a chamber, or a grave that is usually underground and where corpses of the dead are placed to decompose and decay. 

You can imagine the smell inside these vaults or tombs. You can imagine what Jesus describes as filth as a result of the lack of attention to the graveyards in Jesus’ day. Yet Jesus says that sometimes people tried to dress up the outside with white paint to make the tomb look less grisly and unsightly. 

This is the hideous image Jesus paints of the religious leaders of his day who showed contempt for the poor and destitute. In verse 23, he levels a serious charge against these corrupt leaders who show their giving but deny justice and equity to the common working-class people, including peasants. 

A popular Black prosperity preacher has been dragged on social media for declaring that “giving to the poor will not do anything for the giver and will not make them wealthy but will only meagerly help the poor.” 

This preacher, like all other prosperity preachers/pastors, twisted the words of Jesus, “You shall always have the poor,” to mean in his bastardized logic that it is not important to give to the poor. The portion of the text he quoted left off the full meaning of the text that suggests structural inequity is the reason that there is poverty and poor people. Next, he conveniently omitted that, in that particular instance, it was reasonable for the woman with the expensive perfume to anoint Jesus before his crucifixion. Context is everything.

There is also a list of names of religious leaders, mostly white but some Black, who now advocate and extol a man who has a history of bigotry and racism (see the Central Park Exonerated 5), a man who has bragged about grabbing women by their private parts, a man who persistently lies to misdirect from the truth, a man who uses racist “dog whistles,” to appeal to the lowest hateful instincts of people, a man who helped orchestrate the insurrection on January 6th, a man who intends to undermine the constitution and who now has 34 felony convictions on his record. 

One has the right to choose whoever they support for any office, but when religious leaders who on the outside live in lavish gated communities, who drive in expensive automobiles, and who fly on personal jets, yet who never advocate for the poor, the working class or the destitute among us. When religious leaders look prosperous on the outside while the majority of their members are strapped with tuition debt, saddled with medical debt, and struggle in resource-deprived food deserts, but they ignore the words of Jesus, who said, “Feed the hungry and clothes the naked,” as a litmus test to enter heaven then Jesus would refer to them as “whitewashed tombs.”

These same mostly television evangelists will declare that they are “pro-life,” when in reality, they are just pro-birth because they will not advocate for a living wage for poor parents to be able to take care of their families. Jesus would call them “whitewashed tombs.” 

When religious leaders with their patriarchal perspectives on women and their right to choose what happens to their own bodies but who railed against vaccinations and the wearing of masks during the COVID pandemic that needlessly took thousands of lives because the 45th president told people to “drink bleach,” and sent testing equipment to Russia then Jesus would call them “whitewashed tombs.” 

These same so-called religious leaders also have nothing to say about the draconian and dangerous proposals in Project 2025 of the Heritage Foundation, which threaten the very institutions that have served as a protection for the most vulnerable and historically oppressed in this nation, and Jesus would call them, “whitewashed tombs.”

Jesus’ words are just as relevant today as they were in the first century when he spoke them. Stay woke, be well, and be encouraged, Uhuru Sassa!      

Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.” Contact the church by email at [email protected] or by phone at 219-944-0500.