NOTES for Mat 22:41-23:12
For the people to whom this Gospel was first addressed, the image of the "scribes and Pharisees" meant at the same time the people who had rejected and condemned Jesus, and the chief "internal" threat to their community: the "leaven of the Pharisees" could lead a believer to the same betrayal that had taken place then. Thus "religious functionaries" sat in the seat of Moses, the lawgiver and prophet, and Jesus then paints a picture recognizable in every age: the places of honor at banquets and "in the synagogues." One way or another, Christ's disciples would adopt the religious realities familiar to them in building the Christian Church—and someone would have to occupy the first places, lead, instruct, and be "teachers" and "fathers." What, then, are they to do? Christ gives a paradoxical answer: the great must become the least, rulers must become servants, and the exalted must become lowly. This is possible only if both the "great" and the "least" are, first and foremost, children of one Father and disciples of one Teacher.