"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. (Matthew 23:13)

No one is more anti-religious than Jesus. This is one of seven woes - expressions of grief - ascribed to the religious establishment of the day.

The religious are hypocrites, an English word derived directly from the Greek hupokrites, a stage actor, a pretender, one who says words without always understanding the words.

Through self-serving misrepresentations of reality the religious shut - kleio - close, lock, shut up the kingdom of heaven.

The religious leaders do not eiserchomai su - enter in yourselves, move through the entrance, arise, come into, partake, engage, take possession - of the kingdom of heaven. The religious stand in the way of others moving into the kingdom.

Empty words are dangerous. They distract. They obscure. They impede. We are not to act religiously, we are to take action so that we enter into the kingdom of God.