Jesus castigates the scribes and Pharisees for paying excessive attention to minor matters while ignoring real and more important matters. The scribes and the Pharisees were not bad people in general. They probably felt that if they paid great attention to small details, then they were certain to be keeping the law in all matters and become justified in the eyes of God. There was a certain imbalance in their religious way of thinking and Jesus seeks to restore the balance.

In his latest apostolic exhortation, Gaudete et Exultate (Rejoice and Be Glad), paragraph 57, Pope Francis addresses a certain spiritual condition which is not very much different from the attitude which Jesus criticizes. Pope Francis is more interested, perhaps, in the spiritual condition, but we should be aware that the condition can be, even if only slightly, a psychological disorder. In the language of Jesus' time there was no exact term like our "attention seeking". Yet Jesus criticized that attitude of the Pharisees and those he called "hypocrites" - choosing the front seats in the synagogue (cf. Lk 11:43) and praying at street corners (cf. Mt 6:5) in order to gain public attention. So Pope Francis speaks of "apparently unconnected ways of speaking and acting" and of "self-centred and elitist complacency, bereft of true love."