William Burkitt on Luke 20:45

Observe here, what it is that our Saviour condemns; not civil salutations in the market-place, not the chief seats in the synagogue, not the uppermost rooms at feasts, but their fond affecting of these things, and their ambitious aspiring after them; it was not their taking, but their loving, the uppermost rooms at feasts, which our Saviour condemns. God is the God of order, there may and ought to be a precedency among persons; God commands us to give honor to whom honor is due, but pride and ambition are detestable and hateful vices, especially in such as are preachers, and ought to be patterns of humility.

Observe, 2. How our Saviour condemns the Pharisees for their gross hypocrisy, in coloring over their abominable covetousness with a specious pretence of religion, making long prayers in the temple and synagogues for widows, and thereupon persuading them to give bountifully to Corban, that is, the common treasury for the temple; some part of which was employed for their maintenance.

Whence we learn, that it is no new thing for designing hypocrites to cover the foulest transgressions with the cloak of religion: thus the Pharisees made their prayers a cloak and cover for their covetousness.