Luke 11:37-54

Problem 2 – Beyond Externals to Inner Attitudes

Luke 11:37-54 - Jesus Criticises Pharisees and Lawyers

Luke drew the following passage from the source that he shared with Matthew. He was not really interested in Pharisees as such but in how their attitudes might in so many ways be reflected in everyone, and especially religious people. He was particularly concerned about his own community.

³⁷ While he was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him.

He went in and reclined at table.

³⁸ The Pharisee noticed

how he did not first bathe himself before the meal,

and was amazed.

Jesus was open to share with anyone, Pharisees or tax-collectors and sinners alike. Washing before dinner was not a matter of hygiene, but of ritual “cleanness”. It was an expression of being different and separate. Pharisees as a group were meticulous about ritual niceties, as well as about the company they kept at table.

³⁹ The Lord said to him,

“Now you Pharisees do clean the outside of cup and dish,

but inside you are full of extortion and evil.

⁴⁰ Ignorant people, did not the one who fashioned the outside

fashion the inside also?

⁴¹ Rather give charitably from what is within you,

and you will find that everything is clean.

One potential problem, one instance of the cares, riches and pleasures that choke the genuine Christian spirit, was greed. His solution: live from your inner truth, the things that are within; grace people with your true spiritual riches; share the true Christian spirit.

⁴² “Grief awaits you Pharisees, because you pay your tithes

on mint and rue and every kind of herb,

but you overlook justice and the love of God.

It is appropriate that you do those things you do,

but not to overlook the latter.

The crucial need for every disciple was a stance of justice and of love for God. Other things were secondary to those values, and potential distractions.

⁴³ Grief awaits you Pharisees,

because you love the front seats in synagogues

and greetings in marketplaces.

⁴⁴ Grief awaits you because you are like unnoticed graves

that people walk over without seeing.”

In likening them to unnoticed graves, Jesus was saying that, though they looked normal enough on the surface, they concealed death and corruption within.

In a world ruled by considerations of honour, Jesus called for total conversion, for behaviour determined by authentic values and personal conscience, whatever the collective mindset.

⁴⁵ One of the lawyers answered up and said,

“Teacher, you reproach us too

when you say such things.”

⁴⁶ So he said, “Grief awaits you lawyers, too,

because you load people up with oppressive burdens

and you do not lift a finger to relieve those burdens.

Jesus saw that preoccupation with law, divorced from the power drawn from inner conviction, was little less than slavery. People needed the developed gift of discernment. When that was right, other things fell into place.

⁴⁷ Grief awaits you because you build monuments to the prophets

whom your ancestors killed.

⁴⁸ You witness to and agree with what your ancestors did.

They killed them and you build the monuments.

⁴⁹ That is why the wisdom of God said,

‘I will send them apostles and prophets,

some of whom they will kill and persecute',

⁵⁰ so that the blood of all the prophets

shed from the foundation of the world

will be demanded from this generation,

⁵¹ from the blood of Abel

to the blood of Zachariah

struck down between the altar and the sanctuary.

Indeed, I assure you, the demand will be made from this generation.

Abel and Zechariah were the first and last persons mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures to be murdered.

Jesus recognised the propensity to sit in judgment on former generations. He was convinced that human nature was consistent. The same problems confronting former generations were the problems of today’s generation. What people condemned in others, particularly when done with emotional investment, were almost inevitably their own unrecognised and repressed faults. What Christians condemned in the Pharisees of Jesus’ day were very likely their own problems, unrecognised and denied.

⁵² Grief awaits you lawyers,

you have removed the key of knowledge;

you did not go in yourselves,

and you hindered those who were going in.”

Essentially the key of knowledge is the sensitivity to truth and beauty, that can be cultivated and developed in every disciple - the capacity for discernment. Without that, external legislation becomes a hindrance to genuine growth.

⁵³ As he was leaving there,

the scribes and Pharisees began to quarrel with him fiercely

and to interrogate him about any number of things,

⁵⁴ plotting to catch him out on what he said.

Luke wanted to make quite sure that his readers realised the reason why he listed Jesus’ objections to the Pharisees.

Next >> Luke 12:1-12