Motives
37 While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. 38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you. 42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.” 45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” 46 And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. 47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. 52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.” 53 As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, 54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.
As I was reading through and studying this passage in Luke 11, I came across this quote (words in italics are my rephrasing to more current language) credited to Charles Spurgeon. “How many people, in these days, are very particularly fervent, over very little things, but very careless about great things! They would not violate the law of their own opinion or party for the world, but the law of God is of small account to them.”
In this passage, a Pharisee invited Jesus to dine, but Jesus did not adhere to their rituals of cleanliness while he was there. When Jesus is questioned about this, He responds with some harsh honesty.
As I was reading the “woes” Jesus pronounced upon the Pharisees, it made me think about the end of Chronicles. These are some of the last words in the Hebrew Bible: 2 Chronicles 36:14-15, “All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. And they polluted the house of the LORD that he had made holy in Jerusalem. The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.”
When I think about these words spoken of God’s people, there is something about this whole scene that is so heart-breaking. Jesus is amongst those who should be his people, those that have watched and waited for him, and they are treating him with hostility. The priests who should be able to read and know these passages and seek diligently to not repeat the sins of their fathers, instead are doing just that.
It’s a little tragic. God says in Chronicles that he has persistently sent messengers out of his compassion, and these messengers were rejected. Now God sends his son (Luke 20:9-18), and they treat his son with the same disdain. They go after him, this passage says; they lie in wait for him; they want to entrap, snare, and destroy him. They were able to do this with the other messengers. They could trap and ensnare them even if God intervened otherwise. But with Jesus, no one was going to do anything apart from the time appointed for him to lay down his life. They schemed, they plotted, they planned, and for what? Jesus did what was already determined by him. Their actions came to nothing.
So, let’s go back to where I started (because you are probably thinking how this big spiral all relates). Because these people were focused on the small insignificant things–the washing, the rituals, etc.– they missed Emmanual before their faces. People cling to their opinions, rituals, rules, and systems, and expect others, even God, to fit within them. How sad, right? So where do we carry the same mistakes into our lives? How are we repeating the same mistakes of those Jesus is warning here in this passage?
How do we keep the outside clean while the inside is wretched? Do we offer actions but not our hearts to Jesus? Jesus warns those sitting near him, and I wonder if one of them heard. Did just one rethink what they were doing? Will you? Will I? Will we take a look at what Jesus would say to us if he sat at our table? Don’t even his warnings show compassion? For if he did not care, he would not speak. But he does speak, and he does warn, and he does want their eyes to be open. He wants our eyes to be open. He wants us to see and hear and humble ourselves before Him to be taught and loved and shown forgiveness.
As we have read and studied Luke, Jesus’s kindness, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness are in the forefront, so when we read about Jesus responding to people as he does to the Pharisees and lawyers here, it may surprise and throw us a little. We must remember that Jesus is His Father’s Son, the part of the trinity who came to walk amongst all people and interact with all sorts of people. Those that love him, and those that don’t. This is good news for us because no matter where we fall, Jesus came to save us all.
