Are we Pharisees!?

Luke 11:47-54

47-51 “You’re hopeless! You build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed. The tombs you build are monuments to your murdering ancestors more than to the murdered prophets. That accounts for God’s Wisdom saying, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, but they’ll kill them and run them off.’ What it means is that every drop of righteous blood ever spilled from the time earth began until now, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was struck down between altar and sanctuary, is on your heads. Yes, it’s on the bill of this generation and this generation will pay.

52 “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars! You took the key of knowledge, but instead of unlocking doors, you locked them. You won’t go in yourself, and won’t let anyone else in either.”

53-54 As soon as Jesus left the table, the religion scholars and Pharisees went into a rage. They went over and over everything he said, plotting how they could trap him in something from his own mouth.

Food for thought!

As you may have noticed, Jesus reserved his harshest words, not for thieves, or prostitutes but to the Pharisees, who he identified as hypocrites. Jesus is committed to exposing these people who claim to represent God and his ways, while not living out what they claim to be. Worse, as Jesus said, these people took away the key of knowledge! They did not in themselves, and prevented others going in who wanted to.’ But who were these people?

The Pharisees were the Religious Fundamentalists of their day. They were very legalistic when it came to keeping the Law of Moses. Most were very well educated in the Jewish law as well as the oral traditions that had been passed down from generation to generation. This is why today's gospel calls them religion scholars!

To Jesus these poeple were men who were religious actors. What he meant was this. Their whole idea of religion consisted in outward observances, the wearing of elaborate garments and vestments, the meticulous observance of the rules and regulations of the Law. But in their hearts there was bitterness and envy and pride and arrogance. To Jesus these Scribes and Pharisees were men who, under a mask of elaborate godliness, concealed hearts in which the most godless feelings and emotions held sway.

That accusation holds good in greater or lesser degree of anybody, including you and me, whose life is on the assumption that religion consists in external observances and external acts. Religion is an act of the heart. The laws and rules and rituals and ceremonies are intended to be manifestations of our heart. When this does not correspond to those, when that which happens in the heart is different from religious laws and rules and rituals and ceremonies, we become mere actors, we become hypocritical.

Perhaps the most frightening thing about the Pharisees is that they were the group of people in the gospels who most closely resembles us. So far as the fundamentals are concerned the Pharisees believed in nearly everything we do. They believed in the inspiration and authority of the Bible (in their case it was of course the Old Testament). They believed in the supernatural, in Satan, angels, heaven and hell, and the resurrection of the dead.

As yesterday in the gospel, when Jesus talks to some people he talks to all of us; when he talks to the Pharisees he talks to us as well.

Master when you speak you insult us too!