Beware ‘the Woes of Jesus.’
Luke 11:37-54.
Introduction: Without the benefit of historical hindsight, one could naively suppose that the Pharisees would follow Jesus. They were not the upper-class, like the Sadducees, but came from the common people, as did Jesus. They were committed to holy living.
The very name Pharisee means ‘the separate ones.’ They were thought to be holy men, the true community of Israel. When a man became a Pharisee, he first endured a probationary period up to a year in length, during which time he had to prove his ability to keep the rituals of the Law. Many of the Pharisees were scribes, experts in the Law who so revered it that they hedged it in with extra protective laws. As the Mishnah says, “Tradition is a fence around the Law”. They loved the Law, God’s Word. Full entrance into the pharisaic community came, after a probationary period, when a man pledged to observe all the laws regarding purity and tithes. The Pharisees drew a hard line between themselves and the masses, who did not keep the Law as meticulously.
The conflict between the Pharisees and the masses was largely due to the people’s neglect of tithing. The Pharisees were exemplary. Tragically, however, their spiritual eyes had become bad.
“Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness” (Luke 11:34).
They had become darkened by pride and greed, so that the very light within them had become an appalling darkness “See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness.” Luke 11:35
So deep was the darkness that these fastidiously religious idealists became Jesus’ bitterest enemies. Jesus had just warned people against the chance of spiritual light becoming darkness within them. So, when a Pharisee invited Jesus to lunch, there was a hidden agenda AND JESUS KNEW IT.
“When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not first wash before the meal.” Luke 11:38-39.
The omission of ritual washing was a premeditated calculated affront on Jesus’ part. Hand washing was important to the Pharisees, to say the least. So Jesus’ declining to engage in this ritual was an in-you-face move. Jesus was on the attack! When His host showed his surprise, Jesus launched into an accusatory speech known as ‘Jesus six woes.’
Law instead of Love.
“Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.” Luke 11:39-41
The first woe directed by Jesus is against those who paid meticulous detail to ceremonial and traditionalists but were ‘full pf greed and robbery, extortion and malice and wickedness.’ They were more concerned about man-made laws than with ‘the love of God’
“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” Luke 11:42.
Jesus confronts their externalism, outwardly, their rituals portrayed them as generous and holy but inwardly they were ‘full of wickedness.’ The defining sin of these tithing, alms-giving Pharisees was love of money and greed. That is still a tell-tale sign, even among the most religious people today. Love of money sadly assaults the most idealistic, including preachers and missionaries. We too must beware!
Jesus then cited the ultimate sobering reality that God knows! “You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also?” Luke 11:40
Jesus was saying that their external lip service was at odds with their internal heart reality. Their freshly washed hands contradicted their unwashed hearts. “But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.”
Taken literally, verse 41 could read like this, “but rather give what is inside as alms and you will find everything is clean for you!”
So instead of concentrating all their attention upon the outward ceremonial cleansing of cups and plates, they should rather exercise true love and share their possessions with those in need. i.e. get rid of your sin – and everything will be clean for you; both the outside and the inside!
This is Jesus’ perpetual call to the Pharisees and indeed to all of us.
Now in particular, Jesus 1st woe fell on the Pharisees much advertised giving of the tithe. “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” Luke 11:42.
The Pharisees did tithe and so we must admire their legalistic commitment. No sincere Pharisee would not tithe. A synagogue that had a sprinkling of Pharisees prospered, but they were inward failures, as Jesus’ words made clear:
“But you neglect justice and the love of God”
They perpetuated the sin of their forefathers who loved ritual performance but neglected justice. The prophet Micah stated:
“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8.
The Apostle John says much the same thing. “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:17-18
So Jesus’ Word is clear: we should practise loving God and others by ministering to their needs without leaving the tithing undone
Pomp instead of Piety.
“Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces.” Luke 11:43
The most important seats in the synagogue were those in the front, facing the congregation. The Pharisees loved to be seen by all as they sat in their religious finery. Their principal folly here was that their pride left no room for the God they so meticulously served. In fact, it left no room for real faith.
On another occasion Jesus put this truth to the Pharisees in the form of a question.
“How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God” John 5:44.
To pursue the adulation and praise of men is to despise the praise of God. You cannot seek both. Its not terribly different today. A few years ago, a missionary handed me his business card, with all his titles and degrees printed on the reverse side – about 20 of them, followed by additional honours and professional qualifications! Jesus grieves over all this. Woe is an expression of regret, not of vindictiveness. “Woe to you…..because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greeting in the market place”
- Hindrance instead of Help
Graves were ceremonially defiling. (Numbers 19:11-22; Leviticus 21:1-4).
Because of this, graves were clearly marked, or a pilgrim, perhaps on his way to the temple could step unaware on a grave and be defiled and then defile the temple. That’s why Matthew mentions the annual white washing of graves before Passover.(Matthew 23:27). Jesus accuses some of the Pharisees of being like ‘unmarked graves.’ As religious leaders, they should have been a help to others, whereas by their actions and attitudes, they were often a positive hindrance to those they came into contact with. The internal, real lives of the Pharisees didn’t resonate with what they professed. They were filled with greed, hard-heartedness and pride. In François Mauriac’s novel ‘Viper’s Tangle”, the narrator speaks of the damning effect that professing Christians had on their grandfather:
“That does not alter the fact that, except in the case of Grandmother, our principles remained separate from our lives. Our thought, our desires, our actions struck no roots in that faith to which we adhered with our lips.” The point is all of us inevitably communicate what we are. We can do all the right things externally, but we will ultimately impart what is within us and the people around us will see the artificiality, the affectedness, the elitism, the anger, the hostility, the hatred, and the suspicion. We leave our fingerprints on each other’s soul, for Christ or for unbelief.
Preaching instead of Practicing.
Now by this time in the conversation, Jesus strong confrontational approach had left the Pharisees reeling, their lawyer friends “the experts in the law” perplexed and off-balance. So they try and come back at Him.
“One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.” Luke 11:45-46
If ever there was a case of leading with the chin, this was it! They may just as well have said ‘HIT ME!’
The Lord then delivered three more powerful blows or woes. These next three are subtly different from the first three, because the Pharisees and lawyers were in cohorts, they were different. The Pharisees were members of a religious party that enforced the legal code. The lawyers, scribes or experts in the law (the three terms are interchangeable) were the codifiers of the law, the people who built bridges around it, by encrusting it with myriads of extra regulations. Jesus woes to the Pharisees were swipes at their hypocritical religious practices, whereas the woes that fell on the lawyers had to do with the way they abused the Torah – God’s Word.
So in these last 3 woes we find the Divine assessment and judgement of those who pervert the Word of God. It’s a serious subject! While Jesus is still fiercely aggressive, one also senses in His utterances, sorrowful groans over the destiny of those who will not heed Gods Word. Jesus response to the experts in the law, goes to the heart of the matter.
“One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.” Luke 11:46
The lawyers loaded people with laws manufactured from the law designed to provide a protective crust for the law. This eventually resulted in 6000 laws, all of which were petty and burdensome and made life impossible for the average Israelite in Jesus day. It was oppressive religion and had nothing to do with true heart obedience to God’s word. To make matters worse, the creators of these laws didn’t care about the heavy burden which they’d created. .
"Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them” Luke 11 47
If the scribal lawyers believed their extra laws were beneficial, they should have given the people encouragement and support in shouldering the load. But, instead they were inclined to despise the ordinary people who found it difficult to understand the lawyers’ religious demands, let alone keep them! Then of course, the lawyers themselves would find ways of not keeping all of them themselves.
Now of course, Jesus’ words apply to us today. We must be careful not to place tradition on an equal footing with scripture. Man-made additions invariably obscure the Word and place unbiblical regulations on their followers. The problem is not only ‘out there’, its also found in evangelical churches where gurus and their new systems are continually embraced as being the way to effective Christian living. We must beware of anything that separates us from primarily exposure to God’s Word, no matter how appealing it is packaged or marketed.
Ritual instead of Repentance.
“Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your ancestors who killed them. So you testify that you approve of what your ancestors did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs.” Luke 11:47-48
At first sight this seems a bit harsh. Why does Jesus rebuke them for building tombs for past prophets whom they admired? Think of it this way; yes the scribes and their cohorts built tombs to celebrate the dead prophets by elaborate attention to the tomb of the martyred prophets, the lawyers tried to exempt themselves from guilt, but their ritualistic sorrow was sheer hypocrisy. The true sense of Jesus’ words was; “You killed the prophets, you made sure they were dead and now you build great tombs – ostensive to remember them, but in reality to insure the prophet’s wont trouble the living!
They were in partnership with those who killed the prophets, after all they were planning to kill the greatest prophet of all – Jesus Himself! No wonder Jesus said what He did on verses 50-51
“Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all.”
The reason He said this is because Jesus’ contemporaries comprised the most privileged generation in Israel’s history. God had sent them the greatest prophet ever in Jesus. Along with Him came the Christian apostles. This apostolic preaching of the Cross was a more glorious statement of the gospel than any previous generation had ever heard. And when Jesus’ generation rejected it, they demonstrated that they were partners with their forefathers in killing the prophets. Indeed they carried far more guilty than their ancestors because they rejected the Word of God – both Old and New Testament.
Ignorance instead of Insight.
“Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.” Luke 11:52
They had taken the ‘key to knowledge’, which is the scriptures away from the average people with their man-made additional laws. The experts in the law were outside the kingdom and they were making it very difficult for others to find entrance as well. This ‘woe’ falls heavily on those of us who are pastors/ministers/preachers – we must make sure that we keep to the Word, ‘the key of knowledge’ before the people. We must make sure that we preach the Word and not succumb to merely preaching about the Word! We’ve all had the experience of hearing a text read and waiting in anticipation for the exposition only to have the preacher depart from it and never return! Many of us have listened to a preacher do a series of sermons that, regardless of the text used, always ended up sounding nearly the same, because he coated every sermon with his favourite text.
Other sermons remain in the parameters of the text, even quoting it occasionally, but never really deal with the text, either in the broader context of the books of the bible, or in the immediate context. Preaching is NOT exposition if it views the text through the lens of personal agenda. The predetermined lens may be political or therapeutic or social, so that the sermon – regardless of the text is about politics or general wellness, or some narrowly defined social issue.
We must let God’s Word say what it says – and we must not bring our predetermined framework to bear in upon it. We must be very careful to be people that give primary exposure to God’s Word, in the pulpit and in our personal lives. We must be people primarily of one Book. We must be John Banyans! If there is one thing that I would want to have as a goal, its that my congregation would be able to discern when they hear the Word of God preached. People of ONE BOOK! Jesus wants us to be a people of His Word – that was the concern throughout this debate.
Peter Wessels, Minister,
St Olav Church