Hypocrisy – Luke 11:37-54

Proper dinner etiquette with guests, according to thespruce.com, includes turning off your cell phone, not talking with food in your mouth, not cutting all your food before eating, not blowing on your food to cool it, trying at least one or two bites of everything on your plate, eating slowly, and complimenting the hostess if you liked the food.  I’m pretty sure it doesn’t include verbally flaying your host for their hypocrisy.

While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 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. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.

“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. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”

One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” 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. Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, 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. 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.”

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, lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.  (Luke 11:37-54 ESV)

While Jesus is critiquing the people of Israel he does not spare the leadership.  He reproaches them for several things:

1) Making external ritual cleansing more important than internal cleansing.  This allows them to look good on the outside but be full of greed and wickedness.  Internal cleansing is the way to real cleansing.

2) Making the minor concerns of the law (like tithing) more important than the weightier concerns of the law (like justice and love for God).  Both are required.

3) Seeking personal aggrandizement.  They want their power recognized.  It is their god.

4) Making the keeping of the law so burdensome with their minute requirements but not helping anyone keep it.

5) Being complicit in the murder of the prophets of God.  God will hold this generation responsible for all those persecuted and though he does not say it, Jesus will be the next victim.

After this these leaders look for ways to trip Jesus up in what he is saying so they can accuse him and shut him down.  We cannot abide someone who exposes our hypocrisy and failures.