Should have known better ...

When a two-year-old does nearly anything – it’s cute.  When a 35-year-old does the same things – not so much.  In fairness two-year-old’s start out cute, so that tends to help when you look at what they do.  They also tend to start out innocent.  So we do not always expect them to “know” what they are doing.  They make mistakes, because they are exploring life, and very often need a parent’s guiding hand to keep them from wandering into something that would have otherwise harmed them.  The 35-year-old on the other hand, is expected to “know better” for many of the things they seem to stumble into.  And the mistakes they make as a result are not so cute, many of them are just plain harmful.  So when people of a certain age make mistakes that any adult should have known better than to do, you often hear the phrase cited again and again – “should have known better”.  Perhaps otherwise known as “he’s your child ya know” or “I told you TV was dangerous” or something of the ilk.  We like throwing out the judgmental style phrases when we encounter mistakes.  It’s in our nature.  At least our carnal one that is.

And I suppose if this phenomenon only took place outside of church walls it might be better for us all, but alas, it is not so limited.  Unfortunately, our churches are riddled with mistakes.  You might expect that from the parishioners, after all each of us is still learning.  But when the preachers are the ones making the mistakes, the judgmental-trigger-finger begins to get a little itchy.  And worse, if the preachers are actually teaching the mistakes to others, those with better insight tend to lose their minds.  For this is the worst of all scenarios, a preacher avidly teaching his flock (or rather the flock of Jesus put in his care) to make mistakes as great as the great outdoors.  What hope has he?  What hope have any of them?  But then the answer for all of us is the same – that our salvation is grounded in Jesus, and if we submit to Him first, He will be faithful to save us, even if that means leading us to do something different than we have been taught by the pulpits in His very church, by His very pastor.  Seems counter-intuitive, but sometimes mistakes taught at the pulpit create just this very need.  This is not something new.  In fact, Luke writes about just such an incident in his gospel letter to his friend about what we believe and why.

Luke picks up in chapter eleven of his gospel letter beginning in verse 37 saying … “And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. [verse 38] And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner.”  In today’s climate the viewpoint of this Pharisee seems much like a caring mom.  How often have our mother’s collectively reminded us to go wash our hands before dinner.  Perhaps our entire childhood.  Enough so that it still echoes in our ears.  Enough that it became so engrained in us, that we now teach our own children the very same thing.  So when Jesus gets an invite to dinner, by a Pharisee of all people, He accepts and goes right in to eat – no pre-washing involved.  But today is not the same as back then.  Today we are fighting a pandemic, so washing our hands is less ritual, and more a thing of survival.  We do it several times a day today in order to keep from getting violently ill.  Back then, the Pharisees did it several times a day, as a form of ritual, that is, ritual cleanness.  For the Pharisees, if you washed your hands, you washed away the sins they performed.  Now where would you get a crazy idea like that?  You had to have been taught it, by other, older, Pharisees.

The Pharisee however, does not think his idea is in any way crazy.  He thinks it is doctrine.  And Jesus, as a supposed Rabbi of the people, “should have known better” than to come in to eat with “dirty” hands.  If there is dirt on the hands, there will definitely wind up being dirt in the tummy, and that will be a much less pleasant experience.  Seems logical, but the idea of equating ritual washing, with getting rid of sin and maintaining a cleanness before God needed correcting – by God.  So Jesus responds picking up in verse 39 saying … “And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. [verse 40] Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? [verse 41] But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you.”  Here is where everything seems to go completely sideways.

Jesus does not respond with any sort of need to wash your hands at all.  Every child perks up and starts applauding 😊.  Instead Jesus begins to discuss how washing the outside of a cup or platter is not the same thing as washing the inside of it.  And further the God who created the outside of things, also created the inside of things.  And from what we can tell of Jesus’ admonition, He seems relatively content with both outside and inside in whatever form He finds them in.  However, as it comes to wanting to be clean before God there is an actual answer – go give alms (that is money), such as you have, to those in need – and you will be clean before God.  Well that answer has nothing to do with literal washing at all.  In fact quite the opposite.  Money tends to be dirty, because it is handled by many people over time.  Jesus is saying go grab some of that, and give it away to those in need, and the insides of you will become clean in the process.  Why?  Because showing love by meeting need, is the recipe for a clean heart.  Washing hands, no matter how often, or how hard, or how ritualistic it may seem, does nothing for the soul, or the heart.  Pharisees should have known better.  Jesus did.  And thus we have an admonition about being clean before eating, almost none of us, are going to want to follow.  But maybe that is changing.

If it were only this one doctrine they had wrong perhaps the admonitions could have stopped here, but unfortunately church leadership had gone astray on a great many things.  So Jesus continues His instruction picking back up in verse 42 saying … “But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.”  Yikes.  Imagine the context of this.  Jesus is just sitting down to dinner in the very home of a Pharisee (the guy who got the hand washing thing wrong).  And now, instead of polite dinner conversation, Jesus issues a very stark warning.  A pronouncement of Woe in fact.  Woe, meaning a warning where pain and suffering are bound to be a result.  Something to be avoided at ALL costs if it can be.  Jesus has just got done asking the Pharisee to part with alms for the poor.  He continues by saying the Pharisee is very detailed in how he gives tithe back to the church, tithing even 10% or more of his herbs in his pantry.  Keep in mind that the tithes and offerings of the nation went right back in the Pharisees pockets, so this was more or less, an offering of show.  But none-the-less it was a good example of what the nation should also be doing where it comes to tithing.

Jesus says you should keep that up.  HOWEVER, in the process of giving, you have lost ALL sight of the love of God, in your judgment of the nation.  When a case comes before leadership for decision, leadership looks to see how they might profit from it.  Widows lose homes, because no one is willing to support them.  The poor are made more poor, by what the Pharisees demand of them.  The pain of the nation is increased, debts are not forgiven, only the demand of eye-for-eye remains.  Justice without mercy is not of God, as Jesus reminds those in whose very home He has been invited to eat.  Can you imagine how shocked the church leaders were at this?  They were not used to anyone criticizing anything they did.  They all assumed their evil deeds were secret.  They assumed no one would know.  But here was Jesus not only criticizing them of something, but of something each heart knew it was guilty of doing.  Jesus was speaking truth to “power”.  You can imagine how discomforting this would have been.  But then, Why?  And worse, are we guilty of the same response when called out by Jesus to do better than we do?  Are our hearts as hardened to counsel as the Pharisees were?

Luke continues in verse 43 saying … “Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets. [verse 44] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.”  More Woe!  This will be worse for the Pharisees than the coming cleansing of the Temple.  Here is Jesus offering such a level of warning about what they do, right there in a home at dinner.  It was not public at the time.  But inspiration of gospel writers will come to make it public.  That is for us.  Because we too, have become Pharisees with our own versions of hardened hearts in the modern Christian church.  The Woe should speak right to us.  How many of us, wish to seek prominent positions in the church, not in order to serve, but in order to gain respect, or be looked up to by our fellow believers.  We wish to be “great” preachers, or singers, or teachers, in order to be known of our fellow believers.  We seek the great seats meaning, the positions of prominence, like so many peacocks in the yard.  But this Woe is unto us. 

And as for hypocrisy, how many of us are like graves that are trodden upon with no knowledge we are there.  Meaning how many of us are Christians in name only, not in love, or in service.  We lack love or service so much, that people encounter us and never know we are anything associated with Christian.  It is as if we are dead already and do not recognize it, not just dead in faith, but dead in life.  Our talk makes us hypocrites, because our lives look nothing like the love Jesus had for others.  We barely muster the love our families deserve.  But for our poor, we look on them with judgment.  And our enemies never enter our prayer lists, let alone our hearts in a desire to find ways to do good to them.  Instead we pray that our enemies suffer and find downfall because of the sins they commit against us.  Too many of us cite David and his prayers over his enemies, for their downfall, as our excuse.  But David was attacked by men seeking his life, and his prayers were for his protection, and prayed by a man used to killing.  We are none of those things.  Our enemies are none of those things.  We ascribe “enemy” to anyone who harms us through their own sinful actions.  Instead of forgiving them, and trying to love them, we want revenge as much as any non-Christian would want, sometimes more.  And our proverbial graves disappear into the sands of time, unnoticed by those who now walk over them with no idea they ever existed.

The Sanhedrin however, was made up of more than just Pharisees.  That was only one sect of it.  Prominent lawyers were also part of it, and present at this gathering.  Luke continues in verse 45 saying … “Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto him, Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also. [verse 46] And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.”  The lawyers heard the words and warning of Jesus, and immediately knew His words were not just for Pharisees.  His words were for them as well, and for us, even if we fail to see it.  So the lawyers complained about the reproach.  Jesus responds to them as well reminding all in church leadership who teach great burdens to the people, burdens they would never dare to try to carry, that this practice is wrong for everyone.  All of this woe was not meant to forever condemn the guilty.  It was meant to open their eyes to see it, and like John the Baptist, call them to repentance, to walk a different road, and be saved.

But the lesson was not over yet as Luke continues in verse 47 saying … “Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. [verse 48] Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres. [verse 49] Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: [verse 50] That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; [verse 51] From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.”  When we reject the counsel of God, we kill His prophets, and we come to even kill His Son.  When we put aside the words of God, in favor of our own wisdom, we walk the same road as our lawyer forefathers, and their forefathers, who would rather kill the messenger, than hear the message.  Today when we hear truth we do not like, we simply pick apart the person saying it.  We focus on their sins, and their shortcomings, making their less-than-perfect lives, our excuse for not hearing, and not doing.  In so doing, we become equally guilty of killing the prophets, and even His Son.  And the pronouncement of Woe becomes one directed at us.  In the building of monuments to ourselves, and to those who did evil before us, we seal our agreement with the wrongs we should be trying to undo.

Luke continues in verse 52 saying … “Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. [verse 53] And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: [verse 54] Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him.”  And there it is.  We, those who dare to call ourselves leaders of any kind in the faith, should have known better.  But we choose not to know.  The teachings of leadership must now need to be undone, because hearts were not submitted to Jesus, and therefore spoke from human wisdom, and human motives.  Teaching for doctrine, what was never doctrine.  And how did the leadership respond to this last Woe?  They got pissed off.  So much so, they tried immediately to get Jesus to stumble in His teachings or words, so that they could accuse Him and put Him to death for some disobedience to the Laws of God.  They found none.  Nor would we.

But the scarier question is how will we respond?  Does it make you angry to think that you might be teaching for truth, what is not truth at all?  Does it shake you up?  It should.  It is meant to remind you, that whatever you believe, you should submit yourself to Jesus before you ever open your mouth.  You should follow His lead, rather than attempt to lead others.  Speaking what we “know” to be true, if not first submitted to Jesus, is sounding horns and clanking symbols.  It is noise without meaning.  Truth can only be found in Jesus Christ, and can only come through us, when we are fully submitted to His Truth, passing it along, not inventing it ourselves, or simply repeating the traditions we have been taught.  We should know this.  We should know better.  We have the entirety of the Bible to teach us this very thing.  To believe that our personal denomination, and our personal understanding, is the sole source of all truth, is only arrogance on our part, not truth at all.  The mistakes in our own lives should teach us that.  I hope we see the words of Woe, as lampposts to guide our feet so that we stumble less in the dark, finding our way to His heart, that He might teach us how to love better, and live better, and make this world better than we ever imagined it could be.  Let us too give of ourselves, such as we have, to the poor and those in need, and find ourselves made clean by His grace in the process.