Year B Proper 25 WEDNESDAY 2024 Spirit Not Letter

Year B Proper 25, Wednesday October 30,  2024

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“Spirit Not Letter”

Collect: Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Luke 11:37-52

While he was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him; so he went in and took his place at the table. The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not first wash before dinner. Then the Lord said to him, ‘Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you.

‘But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the market-places. Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.’

One of the lawyers answered him, ‘Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too.’ And he said, ‘Woe also to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them. Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; 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 this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, 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 charged against 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.’

The Spirit of the Law or the Letter of the Law. When people are more concerned with keeping the appearance of religion than the point of religion it becomes another prison with which we are bound.

In our book club on Tuesday mornings we are looking at James Martin’s Becoming Who You Are. In this week’s chapter we looked at freedoms and unfreedoms. Unfreedoms are those things that keep us from loving others and being who we are born to be. A lot of these are masks, when we pose to be something we are not. The Pharisees were doing just that.

They got on Jesus for not ritually washing his hands when he was invited to the religious leader’s house. And when asked about it, Jesus uses it as a teachable moment. The Pharisees and other religious leaders were more concerned with the outward appearance of the cup, instead of making sure the inside of the cup was clean and ready for use. They were focusing on the wrong thing.

It is easy to do. Sometimes we get so focused on being “right” that we miss the whole point of the exercise.

But it is not just the Pharisees that Jesus gets on, the lawyers took umbrage at his castigation.

One of the lawyers answered him, ‘Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too.’ And he said, ‘Woe also to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them. Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs.

This is a great level of hypocrisy, too. Esteeming a prophet after they are gone when they would have derided them in their own day. A political philosopher said, “Conservatism is the worship of dead revolutions.” And it seems apt.

Jesus came to turn things over, whether the tables in the Temple, or the hardened hearts of the religious elite. They know prophets are good and godly, but stop when it comes to listening fully and doing what they say. They wash the outside of the cup when the inside grows mold.

Human nature has not come that far in 2,000 years. Alas.

And what was even more harmful? Jesus saves the worst for last:

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.

It was bad enough that they stayed out, but they kept those with open eyes and open hearts from entering as well.

Friends, we are in a time when we are arguing and struggling on where to go and whom to

follow. Both sides are slapping the adjective evil and worse names on each other. I look for

light, not heat; I look for love, not hate. 

If I am going to follow anyone I will follow Jesus. He may not wash his hands when dictated

to by rule keepers, but he finds us and loves us and invites us home wherever we are. 

Maybe we need more of that, and trust that God is not done with us yet. I have to believe

that. I have to cling to that hope, especially in days like this. Amen