Lawyer Drawing Fire

One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.”

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 11:45, 52-54 ESV)

A soldier on patrol watches his team get chewed up by machine gun fire, and miraculously wasn’t hit.  So he stands up from the cover he was using and says, “Ha! Missed me!” and is promptly shot by the machine gun.  Such genius is this lawyer, this master of minutia, this detail-oriented interpreter of Moses.  He gets the small stuff, the minor stuff, and misses the rather important things by a rather wide margin.  Can’t hit the side of the barn, but seems to be able to hit everyone in front it…

The setting here is like the previous entry, dinner with the Pharisees.  A Pharisee sees that Jesus doesn’t wash His hands and is surprised.  Jesus then takes the opportunity to correct the Pharisee’s entire perspective claiming they are merely exterior believers but interior sinners.  It’s meal time, and Jesus is serving up the guests…again!  There’s Pharisee “woe” all over the floor, they’ve been criticized right to the core, below the surface, and to the heart.  I would think that the “lawyers” in the group would consider themselves in the category Jesus criticizes and be done with it, but no.  This guy has to suggest that Jesus unintentionally came close to criticizing the lawyers.  Not a bright guy.

Do you wonder how many of the other lawyers threw a roll at the guy who made the comment?  The audacious assumption on the part of the lawyer is that Jesus wouldn’t criticize the lawyers. Who would dare do such a thing?  For whatever reason (too important, too “dangerous”, too whatever) Jesus wouldn’t dare such a thing.  Or would He?   In a sense Jesus says, “Oh, wasn’t I being obvious enough? Okay, here’s some specifically for you guys.”  Jesus levels blow after blow (or woe after woe) on these experts in Scripture.  Not the attention the lawyer expected.

The criticisms include loading the people with burdens they refuse carry and participation in the slaughter of the prophets.  That wasn’t bad enough, Jesus then winds up with the charge that these lawyers have taken away the “key of knowledge”, the very thing they were supposed to provide to the people.  They have kept others from knowledge and refused to enter themselves.  These scholars have hindered knowledge rather than inspired it.  Essentially, Jesus describes their complete failure.

So, what’s the lesson?  Where’s the application for us?  What do I need to do in response?  Well, first and most obvious, don’t assume I’m above any lesson of Jesus.  But second, and more important, heed the woe!  Why not receive the criticism, examine my life, and make changes?  Where do I do the minor stuff and miss the greater issues of giving into the lives of others in love?  Where do I hide my weakness from others to gain their respect?  What do I instruct others to do that I don’t follow through on myself?  How do I claim to respect the heroes of faith, but really behave like those who murdered them?  How am I hindering faith and knowledge rather than providing the key?  Unless I’m willing to sit down to the meal with Jesus and hear His words and receive His correction I might as well be eating dust.

I like minutia.  But do I love my neighbor as myself?  Do I want the respect of others and do I hide who I am to get it?  What if I were to love the unlovable and the outcasts?  What do I teach?  Am I willing to live the lesson not just speak it?  Is it enough to confess that I can’t or that I haven’t?  Such a confession may make me more transparent, but does it still burden others with that I refuse to carry?  Do I want the “status quo” more than deeper experiential knowledge of God?  Am I threatened by change?  Do the views of others threaten me?  Personally, I think I hide behind my views so that in trying to be more fringe and “out there” in my views, I protect myself from the radical views of others.  On the other hand I really enjoy discussion at the edges of Scriptural Interpretation and theology.  I don’t know.  This will take some thought and prayer for me to really hear my Master reveal the areas I need to grow.  It’s time for me to have a meal with Jesus.  He says He stands at the door and knocks.  Perhaps I should open it and let the meal commence!

What do you learn from the woes of the lawyers?

Giving = Sanctifying?

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.  (Luke 11:37-41 ESV)

I don’t know if it’s every church, but the one’s I’m most familiar with have problems in that the people don’t tithe.  So, the pastor and elders and leaders all work to persuade people to tithe.  We use various means, but typically it boils down to their devotion to God is reflected in their giving (guilting them into it).  But I think I’ve found a different approach in this passage.

As you read through this dinner party where, again Jesus seems to make His host and other guests uncomfortable, He also throws in this strange statement in the middle.  It’s weird so it’s easy to miss: “But if you give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.”  The problem I have with it is that Jesus attaches several elements together that I find difficult to connect.

Giving those things that are within makes some sense, if those things are good.  Of course if I give those things that are within as “alms” I suppose that would necessitate those things be good.  What sort of heart would produce something to give to others as “alms” if it wasn’t good, or striving to be good.  But Jesus connects those things that are within with “alms”.  How do I give what is within as alms?

Those things that are within are what?  My love (as God understands it).  My compassion?  Mercy?  Perhaps the ability to overlook negative judgments of others, what they look like, dress like, or smell like; how they talk.  Maybe what I can give as alms from within is my time, or a smile.  Perhaps a conversation, not trying to fix them, but getting to know them.  I honestly don’t know what it will or should look like, but these are possibilities.

But whatever the interior alms look like, giving them has a very unexpected effect.  The context of this statement has to do with washing the hands before eating a meal.  The statement Jesus makes is that the effect of giving alms from the interior is that “everything is clean for you.”  How does one affect the other?  How does what I give to others from those things that are within have anything to do with the cleanliness of what I eat?  Does Jesus even refer to the cleanliness of what I eat?  The context suggests that, and it would definitely be on the heart and mind of a Pharisee and lawyer (it probably never left their mind).  But how do the two connect?

I honestly don’t know.  I’m wracking my brain to get my head around this concept, and I’m really struggling.  Cleanliness of what the Jews ate is way too often rooted in safety or in health reasons.  I think most of the “Holiness Code” of Leviticus was more defining the Jews as distinct from those around them.  There may have been a practical side to the laws in that code, but there was one common thread that transcended “wisdom”.  It was simple obedience.  What truly made the Jews distinct was their whole devotion to the rules of God.  Sure some of those rules kept them safe from dangerous food and difficult laundering problems, but some were simply inexplicable as pragmatic rules.  I think it was supposed to come down to devotion to God.

In that case, what one eats is less important than devotion to God.  Therefore, perhaps Jesus is prioritizing the law of loving your neighbor over don’t eat certain animals.  Later on in this passage Jesus says, “These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”  I think that also applies here.  The Pharisees and lawyers were focusing on those rules that showed strict adherence to certain laws that made them look good to others.  But avoided adherence to those laws that actually cost them in their dealings with others.  They strove to merely look good to others rather than be good before God.

In that case, we, I, are just like them.  Churches are full of these people.  Superficiality is easier than true devotion.  Devotion to God really is inconvenient and disruptive to our lives, our activities, our work, what we do for fun, and our schedules.  My wife and I made the decision to search for a house that would enable more ministry.  God directed us to one that fit our budget and was more home than we imagined within our budget.  But it requires more work to keep up.  It requires more time to keep it available to ministry.  It means having to sacrifice our personal space.  Hospitality isn’t mine or my wife’s gifting it has become more our “calling”, so it doesn’t come easy.

But really that’s easier than others around me to make even greater decisions to inconvenience themselves for the Kingdom of God. What we’ve done helps us feel better about having a nice house, but truly we benefit tremendously from it.  Others have made decisions to be devoted to God in ways that hurt their business, endanger their work life, and possibly endanger their families.  We haven’t done that.  But we know enough of inconvenient devotion to God to know that we, even as limited as we have been, are weird in church.  We should be on the bottom of the devotion ladder, not near the middle or top.  That’s just embarrassing, or should be.  I believe Jesus is calling these Pharisees and lawyers to be authentic with their beliefs.  But what they heard was Jesus tearing down their practices.  He wanted them to be real Jews, but they heard Him try to remove their distinction from Gentiles.

So I suppose the question for you is, “What do you hear Jesus saying to you?”

When A Lawyer Stands Up

And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25 NASB)

Last week, I decided to work ahead and complete my translation of this parable.  Unbeknownst to me (but knownst to God), I would need that last Sunday.  It worked out that I was asked to give a “devotional” in the Sunday service while the song before was playing.  Since this was fresh in my mind, I chose this.  But the divine element was that this parable dovetailed precisely with the sermon.  The person who was scheduled had a “fatherly” devotion planned, and my next scheduled speaking was on Father’s Day.

Yes, sure, all random chance, kind of like the universe, completely without orchestration or direction.  How do we “swim” in the pool of divine direction and intent?  Do we go with the current or fight against it, strive for the side, or even stay out of it all together?  As seventy “missionaries” return and they celebrate, up jumps a lawyer.  What timing!  Jesus has just praised God for revealing His purpose to the infants rather than the wise and intelligent.  How could this guy remain in his seat?  The infant believing he’s wise and intelligent could not remain silent.

As this lawyer stood to fight against the tide of Jesus’ ministry and direction, he stood as one of the wise and intelligent.  In representation of their group, he stands to “test” Jesus.  The word used combines “from out of” and “to test for quality or response”.  In other words, the Lawyer wanted to know what Jesus would do when asked a “hard” question.  Ironically, the group who just returned, had returned from healing and casting out demons, and so on.  Having returned from this dramatic demonstration of the power of God, Jesus says He saw the devil fall from heaven.  What a great time to ask a question about commandments!

This is one of those encounters where you have to wonder if the guy was even paying attention.  It’s a great example of what Jesus says in praise, that the Father revealed these things to the infants and not the wise and intelligent!  He didn’t get it.  He’s clueless about what’s going on, and focus’ only on his agenda: test Jesus to see what He will do.  “Yeah, yeah, I know all those miracles happened, and preaching and stuff, but I have a question about the law.”  Okay, thanks for playing.

In his wisdom and intelligence though, the lawyer provides an excellent opportunity for one of the parables of Jesus most quoted and misunderstood by masses of the unfaithful.  Anyone with a motorhome or camp trailer knows of the “Good Sam Club”.  Where did the name come from?  This parable.  Does the club have anything to do with the parable?  No, not really.  In 1966, several RV people banded together in a promise to help each other along the road (i.e. be a good Samaritan).

So, once again, a lawyer stood to speak.  I wonder if people groaned when he did.  “Great, not this guy again.”  I wonder if people looked on in interest wondering what would happen as well.  “This should be good.”  I wonder if people even noticed.  The thing is, this guy stands in the midst of a celebration and seeks to take the crowd and celebration in another direction.  I don’t know if he really expected Jesus to “fail” the test, the word used doesn’t suggest either way.  All I know is that his question has little or nothing to do with what’s going on, except as an example of Jesus’ claim his group missed the revelation.

So, what do I learn?  Well, first off, I learn to remain on a lookout for what Jesus is doing around me.  And along with that, I learn to jettison my agenda if it doesn’t seem to fit what I see my Master doing around me.  Regardless of whether Jesus was able to use this errant lawyer or not, he didn’t end up as an example of obedience to Jesus.  I would rather be one of faceless, nameless examples of faithful followers of Jesus.  It would be better to be one of the unnamed 120 in the upper room with the disciples than the named or mentioned opposition to Him.  It’s not that my name is written in Scripture, but that my name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  That’s where I want to be mentioned.

So what do you see when the lawyer stands up to test Jesus?