My mother-in-law grew up in The Bronx, attending, as I found out several years back, a Presbyterian church.  In the same neighborhood were many Jews, observant Jews.  “Did you know . . .” really observant Jews, who keep very kosher, have kitchens with two sinks, even two stoves and separate work areas, to keep meat and dairy products separate.  That is the law, as interpreted.  No kosher Jew will ever eat a cheeseburger, let alone a bacon cheeseburger—boy are they missing out!  They will not have a milkshake with a burger.  That is the law, as interpreted.  The Jews among whom my mother-in-law grew up were glad to have the shiksa around—that is, the Gentile girl: you see, she could turn on the lights for them, on the Sabbath.  The law, as interpreted, makes it impossible for a really observant Jew to turn on an electrical switch of any kind, on the Sabbath, because, as the circuit closes, there is a small spark, and, as interpreted, that spark qualifies as a fire, and the law says no fires are to be lit, on the Sabbath.  It’s not easy, being an observant Jew, faithful, righteous.  But, thank God, there are workarounds.

These customary, even binding interpretations—the traditions of the elders—were the result of the work of the rabbis and the experts in the law.  Laws and rules are worded in a certain way.  Let’s say a rule says: “ladders not allowed, here.”  Seems clear enough, maybe.  But what if a ladder would be really helpful?  What counts as a ladder?  Well, I mean, a ladder is a ladder, right?  But not all ladders start out as ladders.  “Ladders not allowed, here.”  Hmm.  How far does “here” extend?  I mean, is over there also here?  Or is here, just, like, right here?  Then, if a special, urgent need arose, like changing a lightbulb or dusting cobwebs, one would have to consider what, exactly, might be meant by “allowed”: is that just the same as permitted, or is it maybe closer to preferred?

Such are the delights of the rabbit holes of interpretation, especially as practiced by the experts in the law.  Let’s take a more serious example.  Jesus tells anyone who will listen that divorce is not allowed—except when there has been physical infidelity.  We say, well that’s no good!  And we know why we say it, too.  Things just don’t work out, and who wants to be bitter and miserable forever?  And, yes, we know it’s complicated.  Jesus obviously doesn’t understand anything, so thank God the law experts saw to it that divorce was relatively simple and could result from almost any even momentary displeasure a husband took in his wife—sorry ladies, the scribes were all men.

There at table with the Pharisees and the law experts—the scribes—Jesus has been bold to level some timely criticisms of their approach to faithfulness and righteousness.  They had set themselves up as judges of these and never seemed to find themselves, as a group, lacking either in righteousness or faithfulness.  The danger always present, as anyone reads and tries to understand Scripture, is that it becomes so easy to turn the words to one’s own advantage, to decline to hear, when God has anything remotely critical to say to us, about our attitudes or beliefs, including personal convictions we know make us good, decent, intelligent people, unlike the vile rubes and smug liberals all around us.

“One of the experts in the law answered him, ‘Teacher, when you say these things [about the Pharisees], you insult us also’” (11:45).  Is it an insult if it’s true?  I suppose it’s an insult when it isn’t remarkably flattering, when it doesn’t square with our own carefully curated self-image.  “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’” (11:46).  Our walk isn’t so easy, as it is.  Jesus has already hinted at the divine significance of compassion.  Compassion expresses itself through help.  The law experts, like the Pharisees who implemented the interpretations of the scribes, knew all about the faithful few, and knew that they, of course, were them.

God isn’t really into driving people out or unduly burdening them.  Most churches are grappling with smaller size.  The church-going population is aging, getting sicker.  Younger adults are working, raising children, keeping the kids busy, busy, busy.  We here can get to feeling a little panicky.  It doesn’t much help to remember that the church goes through these cycles of growth, contraction, growth, contraction.  It seemed like everybody was in some church on Sunday, in the 1950s.  Anybody remember how many were here just after 9/11?  And then . . . well, they eventually calmed down, came to themselves, and resumed their ways.

But, if we just do what the really intelligent, decent, enlightened people are doing today, our numbers would grow—a sure thing!  I was told years ago that there were congregations being carefully, conscientiously shaped into refuges, sanctuaries, for those whom the cruel, harsh churches had rejected.  And why had these hurt people left these places, feeling rejected?  Because the church declined to affirm that certain choices, certain ways, were not sinful.  The church was not “welcoming.”  And how is it that we should welcome falsehood?  The church exists to welcome in broken people, beloved.  Jesus came to call the sick, the injured, the crippled and blind; he came to call the deaf.  And as he called, he healed, which means there was change.  The church exists to be a place for change, renouncing all that’s broken in us and lifting everything to God for His healing, transforming touch.  We can’t say, God, I’m lifting everything except this, to You.  We can’t say, God, have all of me, except this one thing which is mine and is me, and don’t you dare do anything to make me feel bad about it.

Beloved, what does any congregation gather to affirm and celebrate?  Jesus Christ, our clear, beautiful vision of God through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus, who died to sanctify his people.  Jesus, who calls a people to holiness, the holiness of obedience and not the self-righteousness of self-celebration.  There are a few things each of us—including me—needs very much to work on, in our relationship with God.  There is also at least one thing Scripture tells us we need to work on, but we are not at all inclined to do so and resent—even deeply—that Scripture should expect it of us.

Each of us, in saying yes to Christ’s call, have been called to take up our cross.  I’ve got mine, so I know what it’s like to have to lug it along.  Each of us, in answering Christ’s call, has acknowledged that there are things which we now must sacrifice, surrender to God, for the sake of our faithful, obedient walk with the Lord.  These necessary sacrifices are not easy; God does not ask us to give what is easy to give; that costs us nothing.  God knows how to value what costs us nothing.  Christ calls each of us, in many cases, to relinquish a belief, a practice that seems quite reasonable, quite compassionate, quite enlightened to us.  Only try to look at these, now, through Christ’s eyes.  Who is Jesus?  He is the holiness of God.

Jesus accuses the law experts of placing unbearable loads on the backs of people, “burdens they can hardly carry.”  It isn’t just unbearable because it’s so unwieldy, cumbersome, hard, like all that terrible, minute ritual observance.  It’s the unbearable weight of untruth, also.  The law experts do not lift a finger to help because they see themselves as helping already, through offering the unbearable weight of falsehood.  Scripture in many places criticizes false prophets and false teachers.  No, they do not acknowledge the falsehood of their reading and rendering of God’s Word—how could they?  Yet it is false because it is self-serving, not God-serving, self-congratulating, not God-celebrating.  It is sin-permitting rather than righteousness-calling.  What is self-serving always ends up an unbearable burden.  What serves God receives God’s help to bear—how do we know?  We look to Jesus.  What did Jesus bear, for us?  What does he promise to bear for us?  He who was lifted lifts us; he is help, help from God.  Jesus is the help that is just right.  Thank God!

Jesus accuses the law experts, the Scripture experts of his day, of promoting lies as if these were the epitome of true, genuine righteousness: “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” (11:47-48).  The Scripture experts see themselves as honoring those who brought God’s Word—long after, of course.  What did every prophet come to say?  Turn to the Lord.  Repent.  Cease wickedness, the shameful indulgence of all our heart’s broken desire.  When we pursue our truth rather than God’s truth, it never ends well.  Turn, before judgment comes.  This is not an unfamiliar message.

But with what reception did this meet, even among the Scripture experts?  When a person is convinced that he or she is a good person, faithful, enlightened, compassionate, kind, and then one comes, calling these to repentance, the first response will always be deep offense, a sense of sharp insult.  Then, perhaps, after the first flood of indignation begins to subside, perhaps there may be some prayerful reflection—but maybe not!  There were those who listened to the prophets, beloved, who heeded the Word and fell on their faces in the dust.  It seems most did not, if you can imagine.  Most, it seems, wanted to be rid of the bothersome prophets.  It’s easy to build monuments to the dead.  It’s harder to listen, receive, reflect, and change.  What we do here today, this building around us: this is no monument to the dead.  We are here to listen to the living God, to receive, to reflect . . . to be changed.  God loves us just as we are and loves us too much to allow us to remain that way.

Jesus continues his charges.  “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” (11:52).  People talk about the Constitution as if they knew it.  I didn’t even realize there was a twenty-fifth amendment, until people started calling attention to it eight years ago.  It’s the same with the Bible.  We don’t enter.  The biggest disservice any Christian can do to him or herself is to fail to pick up this book and start reading.  Here is knowledge.  And the key?  Beloved, who can help us understand, truly, what God is saying here, what He means, here?  Me?  I can try, but this does not mean you will necessarily receive, sad as that makes me.  I wish I were better at this, truly!

Who can help us understand?  The internet?  Be careful!  There’s always a voice to echo our own, broken, cherished perspective, there, but are these God’s thoughts?  Who can help?  Who is the only one, ever, who offers real and true help?  God—the Holy Spirit makes God’s Word open to us and opens us to God’s Word.  The Spirit is the key to the key.  The biggest fight any of us will ever fight is the fight against the Holy Spirit, but we won’t know it until, by grace and the overmastering power of the Spirit, we’re on the other side of the fight.  After that, the struggle with temptation and sin, hard as it will continue to be, will not feel as difficult as that life-changing struggle with the Spirit.  We want to know what we know, believe what we believe, and we get our dander up awful fast when we come across the least suggestion that we might be wrong about one or two things that activate our sense of outrage fast.  And I do not exclude myself from this, at all.

Is it any wonder, then, that so soon as Jesus left them, “the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, waiting to catch him in something he might say” (11:53-54)?  Jesus has shown them in a way they see and hate for seeing, hate him for showing them, reminding them, that the biggest obstacle to salvation isn’t even the sin always looking to pounce in these hearts of ours.  The biggest obstacle to salvation is those who adhere to a word that is no Word, a way that is no Way, a god that is not God.  Jesus’ rebuke makes them furious, so furious they want him out of the way; they want him silent; they want him dead.