Lent 5
April 6, 2025
William G. Carter
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 marketplaces. 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.”
When he went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees began
to be very hostile toward him and to cross-examine him about many
things, lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.
Meanwhile, when the crowd gathered by the thousands, so
that they trampled on one another, he began to speak first to his disciples,
“Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy. Nothing
is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not
become known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard
in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be
proclaimed from the housetops.”
We have been bombarded by a flurry of headlines lately. One of the news stories that may have slipped your attention was the release of the John F. Kennedy assassination files. Since that president’s death in November 1963, there has been an enormous amount of speculation. Who pulled the trigger? Who set it up? What did others know? When did they know it?
The Warren Commission was appointed to discover the facts. They reported back to say, “There was a lone gunman. We know who it was.” Then they promptly locked away the files and said, “You can’t see them.” In the sixty-two years since, there have been insinuations, accusations, and no shortage of conspiracy theories. Now, as promised, our president has finally released the files.
Well, most of them. Many have been released over the years. If you have time on your hands, there are sixty-two thousand pages of reports for you to read on the internet. They tell us who pulled the trigger (same guy we always thought), that he had been on the radar of the American intelligence community, and that some people in that community tried to cover up what they knew. No surprise. Most of the secrets have been revealed.
In the text for today, we have background information on another infamous assassination, the death of Jesus. People have had their ideas about this one, too. The apostle Paul shared what he came to believe, about twenty years after the crucifixion. The Gospel of Matthew had even more opinions, about thirty years after that. And today we hear from the Gospel of Luke.
Luke tells us the cross was a human tragedy. It didn’t have to happen, but it did. From the foot of the cross, a Roman centurion looks up at the spectacle to announce, “Certainly, this man was innocent.”[1] Other gospels say the death of Jesus was a revelation, and they put the words, “Truly, this man was the Son of God” on the lips of the centurion.[2] But Luke insists he was innocent.
Pontius Pilate said it twice. The Roman governor declared, “Jesus committed no crime.”[3] Yet, a crowd had formed. They were stirred up by their own religious leaders. That may be the greatest irony in the story of the crucifixion. The very people who were most invested in the worship of God, the ones who studied the scriptures most fervently, were the ones behind the assassination of Jesus. Luke tells us this flat out. It is no secret.
In today’s text, we hear some of the backstory. Jesus was invited to dinner by a Pharisee. He went. No sooner did dinner begin and there was a controversy around the table. Jesus denounced his own host. Then a lawyer piled on. He felt insulted by Jesus. Another argument ensued. It’s not the kind of Bible story we tell in Vacation Bible School
Pharisees, lawyers. What do we know about these people?
Before we pick on the Pharisees, historians tell us they were good people. They loved the Bible. They worked for social justice. They believed all of life must be lived under the Word of God. If God calls us to give away the first ten percent of all our income, doesn’t God also call us to give away ten percent of everything else we have? It would be nice to have more Pharisees.
And then, the lawyers. Not the kind of attorneys we about, but experts in the Law, God’s Law. Often described as “scribes,” they knew the 613 commandments given by God. They were conversant with centuries of interpretation. Why interpretation? Because the commandments were not always specific.
For instance, on the one hand, the Law says, “Thou shalt not kill.” On the other hand, in the book of Joshua, God says, “Claim the land and kill the people who live there. “[4] On the one hand, on the other hand. The Law says, but God says. Can God tell us to do something beyond what the Law says? And thus, Jewish theology was born. It was discussion and debate, all to reach provisional understandings of how God commands us to live our lives.
Jesus goes to that dinner party. The host jumps all over him. “You didn’t wash your hands.” To which Jesus says, “You wash only the outside of your cup, but your inside is filthy.” That is, you do things only for show, but your soul is wicked. Your heart is greedy.”
Then the Bible scholar piles on, “You’re insulting people like me.” Jesus really lets him have it. “Woe to you! You heap dead of religious rules on the backs of God’s people. You keep them from experiencing God’s grace." Suddenly they realized, it is always risky to invite the Christ to your table. You may want to discover what makes him tick, but he may tell you what you don’t want to hear.
It happened in Nazareth, up on the hill. He opened the scriptures in his hometown synagogue. The congregation tried to kill him. Pretty soon, the Pharisees and scribes started surveilling him. He forgave sins; they said only God can do that. He healed people; they growled, “He’s doing that on the day of rest.” Once he even broke the law of Leviticus, where it says, “Don’t ever touch a leper.”
And now, as he goes to one of their homes, sits at one of their tables, and calls out the shallowness of their spiritual lives. Wash your hands, but don’t deal with the filth inside. Teach the Torah but do it in such a way the creates a burden. The problem, he says, is hypocrisy.
It’s not the hypocrisy of the
unfaithful.
It’s not the hypocrisy of the
nominally committed.
It’s not the hypocrisy of the pagan empire.
No, it’s the hypocrisy of the best spiritual minds of his generation. It’s the hypocrisy of those who ought to know better (which is a theme that will come up again in Luke’s writings). It’s the hypocrisy of those who quickly quote Bible verses but know nothing of God’s true character. And all that’s left is an empty shell. It’s the hypocrisy which festers and rots until it becomes the hatred that kills Jesus.
As somebody puts it, “Jesus is sharply critical of religion that has become self-perpetuating, that has hardened principles given for life into regulations that suffocate and condemn, that has quantified piety and lost its heart, that has, in sum, lost its capacity for self-criticism.”[5] It’s empty structure, no self-evaluation. All obligations, no love. All “out there,” nothing “in here.”
As you may recall, the word “hypocrite” comes from the theater stage. It means a “play actor,” somebody who puts on a persona. They might be very convincing. They might talk a good game. They might have a whole room full of people believing they are who they pretend to be. But the truth comes out. Sooner or later, the truth comes out.
Just ask our children. They see us as we are. Like that night my Dad was driving our new paneled station wagon down a country road. My sister and I were loaded in the back. To escape an oncoming truck, he veered to the right, dipped into a drainage ditch. A piece of that gold-colored trim got snagged by a rock and came right off. My mother started to get excited. Dad pulled the car out of the ditch, put it in park, and went out to look. Climbing back into his seat, he said, “Just a scratch.” My sister and I knew, “It’s more than a scratch,” but we didn’t dare say it.
Kids know the truth. They know when the emperor has no clothes. When my kids were little, sitting out in the pews, it often appeared like they weren’t paying attention. They had crayons and their Good Samaritan coloring books. They didn’t seem to be listening to me. And when we got to the parking lot, one would say, “Dad, that story you told in the sermon didn’t happen quite like you said.” And I said, “Shh! I don’t want the church people to hear you.” Please don’t point out my inconsistency.
And yet, if we don’t nip off those little inconsistencies, they grow. A simple distortion can twist your soul out of shape. That’s what that old Bible word “iniquity” means. It’s a twisting out of shape. It is the perversity that becomes the depravity. And then there’s the cover-up.
In his delicious little book about sin, Neil Plantinga says a little sin creates more sin.[6] A little crack of inconsistency grows into a Grand Canyon that separates us from the truth. Dr. Plantinga says this is the progress of corruption. If it is unchecked and unrepented, things only get worse. And it’s true for any of us, especially for those who love the Bible and fashion themselves as “religion scholars.”
As somebody said, “Why do you think Luke put this story in the Bible? Was it only to kick and punish the Pharisees and scholars from forty or fifty years before? Or was it that he sniffed some hypocrisy in the church that he knew?”[7] It’s a good question. Religious play-acting was never restricted to the first century.
I think of Philip Yancey, wonderful, faith-filled writer. Looking back on his life, he admits some of the meanest people he has ever know consider themselves Christians.[8] Or I remember hearing the late great Billy Graham when I was nineteen years old. He stood in a packed arena and confessed, "The Christian church has a habit of shooting its own wounded." Prophetic words, as I was considering a call to beome a pastor.
Or I think of those who claim to know everything. They are so certain, only to be later exposed as fools? Or I think of those who are so terrified of change that they narrow their view, they restrict their hearing, they take in only what they’ve convinced themselves to be true. And for them, life has gotten so small.
Like Jesus said to his dinner host, “You know God calls us to give away ten percent of what we have. But what do you do? You go to your spice rack. You spoon out some wilted mint leaves and a dried-up chunk of cumin you weren’t going to use anyway. And you think you’re so holy as you ignore the hungry neighbor whom God calls you to love.” How terribly small of you! Doesn’t God see us for who we are?
It’s a wake-up call - for all of us. Especially if we are not the people we profess to be. Especially if we project an appearance to others that does not resonate with reality. Especially if we declare our certainty about matters we don’t know much about. Especially if we reduce living faith to a set of dead rules. Or worse if we use religion as a way of manipulating others.
Jesus puts it out there, “There is nothing covered up that will not be uncovered; there is no secret that won’t be known.” God sees. God knows. God has the final assessment. As one of Shakespeare’s characters says in The Merchant of Venice, “truth will out.”
Did you hear about the man who stopped by to see his minister. He gave her a copy of his obituary. It was rather extensive. Very impressive. She looked at him, she looked at all the pages, and said, “Are you sick?” He said, “No, not at all.”
“So, why are you giving this to me?” And he replied, “Well, someday this what I want people to believe about me.”
She handed it back. Then she said, “Don’t worry. Everybody knows the truth.”
There will be no cover up, says
Jesus. We might as well tell the truth right now, right here. Because this is
one of the safest rooms in town. God knows us. God sees us as we are. And God
wants us to come home. To get over ourselves and come home.
[1] Luke 23:47.
[2] Mark 15:39, Matthew 27:54.
[3] Luke 23:4, 14.
[4] See, for instance, Joshua 10:40.
[5] Fred B. Craddock, Luke:
Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Know Press, 1990) 159.
[6] Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not
the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans,
1996) 52-77.
[7] Craddock, ibid.
[8] Philip Yancey, Vanishing Grace:
What Ever Happened to the Good News? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014.)
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