Coffee With God

Reflection: Luke 11:42-46

We continue to read from Chapter 11 of Luke where Jesus continues with his criticism on the Pharisees. As we reflected yesterday, Luke was making use of these teachings of Jesus to warn the members of his own community not to be judgmental of the people. Pharisees stressed on the observances of the Law of Moses. Scrupulous observance of the law and the numerous traditions that accumulated over the centuries was inevitable of a pious Jew. The scribes and pharisees – the religious scholars – were regarded as the custodians and interpreters of the Torah. Jesus gets visibly annoyed and furious with these religious leaders for preaching the wrong catechism and presenting a wrong face of God to their people. The religious leaders taught the people to accept the commandments of God, lest they should be punished. According to their traditions and interpretations, keeping themselves pure by following the rituals of purifications, observing Sabbath, and paying tithes were ways to please God, and to avoid his punishments. This sounds familiar even in our times as well. Even today, there are people who believe in a punishing God. There are many hold on to the observance of the traditions as the most important part of their life in faith. Sometimes church leaders have been more anxious to preserve traditional practices than lead people to a deeper love of Christ and each other. Religious traditions and rituals are important, but they should not be at the expense of the greatest commandment of Jesus: Love of God and love of neighbour. The more that we multiply rules, the more we try to control other people’s lives. With control over others comes a temptation to judge them. At the same time we ourselves are in danger of thinking ourselves holier than the rest because we follow the rules. And this is the biggest barrier to holiness! Jesus attacks the pharisees for their attention seeking power-hungry attitude. In the past, the clergy in the Church expected similar honors to be paid to them. Very often, people willingly did so because they genuinely respected their bishop or their priest. But, as used to be said, the habit does not make the monk nor the Roman collar, the priest nor the miter, the bishop. Pharisaism is alive and well in our society but the first person I need to check is me. In the rite of Ordination to diaconate, the Bishop would give an all-important instruction to the one ordained as Deacon: ‘Believe what you read. Teach what you believe. Practise what you teach.’