NOTES for Luk 11:29-53
29 And when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say, This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. |
30 For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation. |
31 The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and condemn them: for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here. |
32 The men of Nineve shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. |
33 No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light. |
34 The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. |
35 Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. |
36 If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light. |
37 And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. |
38 And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner. |
39 And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. |
40 Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? |
41 But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you. |
42 But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. |
43 Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets. |
44 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them. |
45 Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto him, Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also. |
46 And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. |
47 Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. |
48 Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres. |
49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: |
50 That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; |
51 From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation. |
52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. |
53 And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: |
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The Savior's words addressed to the Pharisees and teachers of the Torah, who in those days were usually called "scribes," may seem too harsh, just as they seemed to some of His listeners. But the question was too serious, and things had to be called by their proper names. The accusations are serious: in essence, Jesus reproaches both the religious leadership of the Synagogue of that time (the Pharisees) and the outstanding teachers of the Torah for not observing themselves what they call others to observe. A strange accusation, it would seem: after all, in the Gospels it is precisely the Pharisees and teachers of the Torah who are shown as zealots for the Torah; they are the ones who constantly reproach Jesus for violating one or another of its prescriptions. But Jesus clearly identifies the problem: external religiosity devoid of spiritual content. This very religiosity became the main problem of synagogue spiritual life in the Gospel era. Many Pharisees adhered to such religiosity, and many teachers of the Torah taught it to the people.
There was, of course, an alternative, but only a few represented it. The New Testament books have preserved the names of some of them for us: Nicodemus, Gamaliel... But they did not determine the general atmosphere of synagogue life at that time. And so it turned out that calls to spiritual life were accompanied by instruction in a life that was not so much spiritual as religious. People were taught not how to acquire inner wholeness and inner light (the very "clear eye" of which Jesus speaks), but how to observe ritual prescriptions. Of course, these prescriptions also did not appear for no reason, and behind them stands a certain spiritual experience that gave rise to them; but by that time the experience had already been forgotten, while the prescriptions remained.
And now the people are offered a life of religiosity alone, without spiritual content; prescriptions without communion with God. Meanwhile, the teachers themselves feel like masters of the Torah: after all, they are the ones who comment on it and interpret it; people come to them for advice; it is their authority in the eyes of ordinary people that is unquestioned.
Not all of them, of course, were like this, but there were enough of them for a vast number of people to become locked inside a circle of formal religiosity with no possibility of leaving it. And every free word from God, any breath of God's Spirit in this environment, is perceived as something unnecessary and even dangerous: it undermines the monopoly of teachers and interpreters over the Torah, and therefore over spiritual life. It is no accident that Jesus tells those who build monuments to the ancient prophets that they are no better than their fathers, who killed those same prophets. They have no need of living spiritual life, just as their fathers had no need of it. And that means they have no need of the Kingdom either.
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