There are unwritten rules in society. Some people and things you just don't challenge. Yeah, Jesus is not concerned with that very much. Here he calls into Light the Pharisees and scribes. How will they take it? Will they come into the Light or will they recede into darkness?
Surprisingly for many, Jesus main issue with the Pharisee's was not their 'religiosity'. It was not that they taught a different way to 'get saved' and go to heaven that was works based and Jesus brought the true 'by faith alone' way, that was a contention that would arise about 1500 years later, not the issue in the bible. The issue had much less to do with the Pharisees religion and much more to do with their hearts, the issue of the ages. This is why Jesus says that unless your righteousness (covenant faithfulness) exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. So it is that Luke follows up the previous interaction regarding Jesus call to his Pharisaic host to clean the inside of the cup as well as the outside.
What made the Pharisees insides so bad? During this time the Pharisees were a political and social force who were trying to codify the Torah for nationalist purposes and a political agenda. This is why they had lawyers (scribes) scurrying along after them all the time. They were a powerful group to contend with, seemingly having God on their side of the courtroom the held significant sway over the masses and could insight them to nationalistic action very quickly using religious pressure points. They had stopped really caring about true justice, mercy and the love of God and so people suffered, becoming pawns in their game and it was going to eventually come to a head with Rome.
So, Jesus makes his case against them in a very formal way that we call 'the woes'. You don't help the people at all! You make other people unclean just by dealing with you because you make yourself clean on the outside, its a trick! Your ancestors murdered all those God sent to you and you memorialize what they did by building tombs! You are going to bring all this down on your own heads and this whole generation will pay the price for it!
You have the key to knowledge and look how you use it! You stop people from entering its peace and you yourselves don't even enter!
Needless to say...these religio-political power players were thoroughly unhappy with Jesus and given His Kingdom message which was diametrically opposed to the way they were using Torah, therefore making all their work and effort towards establish God's Kingdom through legislation obsolete and in God's eyes, utterly irrelevant and sinful. These guys are officially pissed off now. Now they are just looking for him to say something wrong that they might devour him. I do want to point out that within that group there were people like Nicodemus, who sought Jesus, even though they did so in secret given the hearts and power and positions of the majority of their contemporaries.
May we seek the Kingdom in the Way of God and not in our own. May we allow God to challenge our understandings and not be so married to what we've done theologically, politically, socially or legally that we cannot go where the Spirit leads us. May we be wise in the Spirit. May we never forget justice, mercy and the love of God in our pursuits of holiness, for it is these things that make us truly holy, truly righteous. And may, through the working of the Spirit in these ways, the Kingdom come upon us according to His glorious promises. Amen
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