We are “not fancy like that” when our family comes together to celebrate a holiday over a meal of all kinds of food.  We decide on the meats and sides and everyone brings their contribution to the meal.  The main goal for us who come to our home is loving each other well and treating each other with kindness. As the grandkids would get into a squabble, it was soon crushed by parents and peace resumed.  We don’t always agree on the hot topics of the day, but we love each other even in disagreement.  I am grateful that love leads us. Not all follow Jesus yet, but prayer over our meals to the God who provides will always be said in our home.  Everyone who comes to the table knows that Truth lives in us as we work to live as redeemed people in Jesus.  We are certainly not perfect but perfectly forgiven.  Jesus is hard to argue with when He is the Way to Truth who gives Life.

A Pharisee, who is a religious scholar and teacher and a prominent man in the community, has asked Jesus to come to dinner.  Jesus is gaining popularity and this fact alone boggles the minds of the religious who not only define The Law of God daily in their own ways but so they can also find more ways to push common men and women around who are not privy to the content of The Law.  It is for this reason that Jesus said yes to the invitation to dinner. 

But why invite Truth to dinner?  Probably the biggest reason of all is because Jesus is turning the heads of those who used to bow down to the Pharisee with empty flattery just so they would not be scolded or punished.  Jesus is taking away their “game”.

Jesus does not clean up his words upon being attacked for not ceremonially washing his hands.  He is direct and purposeful.  “Okay, let’s go there,” Jesus seems to say. Pharisees are debaters but Jesus is Truth who trumps all debaters’ arguments and suppositions.  Even though the following conversation is harsh, we must remember that God’s desire is that no one perish.  Since the Pharisee invited Jesus into his home, Jesus is trying to gain entrance into his heart…even though it seems hopeless.

The meal is over, it’s time to do the dishes…

Luke 11, The Message

Frauds!

^37-41 When he finished that talk, a Pharisee asked him to dinner. He entered his house and sat right down at the table. The Pharisee was shocked and somewhat offended when he saw that Jesus didn’t wash up before the meal. But the Master said to him, “I know you Pharisees buff the surface of your cups and plates so they sparkle in the sun, but I also know your insides are maggoty with greed and secret evil. Stupid Pharisees! Didn’t the One who made the outside also make the inside? Turn both your pockets and your hearts inside out and give generously to the poor; then your lives will be clean, not just your dishes and your hands.

⁴² “I’ve had it with you! You’re hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but manage to find loopholes for getting around basic matters of justice and God’s love. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required.

^43-44 “You’re hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You love sitting at the head table at church dinners, love preening yourselves in the radiance of public flattery. Frauds! You’re just like unmarked graves: People walk over that nice, grassy surface, never suspecting the rot and corruption that is six feet under.”

⁴⁵ One of the religion scholars spoke up: “Teacher, do you realize that in saying these things you’re insulting us?”

⁴⁶ He said, “Yes, and I can be even more explicit. You’re hopeless, you religion scholars! You load people down with rules and regulations, nearly breaking their backs, but never lift even a finger to help.

^47-51 “You’re hopeless! You build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed. The tombs you build are monuments to your murdering ancestors more than to the murdered prophets. That accounts for God’s Wisdom saying, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, but they’ll kill them and run them off.’ What it means is that every drop of righteous blood ever spilled from the time earth began until now, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was struck down between altar and sanctuary, is on your heads. Yes, it’s on the bill of this generation and this generation will pay.

⁵² “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars! You took the key of knowledge, but instead of unlocking doors, you locked them. You won’t go in yourself, and won’t let anyone else in either.”

^53-54 As soon as Jesus left the table, the religion scholars and Pharisees went into a rage. They went over and over everything he said, plotting how they could trap him in something from his own mouth.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Ceremonial washing of hands did no make your hand physically cleaner than they were before.  At this stage in Jesus’ ministry, when the religious leaders were bent on destroying Him, why would a Pharisee invite Him to his home for a meal? If he had been sincerely seeking truth, he would have talked with our Lord privately. It seems obvious that he was looking for an opportunity to accuse Jesus, and he thought he had it when Jesus did not practice the ceremonial handwashing before eating.

Remember Mark’s gospel sharing these same accusations about ceremonial washing?  Let’s refresh our memories as to what Jesus said…

The Pharisees—Jews in general, in fact—would never eat a meal without going through the motions of a ritual hand-washing, with an especially vigorous scrubbing if they had just come from the market (to say nothing of the scourings they’d give jugs and pots and pans).

The Pharisees and religion scholars asked, “Why do your disciples brush off the rules, showing up at meals without washing their hands?”

Jesus answered, “Isaiah was right about frauds like you, hit the bull’s-eye in fact:

These people make a big show of saying the right thing,
    but their heart isn’t in it.
They act like they are worshiping me,
    but they don’t mean it.
They just use me as a cover
    for teaching whatever suits their fancy,
Ditching God’s command
    and taking up the latest fads.”  Mark 7:1-8, MSG

Back to the dinner at the Pharisee’s house…Knowing what the host was thinking, Jesus responded by giving a “spiritual analysis” of the Pharisees basically in two words:  “You’re hopeless.” 

Let’s do the dishes—inside and out.  The basic error of the Pharisees (and our error, too, for all have sinned and fall short) was thinking that righteousness was only a matter of external actions and behaviors, and they trivialized their internal attitudes. They were very careful to keep the outside clean and presentable, but they ignored the wickedness within. They seemed to forget that the same God who created the outside also created the inside, the “inward parts” that also needs cleansing.  The Psalm of David would have been a great place to start for true cleansing…

“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
    wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
    let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins
    and blot out all my iniquity.

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
    and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
    or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
    and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
    so that sinners will turn back to you.  Psalm 51:7-13, NIV

But instead, the Pharisees and other religious scholars plotted to disarm and destroy Truth (Jesus).  And that’s why Jesus called them “hopeless.”

Hypocrites do not want their sins exposed; it hurts their reputation. Instead of opposing Jesus, Messiah come as written by the prophets, these men should have been seeking His mercy. They deliberately began to attack Him with “catch questions” in hopes they could trap Him in some heresy and then arrest Him. What a disgraceful way to treat the Son of God.  “All show and no go” attitudes still happen today.  And Jesus called them “hopeless.”

Jesus is Hope.  Hope came to set us free from sins’ entanglements and deceptions.  Hope is the Truth of the matter at hand and at heart.  Hope rose again from the grave to defeat death forever!  Hope is with us always.  Hope is for all who believe Jesus as Truth.  We didn’t earn Hope nor do we deserve Hope but to all who believe we are given Hope.  Without Jesus, we are hopeless.

Lord,

Cleanse my heart, renew my mind by transforming my thinking, refresh my soul with your new mercies for today, and restore the joy of your salvation consistently at work within me where Truth must abide.  Thank you for your peace as a gift for obedience to seeking Hope…You.  I am so grateful for You.  I am no longer hopeless for Hope lives in me.

In Jesus Name, Amen