Luke 11:42-46

Galatians 5:18-25

Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6

Luke 11:42-46

The Lord said:

“Woe to you Pharisees!

You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb,

but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God.

These you should have done, without overlooking the others.

Woe to you Pharisees!

You love the seat of honor in synagogues

and greetings in marketplaces.  

Woe to you!

You are like unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk.”

Then one of the scholars of the law said to him in reply,

“Teacher, by saying this you are insulting us too.”

And he said, “Woe also to you scholars of the law!

You impose on people burdens hard to carry,

but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.”

Opening Prayer: Lord God, enlighten my heart to know how I am responding to your gracious love. I hear the warning your Son gave to the Pharisees and the Scholars of the Law. Help me to know if I have unknowingly fallen into hypocrisy and sinful ways. May I help your people attain salvation!

Encountering the Word of God

1. The Three Woes Pronounced upon the Pharisees: Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus pronounced a series of four covenant blessings and four covenant curses or “woes” (Luke 6:20-26). A “woe” is a cry of warning of coming judgment. Jesus taught that the poor, the hungry, those who weep, and those who are reviled on account of him enjoy God’s blessing. The rich, those who are full, those who laugh, and those who are spoken well of are given a warning. Jesus voices this cry “to warn that disaster awaits the comfortable of the world whose prosperity and notoriety have turned them away from God and the demands of his covenant” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament, 118). In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns the Pharisees with three “woes” that judgment is coming upon them. They are first warned about their religious hypocrisy. This means that they present themselves as righteous because of their detailed exterior fulfillment of lesser matters of the Law, and yet, interiorly, they are full of wickedness. They are two-faced: exteriorly and superficially, they give the appearance of holiness while, at the same time, they are interiorly and deeply wicked. Second, they are then warned about how they strive to attain temporal earthly honors instead of eternal heavenly glory. Third, Jesus warns them that they have become like unseen sources of defilement. Instead of bringing the people to God, they keep the people from entering the Kingdom of God. In short, Jesus warns the Pharisees that they are hypocrites, that they are full of evil, and that they have failed in their religious duties. For this, they are judged by Jesus and given a covenant warning of woe.

2. The First Woe Pronounced upon the Scholars of the Law: When the Scholars of the Law object that Jesus, by calling out the religious hypocrisy of the Pharisees, is insulting them too, Jesus does not apologize to them. He doubles down, so to speak, and pronounces three “woes” upon the Scholars of the Law. We hear the first one in the Gospel today and will hear the second and third warnings tomorrow. The first warning that Jesus gives concerns their interpretation of the Law of Moses. Jesus accuses them of burdening the people and not helping to ease the load. This means that they have added their human traditions to God’s Law and made it even harder to bear. In contrast to the Scholars of the Old Law, when Jesus gives us the New Law, he also gives the strength and power to fulfill it: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Although the New Law is a higher standard than the Old Law, we are empowered to fulfill it through the gift of the Holy Spirit and the merits and grace of Jesus Christ.

3. Works of the Flesh vs. the Fruit of the Spirit: In the Letter to the Galatians, Paul speaks about what it means to enjoy freedom in Christ. This is not freedom to choose between and to do good or evil, but a freedom to do good and serve one’s brothers and sisters in love (Galatians 5:13-14). Instead of having to submit to the Old Law, we are guided and empowered by the Spirit to live according to the New Law. We need to walk by the Spirit in this freedom Christ has given us (Galatians 5:15-17). “The works of the flesh are obvious, and [Paul] has warned [the Galatians] before of the judgment coming against them. But avoiding them is a matter not of the law but the Spirit, who produces good fruit in those joined to Christ. So live by the Spirit” (Prothro, The Apostle Paul and His Letters, 156). Paul lists fifteen works of the flesh, including immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, strife, selfishness, rivalry, dissension, division, envy, and drunkenness (see ESV-CE translation). He then lists nine fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, you truly lived according to the Spirit. You loved, were full of joy, brought peace, were patient and kind, were generous beyond measure, were faithful to your Father’s will, were gentle, and manifested self-control in everything. Help me to imitate you in all that I do today.

Living the Word of God: One of the ways of discerning whether or not we are living according to God’s will is to see whether our actions manifest the fruits of the Spirit. And so, when I examine my conscience, what do I find: the works of the flesh or the fruits of the Holy Spirit?