Breaking the Word

Woe to you! You build the memorials of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. Consequently, you bear witness and give consent to the deeds of your ancestors, for they killed them and you do the building…

Yes, I tell you, this generation will be charged with their blood! Woe to you, scholars of the law! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter."… (Lk 11:47-54)

This generation is responsible for all the evil done by the forefathers. The reason is because, they recognize and appreciate the evil done by their forefathers by building monuments to them. In fact they are the witnesses to this age of the evil done by the past. One need not be a killer to be charged with murder; it is enough that he recognizes by action, the evil done.

Each and every one is, in one way or the other, a collaborator of the evil done from the beginning of creation. Everyone stands condemned for the evil in the society. No way of excuse to escape from being responsible for the evil in the society.

Scholars have prevented the knowledge. Knowledge in the biblical sense would mean the experience. The scholars have prevented the experience of God from the people. They themselves did not enjoy this experience and they prevented the others to have.  The laws and the rules they prescribe are so much that they take away the experience. 

  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. (Lk 11:42-46)

Jesus had just finished his dinner in a Pharisee’s house and he is already denouncing them as a group. He is giving them woes and insults (you are insulting us). Pharisees were concentrating on outward piety to the neglect of the inward devotion.

Jesus’ announcements of woes were only saying that he disliked the attitudes of the Pharisees: they observed in detail the outward rules and did not give importance to the internals; they liked the piety that boosted up the self-image.  All these were only leading them to the grave and they were unnoticed and people were walking over them. External practices profited them nothing but an unnoticed grave.

The scribes were the scholars of the law and they, through their interpretation of the TORAH, were trying to make the laws relevant and meaningful to the people.  Their interpretations were in no way useful to the people because they were burdensome. Most of these interpretations the scribes themselves would not practice.