One of the secrets to understanding scripture is to realize that it’s not a weapon. It’s not meant for us to use against others: “Oh, look at how evil *those* people are!”
Instead, it’s a tool for us to use to examine our own lives. It allows us to take measure of how we’re doing so that we can see what changes we need to make to grow closer to Christ.
But, this self-examination requires much more from our Christian walk than simply jumping through the hoops.
But, this is exactly what the religious leaders of Jesus’s day relied on. Their “hoops” were circumcision, keeping kosher, and keeping the purity laws.
However, they didn’t practice the content of the law: justice, mercy, and the love of God and neighbor.
Today, this is like relying on your baptism and your yearly check to the church to make yourself “right with God,” yet continuing to gossip, stir up trouble, ignore those in need, and demand sacrifice over mercy.
This is why it’s so important to understand scripture as a self-examination, and then, step-by-step, make those changes in our lives that will open up our hearts to God and to our neighbors.
The Reading
The body’s lamp is your eye. When your eye is pure, your whole body is luminous; but when it is baleful, your body is dark also. Keep watch, therefore, that the light in you is not darkness. If, therefore, your whole body is luminous, having no part dark at all, it will be wholly luminous, as when the lamp illuminates you with its shining. Now as he was speaking a Pharisee requests that he dine with him; and going in he reclined. But the Pharisee was astonished on seeing that before the dinner he did not first wash. But the Lord said to him, “But you, the Pharisees, cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but your inside is full of spoliation and wickedness. Fools, did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? Instead, give away the things that are within as alms, and look: All things are pure to you.” (Luke 11:34-41)