Bear with me – this is a little heavy but very important

 

In today’s first reading from his letter to the Romans 3:21-30, Paul says something that has aroused controversy in recent church history. “A person is justified by faith and not by doing something the Law tells him to do.” We can’t win salvation through our own efforts. Rather, salvation has already been won through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But this does not mean that we can do what we like because the only thing that matters is our faith! Rather your faith is reflected in the way your live out your life and relate to your neighbour. What you do is a reflection of what you believe. They will know me by my deeds. Now this brings me to today’s gospel passage from Luke 11:47-54 where Jesus is still warning the Pharisees and Lawyers that they will end up with blood on their hands. Jesus is telling them to face up to the history of their ancestors and to realise that you can’t just change the narrative to make it look good. To recognise the injustices done by our ancestors in the past is to acknowledge that we bear responsibility for the present and the future. That is why Jesus also turns to the lawyers who try to simplify the past, reduce it to a list of Laws, and make it easier for us to feel we have no responsiblilty for what our ancestors did. “You have taken away the key of knowledge.” It is only through honest reflection on how our ancestors destroyed people’s lives that we can enter those doors that open up the possibility of new ways of living with one another and with God. Otherwise we keep making the same mistakes and the victims of our ancestors’ misdeeds still wait for the darker dimensions of our past be brought to light and proper redress be made. Jesus’ words speak to our own world just as much to the world of the Pharisess and lawyers of his own time. Grace may be freely given but it demands brutal honesty before we can truly be reconciled with God and with one another.