tithing – The Noontimes

Luke 11:37-54: Unmarked Graves

Friday, December 26, 2025

pharisees-question-jesus2[2] — *The Pharisees Question Jesus*

Jesus warns his listeners, Woe to you! – and he also warns us – that we might fulfill the letter of the law and completely miss its spirit. Jesus describes for the Pharisees and others – and he describes for us – what it means to be his true disciples. Jesus tells the dinner guests – and he tells us – how to avoid becoming unmarked graves that people walk over without even realizing.

Jesus also speaks to those who know the law inside and out; he challenges the lawyers and scribes and points out how they block entrance to the kingdom by their obtuseness and their stubborn inflexibility. He also warns all that we are judged by what we do and what we do not do.

Commentary tells us that here Jesus delineates six woes and we might take the opportunity to examine ourselves today.

Do we worry about our outward appearance and cleanliness and neglect our true selves, our souls?

Do we speak with piety and yet rebuke the marginalized and broken?

Do we make a show of our tithing and do nothing for the poor?

Do we seek honor and fame while we isolate and segregate those we see as unworthy?

Do we overly obfuscate and complicate the simple law of love that Jesus gives us and steer others away from the true Way?

Do we attempt to supersede the Holy Spirit by encouraging others to worship us rather than God?

With Jesus’ words we see the easy pitfalls that line the pathway of our journey. We will want to look for the small and subtle ways in which we complicate the simple instruction to love one another. We will want to gather around ourselves like pilgrims who openly share the difficulties of the road; and we will want to move away from those who lie in wait to catch others in something they might say.

the-scribes-and-pharisees[1] — *The Scribes and Pharisees Hear Jesus*

Today’s picture is one we will want to keep with us for a while before we leave the Christmas season because it gives us insight into how to best deal with the kind of envy and greed that both lures and surprises us. In the Christ Child, we have just been given the dual gifts of hope and light; we have received these as tools we might use to conquer the narrowness we see today in the scribes, the Pharisees and even ourselves. These are the instruments we will use to avoid embroiled arguments, byzantine squabbles and superficial bickering. The presence of the Christ in each moment of our lives is all that saves each of us from becoming the unmarked grave of a life lived, and lost.

And so let us pray as St. Paul prayed with the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 1:12): Our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience that we have conducted ourselves in the world . . . with the simplicity and sincerity of God, [and] not by human wisdom but by the grace of God. Amen.

A re-post from January 4, 2012.

Images from: http://allsaintswritersblock.wordpress.com/about/ and http://possessthevision.wordpress.com/seeking-jesus/passing-from-the-way-and-into-the-truth/jesus-is-victorious-over-an-evil-establishment/

The Noontimes

Tag: tithing

Luke 11:37-54: Unmarked Graves

Tag: tithing

Luke 11:37-54: Unmarked Graves

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