Thursday in the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, October 14, 2021

Luke 11:47-54

The Lord said: “Woe to you who build the memorials of the prophets whom your fathers killed. Consequently, you bear witness and give consent to the deeds of your ancestors, for they killed them and you do the building. Therefore, the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and Apostles; some of them they will kill and persecute’ in order that this generation might be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who died between the altar and the temple 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.” When Jesus left, the scribes and Pharisees began to act with hostility toward him and to interrogate him about many things, for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.

In the Gospel reading for today’s Mass, the Lord Jesus reproaches the Jewish leadership, particularly the scribes and the Pharisees, for their injustice.  In doing so, the Lord speaks to them according to their understanding of the world.  In the present case, this may confuse us.  For instance, how can the Lord say that “this generation” might be charged with the murders of the prophets, some of whom died hundreds of years before the these Jewish leaders were born?  A careful reading will enable us to peek for a moment into the mind of a Pharisee of the time, and will help us to understand the work the Son of God came into our world to do.

“Woe to you who build the memorials of the prophets whom your fathers killed.”  The word translated here as “memorials” actually means the more specific “tombs”.  Now, when we read this, we tend to think of only the first part of the sentence because the second part evades our understanding: “Woe to you who build the tombs of the prophets.”  This startles us because we think it a very worthy work to build tombs, especially for those as honorable as the prophets.  Certainly, they deserve beautiful tombs.  But Jesus adds, “whom your fathers killed.”  We might puzzle over this and think that it might well be true that the ancestors of the people to whom he was then speaking killed the prophets, but how does this warrant a “woe to you”?  If anything, it would seem that the descendants of those murderers were making up for their crimes by building these tombs.  The Lord’s next sentence reinforces the first: “Consequently, you bear witness and give consent to the deeds of your ancestors, for they killed them and you do the building.”  Clearly, Jesus meant to afflict the consciences of the people to whom he was speaking, but we remain confused.  To understand what he is saying we must realize that for the Jews of that time and place, a person’s life and identity was closely tied to that of his ancestors.  In fact, the ancient Jewish people thought of the individual primarily in terms of his group, as, for example, in terms of his family or his tribe.  This extended to personality traits and actions. If your great grandfather showed courage in war, you inherited, as it were, his glory.  If he committed serious crimes, then his guilt came upon you as his descendant. The Jewish leaders to whom Jesus spoke, seen in this way, were responsible for the murders of the prophets their ancestors had committed.  The fact that they were building the tombs of the prophets amounted to a public declaration of this.  In order to avoid guilt for the murders, they needed to condemn their ancestors for their actions.  They did not do this because they owed their positions to their ancestors.  Because of our western fixation on the individual understood as an individual, we do not see this, or even readily imagine that there could be an alternative way of looking at a person.  Understanding the individual in terms of his group helps us to understand how the fallen human nature resulting from original sin is handed down to us, but also how the Son of God-made-man could redeem the entire human race by his own single Death.

“God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and Apostles; some of them they will kill and persecute’ in order that this generation might be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world.”  From what has been said about the person within the collective, we can understand what is meant here.  A culmination or climax occurred in the generation of Jewish leaders at the time of Jesus.  They would cap off their own wickedness — incidentally showing themselves to be true sons of their fathers — through the martyrdom of the Apostles and the killing of Jesus, the Messiah proclaimed by the prophets.  We see this fearfully displayed in the scene in which Pilate displayed the scourged and thorn-crowned King of the Jews to them: “And the whole people answering, said: His Blood be upon us and upon our children” (Matthew 27, 25).  “From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who died between the altar and the temple building.”  The Lord identifies the Jewish leaders as the “sons” of Cain, the first murderer.  The reference to Zechariah is not to the father of John the Baptist, but either to the prophet who lived in the 500’s B.C. or to Zechariah the son of Jehoida, whose martyrdom is recorded in 2 Chronicles 24, 20-21.  “Yes, I tell you, this generation will be charged with their blood!”  The Lord Jesus repeats his declaration.  It seems that “this generation” could also be understood as including those who have persecuted and killed Christians down through the ages.  

“Woe to you, scholars of the law! You have taken away the key of knowledge, etc.”  Rather than serving those in need of their services, including those in danger of losing their livelihoods and property, these “scholars” use their position to exploit those who come to them and leave them worse off than before.  This is what happens to us when we trust our lives to anyone or anything other than the Lord Jesus.

“The scribes and Pharisees began to act with hostility toward him and to interrogate him about many things, for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.”  The Greek draws a frightening picture: “They began be angry with him terribly, lying in wait for him, seeking to trap something from his mouth.”  Luke likens them to wolves, waiting hungrily for the Lord’s least word to slip out of the safety of his mouth that they might tear it — and him — apart.  They hunger ravenously to feed their hatred.  They confirm themselves as the Lord has exposed them.  We ought to understand that the devil acts in the same way with us.  He waits with the same voracious appetite for us to show some sign of weakness or to allow him the slightest opportunity in order to leap upon us.  But the Lord knows him for who and what he is and protects us as long as we allow him to, standing safely in the light of his grace.