Daily Devotional • October 30
A Reading from Luke 11:37-52
37 While he was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him, so he went in and took his place at the table. 38 The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? 41 So give as alms those things that are within and then everything will be clean for you.
42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves on which people unknowingly walk.”
45 One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us, too.” 46 And he said, “Woe also to you experts in the law! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them. 47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. 48 So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 For this reason the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. 52 Woe to you experts in the law! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”
Meditation
Jesus is a terrible dinner guest. He chastises his host and insults the other guests. Jesus accuses them: They have taken away the key of knowledge, which they did not even use, and in the act of taking it away, hindered others from unlocking the truth and entering. Somewhere along the way, Jesus’s hosts and other guests had tossed the keys in a drawer and had long forgotten what lock they opened. The door to wisdom remained shut. Even when God sent prophets with a spare key, many of them were executed as if they had tried to break in and steal something which belonged to the religious rulers and their lawyers.
Then comes Jesus into their house, but not with a spare key. No, he is the key. He does not come to unlock the door, he is the door; the gate through whom any who enter will be saved (John 10:9). He is the key to understanding the Scriptures, which point to his life, death, and resurrection, the very means by which we are granted access to salvation.
Before he ascended, Jesus passed on the keys of the kingdom to St. Peter. That is, Jesus passed on his authority to the Church to point the way to the gate and reveal the way in which the key — Jesus’s life, death and resurrection as attested to in Holy Scripture — unlocks the door to heavenly life through which, through God’s grace, we are invited to enter.
As members of God’s Church — particularly if we are those who hold positions of authority — we have some part in bearing these keys Jesus entrusted to us. If it turns out we have forgotten what to do with these keys, perhaps it’s time to meet Jesus at the supper table, admitting our fault, and asking him to unlock our hearts and minds once more so that we may understand what it means for we, the Church, to bear well the keys of the Kingdom of God.
Sarah Cornwell is a laywoman and an associate of the Eastern Province of the Community of St. Mary. She and her husband have seven children and they live in Wheaton, Illinois.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Diocese of Karnataka Central – The Church of South India (United)
St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church, Ridgewood, New Jersey
