October 15, 2025, Luke 11:42-46

Today’s Gospel reading is about the pride and self-glorification that can creep into some religious leaders’ teachings. Applying more and more onerous and hard-to-follow rules based on their sometimes erroneous readings of religious texts, they try to make themselves more and more important. On the outside they may appear to be upright, but on the inside some may be self-congratulatory, enjoying the adulation of others. In this reading, they are compared to a tomb that is clean and proper on the outside, but rotten and corrupt on the inside. Sometimes scandals ensue. How often do the very same people who preach extreme purity end up being the ones caught soliciting sex in a restroom or stealing money from their congregation.  That is partly what this reading is about.

This reading also contains Jesus’ teaching to focus on what’s inside – love for justice and love for God, in other words, our heart and our relationship with spirituality.  This is summed up in what Jesus says elsewhere, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Guided by truth and justice, we will know what to do and follow that.  It does not have to be complicated. God trusts us to know, if we listen in our hearts.

Amen.