(C) The lawyers get hammered.

The lawyers were experts - professional scholars who specialised in all the rules and regulations that had grown up around the Law. The lawyers also knew all the loopholes and dodges so that they were able to avoid keeping the rules they imposed on others. There is a good example of this recorded in Mark. The lawyers and Pharisees avoided giving financial support to their parents by claiming their capital was promised to God. Jesus said of them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!" Mk7v9.

The lawyers advised the Pharisees so they resented the criticism levelled at their clients and said: "Teacher when you say these things, you insult us also." v45. By the time Jesus had finished with them I expect the lawyers wished they had kept their mouths shut! Jesus condemned the scribes for:

(1) Making life difficult for the common man.

(a) In Christ's day the lawyers had added 100's and 1000's of regulations to God's law supposedly to make it clearer. Instead, in the words of Jesus: "You load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift a finger to help them." v46. The additions to, and so called clarifications of, God's law did not help the Jews to please God or enjoy fellowship with him.

(b) In modern Britain almost every activity known to man is subject to a mass of rules and regulations. Only last week sheep farmers were protesting because the EU has stipulated that all sheep must be electronically tagged. Who has to do the tagging? The farmers! Who bears the cost? The farmers! The faceless bureaucrats who devise the rules are not inconvenienced in the slightest nor are they prepared at the moment to contribute to the cost. Some years ago many small slaughterhouses went out of business because they had to pay for yearly inspections and then pay for all the changes stipulated by the inspectors. Teachers who organise trips out of school have to complete a detailed risk assessment. Even churches have to comply with more and more regulations.

A great swarm of advisers, consultants and experts buzz around businesses and service providers keen to tell everyone where they are going wrong and pass on their trendy ideas. These advisers - on gender in the work place and the like - don't have to implement the policies they advocate and nor do they bear any responsibility for the outcome. I can remember crossing swords with a Religious Education adviser who was quick to point out where I was going wrong but had no lesson plans, schemes of work or anything else useful to show me.

The Health and Safety Executive has provided local authorities with an excuse for banning anything they consider slightly risky from hanging baskets to pancake races. It also gives service providers a spurious excuse for not doing what they don't want to do. I had a man come to repair the electricity meter at our chapel recently who wouldn't do the job because it meant climbing onto the third rung of a stepladder. It was a two-man job!! I offered to stand at the bottom of the step ladder and make it secure but that 'was not allowed'. The fact of the matter was he hadn't brought the part for the job! Today a policeman would not sit on a bicycle and pose for a photograph because he reckoned he needed a risk assessment before doing so. The constable's superiors supported his crass decision!!

This country is infested with men and women who share the mentality of the lawyers in Jesus' day.

(c) Christian leaders are not exempt from making things difficult for members of the flock. There remain autocratic pastors who promulgate a religion of rules and regulations. Others advocate a dour and joyless worship characterised by tedious, long sermons lacking anecdotes or humour and totally devoid of singing items or anything else that smacks of entertainment. At the other end of the spectrum are bright and breezy young men who provide plenty of criticism of moribund churches but little practical help. Churches that are struggling on with elderly congregations don't want to be told, 'Why don't you try this?' What they need is for some younger folk to actually join with them and to work amongst them.

(2) Their self deception.

Jesus said: "Woe to you, because you build the tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them. So you testify that you approve what your fathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs." v47and48. See also Mt23v29to32.

(a) The lawyers deceived themselves because they thought they were more enlightened than their forefathers. The lawyers decorated the graves of the righteous and claimed, "If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets." Mt23v30.

The statement in Luke: "You testify that you approve what your fathers did," is very difficult to understand. According to Matthew they didn't approve of what their ancestors did. I think Jesus was saying something like: "You are erecting monuments to the folly of your forefathers." His exclamation: "They killed the prophets, and you build the tombs," is bitter irony.

In Matthew Jesus said: "So you testify against yourselves that you are descendents of those who murdered the prophets." He seems to be saying: "You are truly your forefather's children." We might say, "You're a chip off the old block." (This idiomatic expression would be difficult to translate into another language.)

Jesus realised that the scribes were not one wit better than their ancestors. They followed in the footsteps of their forefathers and would bring the awful tendency to reject God's spokesmen to a terrible conclusion. Jesus said: "Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!" Mt23v32. Jesus even went as far as saying that the Jews of his day would:"Be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world." Lk11v52.

(b) So is the situation any better today? In some respects things remain the same!