To understand Jesus’s criticism in today’s reading, it helps to put it in context.
In the previous verses, Jesus criticized the religious leaders of his day for being self-absorbed. Only outward appearances concerned them, and they used religion as a way of puffing themselves up
Jesus wasn’t the first one to criticize this sort of approach to religion. The prophets of the Old Testament had also criticized the leaders of their day for doing the very same things.
The irony is that these leaders—who are still doing the very things the prophets hated—are now honoring those prophets!
Instead of listening to the prophets, they simply made idols out of their tombs . . . tombs in which the prophets are probably turning over in!
We, as Orthodox Christians, have to be careful not to fall into the same trap.
We have a multitude of saints who teach us about God’s love and the gospel through their lives and their words. If we simply honor them without following their example or listening to their wisdom, then we should take note!
The Reading
Alas for you, because you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. You, therefore, are witnesses that you consent to your fathers’ works, because they killed them and you do the building. Thus also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send prophets and Apostles to them, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’ So that all the blood of the prophets shed since the foundation of the cosmos will be required of this generation, From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zachariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary; yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Alas for you, the lawyers, because you carried away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter in, and those going in you prevented.” And when he had departed from there the scribes and the Pharisees began to oppose him fiercely and to interrogate him on a great many matters, Lying in wait for him to catch something out of his mouth. Meanwhile, as the thousands in the crowd had congregated so that they were treading on one another, he began first to say to his disciples, “Guard yourselves from the yeast of the Pharisees, which is dissemblance. (Luke 11:47-54; 12:1)