The Mirror of the Pharisees (Part 1)

One of the more startling realizations for me over my years as a pastor/teacher of the Christian scriptures, is how much I have unknowingly behaved and thought like the Pharisees and religious leaders who lived in the days of Jesus.

The default of myself over the years (and dare I say, many others) has been to automatically assume that I "see" the truth because I'm a Christian, and therefore, to automatically understand myself as one who "gets" Jesus while happily placing myself in opposition to those self-righteous Pharisees, who obviously don't "get" Jesus.

After happily placing myself in the position of being in the "right" group, it naturally follows that I would begin sorting out and labeling those who are not in the right group, all the while believing Jesus is condoning all my judgments about such matters, since I'm on his side (at least in my own head).

The unfortunate reality, however, is that at times I have found myself actually working in opposition to Jesus and the Gospel, while believing I am doing it right. This is a classic portrayal of the collective religious leadership in the Gospel narratives. They end up condemning Jesus to death, all the while believing they are acting in service to God.

This is a condition we can observe in the Bible, often referred to as spiritual "blindness" or "darkness." And it is the Pharisees who seem to most clearly model it (Unfortunately, there's also a lot of misinformation about who the Pharisees actually were, which I'll get to in a later post).

After years of studying the scriptures, teaching, preaching, sharing life in faith communities, and seeking to follow Jesus, I have come to believe more than ever that the literary function of the religious leaders, such as the Pharisees, is a gigantic mirror for the most committed, zealous, religious folks among us. And I'm not just talking about the obvious, hyper-religious jerks we've all seen on TV or encountered in real life. The spiritual blindness of the Pharisees is something every well-intended religious or dogmatic person is susceptible to.

Nobody wants to identify with the Pharisees... they have such a terrible reputation. Our culture's most widely hated sin is probably judgmentalism-- which is easily identified with the Pharisees. To be called a "Pharisee" in Christian culture is usually to be identified with self-righteousness, arrogance, pride, and bigotry. The caricature is alive and well, even if it is sometimes blown out of proportion.

The tricky thing is, no one who is embodying the spiritual blindness of the Pharisees believes they are doing it, but rather believes they are defending the truth and living faithfully. That is the nature of this blindness. That is why it is important for religious folks to understand that the religious leaders in the Gospel narratives are a gigantic mirror for us, and shouldn't be too quickly dismissed.

It can be quite humiliating to realize we sometimes embody this blindness. But thankfully God, in his mercy, continues to help people often blinded by pride and arrogance, to see a little more clearly just how dependent we are on his Spirit to open our eyes and light the way.