Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

It wasn't much more than a month or so ago, I believe, that the Gospel passage for the weekend was focused, as is this, on the image of a Pharisee. And I remember saying then that I am always as much intrigued by the Pharisees in the Scripture as I am by anyone else. Not because the Scriptural picture that is drawn of them is a particularly attractive one. Really quite the opposite. It is difficult for us to imagine Christ being deliberately abusive towards anyone, but even so, some of the language He uses on the Pharisees is anything but gentle. He calls them hypocrites, whitened sepulchers, rotten inside, liars, oppressors. Time and again in His preaching, Christ uses the Pharisees as a sort of graphic example of everything His followers should not be. Today's Gospel is another instance of just that.

So perhaps it might be worthwhile to spend a few minutes trying to understand just what it might have been about this group that so irritated Christ. The Pharisees were presumably an educated class, presumably better off than most economically, certainly very conservative both politically and religiously. So I suppose there is always something of a temptation to just sort of write off Christ's hostility as almost a sort of prejudice on His part. Christ was a poor man, definitely from the lower classes, Who was trying to bring about a change in the people around Him. Well, as St. Paul tells us, Christ was as human as you and I in everything but sin, and certainly subject to the same feelings of painful frustration experienced by anyone who time after time butts his head against the seeming immovability and unconcern of those in authority. That would be an easy explanation. It is a familiar and an accurate picture. It has been drawn a thousand times both before and after Christ, and I imagine it will be drawn a thousand more.

And there probably is something of a tinge of that frustration in Christ's words. But not very much. Christ certainly was not opposed to learning. He valued it. He certainly did not condemn wealth. Rather He pitied the wealthy. He said that their lot is a far more difficult one than even they realize. And He certainly did not condemn conservatism. Time after time He cautioned His Apostles to conduct themselves prudently, carefully. In Mark, especially, Christ moves in very slow steps toward the revelation of Himself as the Messiah. As often as not, it was His role to dampen, contain the revolutionary enthusiasm of His followers. He tells His people to respect, to conform to the civil structures of the time, and He insists on the original validity of the Mosaic Law.

So it is really none of those things that draws Christ's criticism of the Pharisees. I think what does is underlined in two phrases at the opening of today's Gospel. Christ uses the Pharisee as an instance of those who are self righteous, those who hold others in contempt.

I said that the Pharisees were conservative in their political and religious outlook. And by the time of Christ, that was certainly the case. But they didn't start that way. In fact, Phariseeism began as an outrageously liberal movement. It began during the time of the Baby1onian conquest of Israel, some six centuries before Christ. And that conquest was a total defeat for Israel. The people were literally scattered, and the touchstones of their civil and religious order, the Law and the Temple had been taken away from them.

Well, it must have been perfectly obvious that without those things, the people would simply cease to exist. And it was equally obvious that it was the will of God that the people should continue to exist. So, in exile, a group of those familiar with Mosaic Law took it upon themselves to organize the study and teaching of the Law. They set up schools and synagogues. Since there were no priests available to most of the people, they took upon themselves the organization of worship, and the priestly function of interpreting the Scriptures, and applying them to day to day, life.

So their goal was a noble one. To provide continuity, to keep the people together and alive until they could return to Jerusalem and, the Temple. Not surprisingly, the Pharisees saw as the greatest threat to that continuity the inroads made on Judaism by foreigners, pagans. The word "Pharisee" literally 'means the "ones set apart". So a return to Mosaic purity became their primary concern. Keeping themselves aloof, uncontaminated, protected from corrosion from without. They saw all of that as very much their responsibility. Clearly enough, God wasn't going to do it for them, so they had to. And they did. Drawing on the Scriptures, on Mosaic law, they developed a very complicated body of civil and religious law geared to keeping Israel pure, keeping her identity strong.

And, it worked. Israel came back to Jerusalem as a people still rooted in the Scriptures. But something very new had entered the picture, the authority of a living tradition. The idea that the law was not fixed in granite, but rather could, must be interpreted, applied to day to day situations. And even more radical, the idea that that could be done, not only by the priests, but by the laity as well.

And so, over the centuries the commentaries, the applications of the Law made by the Pharisees became a part of the tradition of Israel. And by the time of Christ, the Pharisaic class was teaching that both the written Law, the Torah, and the traditions of the elders enjoyed equal authority. Flowing from that, they taught that history was an agent of revelation, that it was purposeful, controlled by God. They taught the resurrection of the dead, and the idea that there was, after death, reward or punishment according to how one had lived. They taught the existence of angels and the coming of a Messiah from the house of David.

Well, none of those ideas were acceptable to the real conservatives, the Sadduccees. The Sadduccees were the descendants of the priestly class and they taught only the written law, not a word more or less, not a word to be changed. They considered the Pharisees to be lay upstarts, meddling where they had no authority. The third major party, the monastic movement, the Essenes, were originally of the same blood as the Pharisees, but they broke away, because they thought the Pharisees were too flexible, adapted too easily to changing times.

But none of that opposition had much effect, really. By the time of Christ, the Pharisaic movement was for all purposes in power, and as the Old Testament shows, it was largely their teaching that prevailed.

So what went wrong? All of that sounds really pretty Christian. It would seem to be a movement with which Christ would have identified Himself rather than consistently criticize. What went wrong was the same thing that so often goes wrong with human beings. Self congratulation. By the time of Christ, the Pharisees had become so pleased with what they had accomplished, and so disdainful of anyone who was not as noble and effective as were they, that they had really lost sight of their own basic values. Without realizing it, they had become what they had so consistently opposed. Rigidity. Self importance. Intolerance.

I think the heart of it is the phrase in the Gospel, "self righteous", self justified. It refers to those who presume to define their own worth, who believe they make themselves valuable and good. Literally, those who save themselves, by what they accomplish. So in Scripture, the "self righteous" is the person who is not broken, who really has no need for the help of any other human being, ultimately not even of God.

And of course, Christ condemns that attitude. It is blasphemy, really, the ultimate denial of God. It is claiming to be able to do for oneself what only God can do for any of us... justify us, give, us value, give purpose to what we are, and what we do. It is, in a way, the Original Sin all over again, human beings claiming for themselves the role of God in creation.

Actually, the claims made by the Pharisee in this Gospel reading are pretty impressive stuff. To not be grasping and crooked and adulterous, to discipline oneself, to be generous with one's wealth, all good things, all very Christian. What is not so Christian is to claim to do those things not because they are good to do, not because they are God's will for us, but rather because of one's own nobility, one's own virtue, one's own strength.

And once I have claimed that, once I have claimed my own virtue as the source of goodness in the world, then I have claimed to be God. God becomes perhaps an advisor, maybe even an inspiration on a good day, but ultimately, it is I, not He that makes a difference in the world. Then I see myself indeed as the Gospel puts it, "not like other people". And no matter what I might accomplish from then on, no matter how good it may seem to be, no matter how well it may seem to work, it will ultimately separate me from other people, and from God. It really doesn't matter very much what I accomplish. If I claim it as mine, if I limit my life to the value that I can create, then it is not worth much. In a word, if it is not God's, it is not good.

So. What happened to the Pharisees was really the same thing that happens to so many noble efforts, good intentions. They forgot what they were, a broken people, very much in need of healing grace. They began to measure the world, and those around them by their own standards, rather than those of the Father. And that is a deadly thing to do, for us every bit as much as for them. It is not by accident that the Eucharist, is broken before it is distributed to God's people. As it is offered, so must it be taken.

Readings: Sirach 35:12-17; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14