Jesus’ relationship with the Pharisees is so fundamental to the Gospel story that the parable he tells today can only be properly understood in the context of everything else he says to and about them. Who are the guests in this story who go straight to the top table, after all, but the very same people who, in real life, he attacks so vehemently in other parts of the Gospel for wearing broader phylacteries and longer tassels, for taking the places of honour at banquets, for expecting to be greeted obsequiously in the market-squares and for having people call them rabbi. And the link between this story and that other parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector could not be clearer.
Today’s reading, as you may have noticed, begins with verse 1 of Luke chapter fourteen and then jumps to verse 7. In verses 2 – 6, however – which we did not hear today – Luke tells us how, as they sat round the table in the house of the leading Pharisee, a man suffering from dropsy came into the room. It is highly likely, of course, that his appearance at the table was a set-up. Why else would such a man have been in the house of such a leading figure in the community? Dropsy was seen then as a venereal disease and the whole idea was to put Jesus on the spot and see how he reacted. This poor man is the real life equivalent of the tax collector and by effectively telling his hosts that people like him – the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind – will enter the kingdom before they do, he is echoing the final words of the other story: “this man – the tax-collector – went home at rights with God. The other – the Pharisee – did not.” So what was it about these men – and they were all men – which upset Jesus so much and stirred such deep anger in him? He called them, after all, whited sepulchres: clean and tidy on the outside and full of dead men’s bones and every kind of corruption on the inside. Well, that is the question I invite you to reflect on this weekend.
And there can only really be one reason why Jesus was so angry. And it is that there was something about the Pharisees, something about the way they thought, something about their attitude to God and religion which was not only profoundly incompatible with Jesus’ own teaching, but which, if left unchecked and unchallenged, had within itself the capacity to do great damage and stop people entering the kingdom of God itself. This was not something trivial. It wasn’t just a difference of opinion or emphasis. It went to the very heart of everything Jesus stood for and he had no option but confront it. It was like a spiritual virus which had to be identified and dealt with. Otherwise it would spread and cause havoc wherever it went, as it has done in every age. Its name is pride, and by that I don’t mean trivial things like being boastful or big-headed. What we are dealing with here is something much more profound. The first reading told us that ‘there is no cure for the proud man’s malady, since an evil growth has taken root in him.’ It’s is a kind of cancer of the soul which eats away at the life of God in us and I will try to describe it to you now.
The reason the Pharisees expected to take the places of honour and banquets and have people greet them obsequiously in the market-place was that they thought they were better than other people. Now if this had been no more than the kind of class snobbery based on wealth or social position which we see all around us still, Jesus would not have like it. But if that had been all it was, he would never have gone on about it the way he did. No, what was so wrong about the Pharisees’ way of thinking was that the reason they thought they were better than others was because, unlike those who they called ‘sinners’, they performed pious religious actions and observed all the commandments of the law. They thought that by doing all this – and here we have the nub of the matter - they could save themselves and enter the kingdom of God by their own efforts. And not only that: they took it for granted that, because they had done this, when they did enter the kingdom they would automatically make their way to the places of honour and occupy the top places. And in this we have the very essence of the pride which the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus calls ‘an evil growth.’ So what is so terribly wrong about it? Why is it such an evil growth and why did Jesus get so upset whenever he came across it? Well, the answer to that question takes us to the very heart of who we are as human beings.
What I am going to say now is something which our modern developed world, with all its science and technology, finds very hard to grasp. People in previous less developed ages understood it better. And it is that we are not gods. We got a little glimpse of it recently when the volcano erupted in Iceland and we suddenly saw for a moment how little control we really have of the world around us. But generally speaking, except maybe when sickness strikes suddenly or some tragedy occurs in our lives, we have little sense these days that, far from being gods, we are mere creatures who, when the crunch comes have very little control of what goes on in our lives. We are creatures, however, of a God who loves us with a love beyond our wildest dreams and longs to share his life with us. And what the Pharisees two thousand years ago and many Church-going religious people, like ourselves, struggle to understand is that this is pure gift. There is nothing we can do to earn it. It is freely given to all who seek it and long for it. Not the virtuous or the Church-goers: not the pious and the holy; but the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind in every age and in every conceivable shape and form.
This understanding is so central to who God is, and the way the Pharisees thought so contrary to it, that Jesus had in a sense no option but confront it and challenge it every time he encountered it. And yet it is still around, everywhere we look. Our Churches are riddled with it. People are still trying to keep God happy so that they will ‘get to heaven.’
The question is: Are you?
BIDDING PRAYERS
The difference between the Pharisee and the tax-collector was that the tax-collector knew his need for God and the Pharisee did not. This was because one could see his own faults and the other was blind to his. And so we pray for the wisdom and insight we need to recognize how it is when we are weak that we are strong; how it is our sins and mistakes in life which so often teach us the truth about ourselves and become the place where we meet the God who loves us more than we can imagine........Lord hear us
The Pharisees are alive and well today in churches all over the world. The idea that we can somehow save our souls by performing religious actions and keeping a series of rules is hard to shake off. The tendency to sit in judgement on the world and find it wanting is always with us. The idea that because we go to church and carry our religious actions we are somehow superior to those who don’t never entirely goes away. And so we pray for the honesty we need to spot any sign of these things in ourselves.........Lord hear us
The evil growth that the book of Ecclesiastucus says takes root in the proud man has also taken root in our Western consumer-driven society. Over the last hundred years, we have seen wonderful advances in science and technology, most of which have been thoroughly good. But the down side has been that we have been conned into thinking that we are gods and that technology and money themselves have the power to make us happy. And so we pray for the grace to see how foolish this idea is.......Lord hear us
Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel that when we give a lunch or a dinner we should not ask our friends, brothers, relations or rich neighbours. Instead, we should invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. Because these cannot repay us in any way, they are a sign of what the kingdom of God is like. Everything there is freely given. Nothing is earned or paid for. And so we pray that, as a parish, we will learn to reach out more and more to those in West Kilbride who are in need without seeking anything in return..........Lord hear us
On Wednesday, the new Religious Education programme for the children of the parish took its first step forward. The next stage is the In-Service weekend on the 10th and 11th of September. But for the programme to be as effective as it can be it is vital that the whole parish take ownership of it and see it as something we are all involved in. The primary responsibility for teaching the children about God lies with their parents, but we pray that the rest of us will learn to play our part too and so grow together in faith...........Lord hear us
In just a few weeks now, Pope Benedict will begin his visit to Britain in Edinburgh and Glasgow. One of the titles of the Pope is ‘Servus Servorum Dei’ the ‘Servant of the Servants of God,’ and we pray that his visit will be a powerful sign of this for the whole country. We pray that everything he says and does, and everything we ourselves do and say in response to him, will turn these days in September into a time of grace for every person in Britain, whatever their beliefs..............Lord hear us
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