I know I easily lean toward being a Pharisee. Given the right subject, on some issue about which I feel strongly, no matter how good and right my desire may be, I am ever in danger of becoming a Pharisee.
The pharisaical impulse never elevates what is sinful, but is a distorted way of emphasizing what is indeed good. This irony is its great danger. Something godly is zealously pursued in a way that ultimately creates something evil.
The pursuit of holiness was the good the Pharisees twisted into something devilish in Jesus’ day. We must be aware of the same tendencies, seeing the pharisaical possibilities within our own concern for what is good.
Movements for social justice, racial reconciliation, human rights, and creation care, to name just a few, are so very good but are also vulnerable to becoming pharisaical . We can be certain we are the pure in these matters and others are unclean, the lepers who must be excluded.
Christianity is not about establishing a culture of purity, but rather a way of wholeness through radical forgiveness. Purity demands keeping the unclean out, while the grace of forgiveness has the power to cleanse and change all.
The Pharisees were obsessed with moral cleanliness, but not Jesus. He was intent on fostering a new Israel through the transforming love and mercy of God. The dream of God would be realized through the abundance of unmerited forgiveness poured out unexpectedly, where the unworthy are treated as if they are indeed worthy. This was antithetical to the “cast out the unclean” vision of the Pharisees for realizing the Kingdom of God.
Pharisaical cultures thrive under the illusion of human certainty. Pharisees do not see the complexity inherent in trying to do good in this world, so that even our best efforts are imperfect.
The obvious co-conspirator in pharisaical movements is pride. Christianity is always only a “loss of humility” away from no longer being a community of grace and instead becoming a stern and judgmental purity culture. The standards of right and wrong, applied with certainty, requires we drive out those who are “unclean.”
But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6
In a culture of purity, holiness is not fundamentally the work of grace in the presence of humility, but the state of righteousness because of the absence of sin. Focused on absence rather than presence, pharisaical cultures are inherently about negation rather than affirmation. But grace is the “yes” to the pharisaical “no”.
The safe-guard against pharisaical religion is always humility, both regarding our own imperfect implementation of a moral vision and regarding what we believe we know. Truly, we cannot be confident of our own good lives nor claim that we know what is good infallibly. At whom will we throw stones if we are all guilty, and we do not even know for sure how at fault we are?
The hardest place to be humble is where we are most confident we are right. This does not mean we have to claim we are wrong, but only that we might be, at least to some degree. Thus, we nurture a culture of grace rather than purity, both for ourselves and all others.
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