Enemies of the Cross

Sermon for 2 Lent (C RCL 2/28/2010), Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17 – 4:1; Luke 13:31-35

Please repeat after me: “I am - a disciple – of Jesus Christ. I follow – no other. He is – my life – and my future. I love him – and follow him – where he leads – now and always.”

My friends: it is so easy to become distracted. In the hectic busyness of life, we are bombarded by a plethora of messages from the outside. Circumstances in the world, in society, seem to move in ways that can make us feel trapped. And inside of ourselves, a variety of emotions swim and move around, often-times without having any idea from where they come. When life feels chaotic or beyond-our-control, when anxiety dominates our minds, it can become so very common to gravitate to one of the old stand-bys in human life, one of the common mindsets of human beings. And that, of course, is the approach of legalism.

This is what happened to the Pharisees, after all.

But who exactly are the Pharisees? It is important for us to understand who they are. In the Gospels, in our Lord’s teachings, the Pharisees are one of the key reference points that he uses to make his points. If we want to understand what Jesus teaches us, then we need to understand what it is that the Pharisees represent.

During the days of Jesus’ life, the Pharisees were one of the groups who taught in the synagogues and represented a specific school of thought. They were the ones who maintained the traditions of the elders who strict devotion. But it was the Sadducees and the Temple priests who were dominant, because the Temple in Jerusalem served as the clear, visible center of their world. It was the teachers of the Temple who guided the spiritual life of the Jewish people.

That is, until the Romans came and leveled Jerusalem entirely to the ground in the year 70 AD. Once the Temple was destroyed, the Jewish people were devastated. The center of their world was lost and there was an enormous power vacuum. Who would lead them? Who would teach them? It was the Pharisees who rose to prominence as the primary teaching Rabbis. And, as is so often the case when you have anxiety-ridden leaders, the Pharisees moved decisively to consolidate their authority.

The disciples of Jesus, the first Jewish followers of the Way, remained as the primary challenge to their authority among the Jewish people. The apostles were offering a very different interpretation of the Scriptures than that of the Pharisees, and the apostles hoped, of course, to become the dominant teachers in the synagogues.

The finale of this conflict came with the Birkat Ha-Minim, the Twelfth Blessing of the Amidah, one of the basic prayers recited in every synagogue. This Twelfth Blessing was added by the Pharisees in order to root out “the sectarians” as they called them, Messianic Jews who followed Jesus as the promised Messiah.

And so everyone in the synagogue became required to speak this following blessing, which actually reads more like a curse: “And for sectarians, let there be no hope; and may all the evil in an instant be destroyed and all Your enemies be cut down swiftly; and the evil ones uprooted and broken and destroyed and humbled soon in our days. Blessed are You, LORD, who breaks down enemies and humbles sinners.”

For Jesus and for the apostles, the Pharisees represent those who stubbornly demand strict adherence to tradition while ignoring that which is of the most importance of all. Paul refers to this as having a mind “set on earthly things.” For ease of reference, we call this mindset legalism. And don’t you think for a minute that it is one bit less prevalent now than it was 2000 years ago!

Tony Campolo tells a funny story of a man mowing the grass on a Saturday when he was brashly interrupted by his neighbor who happened to be a Seventh Day Adventist. Adventists, by the way, are a group who maintain the Sabbath and who insist that God has always intended the faithful to gather, to worship and to rest on Saturdays, rather than on Sundays. So his neighbor stops him while mowing and says with obvious disapproval, “It’s the Sabbath. You’re cutting grass on the Sabbath!” The man rather sheepishly tried to respond by saying: “Well, Jesus picked corn on the Sabbath!” The angry neighbor was not thinking too clearly, I suspect, when she responded by saying: “Two wrongs don’t make a right!” (Campolo, Let Me Tell You a Story, P. 155).

You see, unfortunately, many Christian people remain proud of their legalism: their strict observance of the outward form of tradition, although it is often obvious that their actions do not flow from a heart filled with love and joy.

In the Gospels, the Pharisees are always presented as the enemies of Jesus, those who oppose him and challenge him at every turn. Just before our Gospel episode today, in Luke 12:1 Jesus warned the people against “the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.”

This hypocrisy of the Pharisees reminds me of folks we knew when we lived in the country of central Virginia: polite, old-time Virginia people. One woman we lived next door to was always smiles and politeness, a true Southern lady who grew championship-quality daffodils. But it just so happened that her 5 year old son had not yet learned the art of Southern charm, and so when he used to come over and visit our busy young family, with two babies frolicking around, he would let it slip about how his mother truly felt. “My mom wasn’t too happy when your son was peeing in her daffodils!”

Smiles on the outside; but steaming mad on the inside! That, my friends, does not make for a good combination! Jesus lambasted the Pharisees for being so precise to make sure that their dishes were always cleaned exactly right, while neglecting justice for the poor and growing in their love for God.

The hypocrisy of the Pharisees remains a very real danger for us today.

It’s Lent now, as you know! Think about one of the traditional church guidelines for fasting, as an example. For centuries, people have avoided the eating of meat during Lent, and also on Fridays throughout the year. The idea – the end goal – has been to eat more simply as a type of fasting, and red meat was always gourmet fair. But let me ask you this. Which one of these meals accomplishes the goal more clearly today: A gourmet lobster feast or a fast food hamburger?

You see, the practice of avoiding meat is simply a means to an end. The problem with the Pharisees is that they have always confused the means with the end. But the goal of our discipleship – our training with Jesus – is that we become able to always keep these in the right priorities.

And this is one of the difficult things about being a Christian, living as a student-disciple of this Teacher, Jesus Christ. We are not given a manual on how to live. We have directions, yes, in the Scriptures. We have the example of Christ and those of the saints. But all of this needs to be translated and molded and shaped into a real life today, and that can be confusing.

Besides being baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, there is nothing else that we HAVE to do. But what we DO have to do is make sure that the Pharisees don’t win!

To be sure, the Pharisees are still with us today! The temptation to legalism is very much alive and well today. Let us remember that the goal of this journey that we are walking together is about our BEING and not our DOING, about the kind of people we are becoming.

One of the great preachers of our time, Fred Craddock, gave this simple summary recently about the trajectory of his life now that he is growing older. He said this: “Now that I am older, I want more than anything else to be a Christian. To live simply, to love generously, to speak truthfully, to serve faithfully, and leave everything else to God” (Craddock Stories).

Now that is a plan for life in which the Pharisees do not win! Let’s not make it any more complicated than that. Amen.