PharINFECTION: A Pharisee Epidemic?

2013 Lenten Sermon Series

The First Sunday in Lent

Pastor Mark Neumann 

I’d like to focus our thoughts on religious diseases over the next few weeks.  I’d like to do so because in our day and age, I think people are very much afraid of churches, or they’re irritated by churches; or they don’t understand what churches are for.  I believe it’s because spiritual diseases are rampant in our world today.  Now, that might sound weird that I would call something a spiritual disease, but you know people today have gotten so sensitive to hypocrisy, anger, self-righteousness, rituals, and all kind of things “religious.”  We’ve gotten so that many people don’t want any part of a church.  They don’t realize that this is a place where you can actually find healing; where there actually is peace and joy and blessing.

I’ve been reading a book called Pharasectomy by Peter Haas.  He is a pastor at a church here in the Twin Cities called Substance.  A lot of young people are flocking to that church, and not because it’s a snazzy place to be, but they’re trying to see the substance of Christian faith.  But what Peter Haas is getting at in his book Pharasectomy is that there is a little trouble that all God’s people sometimes face with a little inner Pharisee in their own life.  If you’re a church-going person, which I hope we all are, you have a tendency, as Jesus noted in the days that he walked the earth, to get a little “pharinfection” from time to time.  That’s what we’re going to talk about today—a little “pharinfection.”

Jesus said this in Luke 12:1:  “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”  Today, with all of the “feel good” philosophy out there, with all of the self-righteous people that walk the earth, people are really sensitive to hypocrisy these days.  You can sniff it out really easily.  Jesus said it was like yeast or leaven in a loaf of bread.  You could see that little air-pockets in a slice of bread are illustrative of yeast that has worked its way through the dough.  A Pharinfection goes everywhere.  It gets all you.  It gets in your thinking; it gets in your actions; it gets in the way you look, the way it you go about your business. 

We’ve been bashing Pharisees for a couple thousand years, but before we get too hard on the Pharisees we have to remember that, in their day, they where really considered the pinnacle of spirituality.  They were considered the good “church people” of the day.  They were very well respected.  In fact, Jesus said they loved to be greeted in the marketplace, and talked with at the city gates.  They memorized Scripture.  Every Pharisee had to at least memorize the first five books of the Bible, if not a whole bunch of Psalms and other teachings.  They memorized more than any of us have ever memorized.  That was something to be admired in a Pharisee.  They prayed seven, eight times a day.  Their prayer-life was very, very much a part of how they lived day to day.  They would do fasting; they would make their bodies disciplined under the discipline of fasting and prayer.  They were so highly disciplined that they followed rules like no one’s business. 

But Jesus said, “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”  I was interested in the word, “hypocrisy.”  We talk about hypocrites all the time.  I wondered if we really understand where this word comes from.  It actually comes from a Greek word hypocrisis, the word that is used for an actor on a stage.  An actor on a stage—that’s hypocrisy, because the person is merely acting out a role.  The job of the audience is to watch and see how well that hypocrite does doing his role on the stage.  You see, a Pharisee lives on a stage. 

Our culture today often times sees religious people, church people, living on a stage.  To be seen, to be admired, to be respected, to be elevated higher above everyone else.  That way of thinking can get inside of us, so that what we do and how we’re seen is on display for everyone.  Remember the little picnic we participated in this past summer, serving people who were exploited here in the Twin Cities?  We didn’t put a big sign up to draw attention to what we were doing.  There were just a few of us that cooked burgers and participated in some of the games and watching kids.  Berea as a congregation participated by providing a bouncy-house for the kids.  Our elders approved that, and you made it happen.  It was real “behind the scenes”; it wasn’t on a stage; we got no recognition for it.  I’m telling you this because I think that’s cool.  That is a great way to love on other people—to love on all kinds of people. 

Now, a Pharisee lives on a stage but Jesus lives in the field.  I thought about how I could compare and contrast a Jesus follower with a Pharisee, and what I saw with Jesus was he wasn’t on the stage as much as he was in the field.  Whether he was playing the role of a sower who went out to sow some seeds, or whether he’s playing the role of shepherd, the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep, Jesus is out where the action is.  He’s not doing it to go on display.  He’s doing it because he loves and cares for people.  Churches today would be so attractive, not for things they could show, but for the things that they do.  If we were like Jesus, living in the field, caring for his flock, sowing the seeds, tending the gardens, spiritual life is like nurturing something.  And when a church comes along and nurtures like Jesus did, we won’t live it out on a stage but out in the field.

Imagine a yoke.  It is said that there were Pharisee schools.  Some of them were noted for the yoke that the people wore.  Not a literal yoke, but they would say, “That rabbi puts a heavy yoke on the hearer.”  And Jesus even said that in Matthew 23.  He talked about how the Pharisees loved to put burdens on people--burdens so heavy that they were unwilling to bear those burdens themselves.  A Pharisee’s yoke is a heavy burden.  It’s meant to be hard.  It’s meant to be joyless and rigorous.  Lot of times when people look at a church they check the joy level.  Sometimes they see that it’s just nothing but a bunch of work, a bunch of rules, and a bunch of laws.  The Pharisees were very good at piling up a heavy burden on people.  So Jesus said, “My yoke is easy.”  I know I’ve shared this with you in previous messages.  This is one of my favorite passages in Scripture, where Jesus talks about how his yoke is easy.  That literally means that it fits well.  Matthew eleven, thirty—Jesus said, “Come, take my yoke on you and learn from me.  For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”  The yoke for the Pharisee was bondage to the work of the Law.  The yoke of Jesus fits well and is about working in a partnership with him, and it’s so right for our lives.

God gave us his Laws, we call them the Ten Commandments.  The Pharisees did something with God’s Law that I think you will find pretty interesting.  A Pharisee builds hedges.  In other words, they took one of the Ten Commandments and in order to honor and elevate that commandment they would make even more laws about that.  So many more laws, that it was almost impossible to keep the Commandment, because to keep the Commandment you had to keep all these other laws.  But, they thought if you kept all these other laws, you’d do a pretty good job keeping the Commandments.  It was all a bunch of self-righteousness.  So the Pharisees built hedges with laws around the Law.  What’s interesting is that they always busted people, always got them in trouble, not for breaking the laws, not for disobeying the laws, but for disobeying the hedges.  Like when Jesus and his disciples were called on the carpet for disobeying the laws of the Sabbath.  They weren’t disobeying the laws of the Sabbath; they were crossing under the Pharisee’s hedges.  This stuff gets all over us when the Pharisee lives inside. 

Jesus builds hedges with love.  You know, it could be said that Jesus did the same thing.  He took a Commandment and he says, “You have heard it said, `You shall not murder.  But I tell you, whoever hates his brother is a murderer.’”  It almost seems like Jesus is doing the same thing with the hedge, but notice this important point--Jesus builds a hedge with love.  Do you see if we love our brother there is no possible way that we will murder.  If we’re careful with our eyes and with our thoughts, there is no way to lust.  Jesus builds hedges around the Law with love.  There’s a huge difference there.  So, whether it’s the stage, a yoke, or hedges, we do guard against that yeast.  That Pharisee infection can go everywhere.  The tendency to want to make Christianity a great burden instead of a life that fits us well, the tendency to take our Christianity out there for a show, a public display on how good we are, or to put hedges around are laws and our traditions and our church.  Those things can infect us. 

The little bubbles all over the bread tell us the story—yeast goes everywhere.  And that’s hypocrisy.  It’s all an act.  It’s all a show.  It’s like the outside doesn’t match the inside.  The exact opposite of that we learn from the Gospel.  The exact opposite of the Pharinfection or the Pharisee infection is integrity.  Integrity is making the inside match the outside, and the outside match the inside.  Jesus was very clear to point this out.  He said, “You Pharisees are like whitewashed tombs.  You look beautiful on the outside.  Oh my goodness, you’ve glistened in the sunshine, but inside is full of dead men’s bones.”

I know, it’s true, for me as I expect for many of you, that we like it when we can show our righteousness, when we can make it look like we’re working really hard for the kingdom.  Or when we protect our traditions and our customs and our buildings and whatever it is.  Inside of us there can be a little Pharisee just wanting to spread its bubbles everywhere.  Jesus, going to cross, did so because of the dead man’s bones inside of us.  He did it because he didn’t want us to be whitewashed tombs.  He wanted us to be genuine people--people who had a relationship with the heavenly Father, because of their love for him and his love for them.  He wanted the inside and the outside to match.  That’s integrity.  Now you and I. can fail to live up to that righteous standard of Jesus Christ.  But when he went to the cross, he gladly and lovingly exchanged his perfect life for our messed up ones, and he took all our sins and bore them away on the cross.  We can’t be Pharisees in Christ.  We are forgiven.  And we’re honest about that forgiveness.  We have a wonderful message to share with others.

Gracious God, we thank you so much for the love and grace that you’ve given us in Jesus.  We thank you that his death on the cross has made the inside of our lives match the outside, and made the outside match the inside.  O God, we pray that through the life and death of and resurrection of Jesus we might be rid of this inner Pharisee, and that we would embrace our forgiveness with honesty and integrity and say, “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.”  We’re not on a stage.  We’re not pulling a load with a yoke that’s heavy.  We’re not building hedges with no laws, but with your love.  In Jesus name we pray, Amen.