Do Pharisees Get a Bad Rap?

When I use the word “Pharisee”, does it conjure up a negative image for you? It certainly does for me. Maybe it’s my background, but I’ve always found the stories of their interaction with both Jesus and the marginalised to be very unpalatable.

But is it fair to lump them together and be diffident about all they represent?

I’d argue that it isn’t.

Consider Mark 12: 28-34. This conversation between a Pharisee and Jesus led to a clarity about the greatest of all commandments – a call to right relationship with our creator God, firstly, and then a call to right relationship with all humankind (all of whom were created in God’s image). A pretty good question from that scribe, in all honesty.

Consider Matthew 23. Set outside the temple, this passage is one of Jesus’ more extensive rebukes of the Pharisees’ actions. However, it is important to note that Jesus reminds those He is teaching that the Pharisees teach good stuff, stuff God wants us to know. His warning is to do as they teach but not copy the way they live their lives. Jesus is presenting his followers with the strategy, “don’t forget the message, even if the messenger deserves to be forgotten.”

Admittedly, the Pharisees did not do themselves many favours. Their devotion to creating order in the name of God meant their fervour to creating beautiful worship – in built form, in the conduct of the synagogue, in their approach to right living – had led them down paths that showed that they had well and truly lost their way.

They were lost in legalism, loving their message, rather than the recipient of the message.  Their message was often built from a Torahic foundation. God’s law was their source material. It was their application (including the way they communicated it) that often missed the mark. Repeatedly, they lost sight of the character of God and God’s call on them to love His image bearers.

The Pharisees had an unfortunate knack of trying to get in the way of peoples’ flourishing.  Just when Jesus was showing what it meant to be “the light”, or “the way, the truth and the life”, the Pharisees felt it necessary to complain, threaten and act to make life hard for the person Jesus’ redemptive words were being spoken over. 

Why, when throughout the generations the Pharisees had received a clear revelation of God Himself and of His truth, did they act so contrary? Why did they want to make it so hard for those who needed the most help?  Was “getting it right” in words more important than “getting it right” in deeds? Was this the root cause of the Pharisees’ problem with how Jesus and His followers interpreted and lived out Scripture? 

God’s words and actions are full of grace, justice and mercy. If our words and actions towards one another don’t reflect that, we might appear to be more aligned to the Pharisees than to Jesus, even if that is not our intent.

May God give us, as a community of believers, eyes, ears, hearts and the presence of mind every day to live out the two greatest commandments (as Mark’s gospel records them):

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ 

Love your neighbour as yourself.

As Jesus concluded: “No other commandment is greater than these.”

Shalom.