Such A Pharisee

So, . . I’ve been reading these stories recently about Jesus having dinner with religious stuff-shirts called Pharisees.  Of course, I know that wasn’t too often, because these same spiritual hard noses were always carping about his annoying habit of “partying with sinners and scum” rather than respectable church-going folk.

In one  story, Jesus accepts an invitation in the upscale section of town with a “prominent” Pharisee on their official weekend end – the Sabbath (a no-work day). Now, this word for Pharisee simply means “separated one.” However, they had become a denomination of sorts who not only separated themselves racially from Gentiles and sinning Jews, but other Jews who they considered doctrinally less pure then they were.


These were the spiritual obsessive-compulsive thorns in Jesus’ side. Looking down their long noses of expectation, they were constantly sizing people up with the yardsticks of moral, ceremonial, racial and social purity. Their rulebook covered everything from the way you cooked food to how you washed your hands before and how you sat down to eat it.


However, as a gesture of “kindness,” once you filled up guest list around the U-shaped table for the dinner party it was customary to “allow” outsiders to come in, as long as they weren’t a distraction. They had to sit around the walls, silently listen to the table talk, and maybe help dispose of any leftovers. 


On his occasion, Jesus arrived early enough to watch the people start jockeying for places of honor near the host and guest speaker seats.  He also noticed that one of the people seated along the wall was a man short of breath, his movements slow and awkward. Here was a man who needed him more than the people at the table. But to approach and touch this “sinner” (his problem was believed the result of his own or his parent’s sin), let alone do the “work” of healing on the official NO WORK day was taboo.


Jesus didn’t wait for the food before serving up his first course of compassion. He heals the man’s dropsy, then launches into a parable with the “separated ones” as the entrée of the story. As was his custom with the religiously convinced people, his allegorical story is harsh in its moral about who his Father seats as guests in the heavenly dinner party – “not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.”


I’ve always loved it when Jesus sticks it to the Pharisees. But then I realized . . . if I were suddenly teleported back in time, I would be one of those people jockeying for a seat at the head table. Most of my life I’ve prided myself living a “separated” life from the alcohol, loose morals, and filthy living of the common man. 

I avoid eye contact with the homeless man and his sign at stoplights. The unrefined suck so much life out of me if I have to spend time in a Wal-Mart. I want to engage the needy on my terms, through planned ministry times where I can control my involvement.


Yes, . . I would have hosted the dinner, inviting Jesus to share his ideas about the kingdom of God without having to get my hands dirty with kingdom building. I would have been the one irritated when the night’s menu was interrupted by Jesus distraction with the old man who was always dozing off and snoring during church services.

And I’d have been the main course Jesus served up in his parable. I’m one of those too preoccupied with my own morality to have made it to the Father’s Banquet Table.


Jesus tended to turn things upside down. Even today, he’ll flip your thinking right side up if you’re brave enough to plug yourself into the story. 


It’s never to late to make some lifestyle changes . . . even for an old Pharisee like me.