Fr. JC Maximilian

How many of you know who Man-of-War was? For those who do not, Man-of-War was one of the most successful race horses of all time. He had a record of 20-1. Man-of-War’s only loss came to a horse named Upset. Up until that time, the word upset only referred to either having an “upset stomach” or “being upset with someone.” However, since that horse race, we now say when some underdog wins that they have “pulled an upset.”

Another word that we use frequently is to call someone a Pharisee. By that we mean that the person is being stingy, mean-heartedly judgmental, overly committed to following the rules, and hypocritical. However, who were the Pharisees whom we hear about in today’s Gospel reading?

The Pharisees were a part of a Jewish renewal movement. The Pharisees appear often in the New Testament, and they are often presented as critical opponents of Jesus. While they certainly did oppose a lot of what Jesus taught, in some ways they have gotten a bum rap. At the time of Jesus’ mission on the earth, Judaism was divided into four main sects or groups. One group was the Sadducees, who were more “open” to accommodating their faith to fit in more with the Romans (and the Greeks before them). In many ways the Sadducees were “cultural” Jews, just doing the minimum that the Torah demanded of them, and often segregating their religious actions from all their others. Then there were the Essenes. The Essenes were deeply religious, and they pretty much withdrew into their own communities in the desert, where they were awaiting the Messiah. The Essenes really did not care much about world politics. Another group, of more cultural Jews, were the Zealots. While they might cloak their actions in religious language, the Zealots were really political rebels who wanted to throw off Roman rule and establish an independent nation of Israel.

Finally there were the Pharisees. There were probably the most devout and observant of the Jewish groups of the time; second only to the Essenes. The Pharisees believed that faith in God had to effect every aspect of one’s life, and not be constrained to just a narrow role in one’s life. In line with this, they developed what they called the “oral law,” a body of traditions and opinions on how the Law of Moses extended to all aspects in life. In this the Pharisees were correct, for faith in God should be at the very heart of all that we do. The Prophet Isaiah, whom Jesus quotes from in today’s Gospel, reports God saying, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me,” and St. James says in today’s second reading, “be doers of the word and not hearers only.”

So where did the Pharisees go wrong? Why did their leaders often find themselves at odds with Jesus? After all, many scholars point out, just in looking at the main theological differences between the Pharisees and Sadducees, Jesus was more aligned with the Pharisees. The Pharisees’ problem is the second part of the passage from Isaiah that Jesus quotes today, “in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.” Responding to a fear that they might lose their religious identity due to the rule of the Romans, the Pharisees started to over emphasize merely human rules. They started to think of themselves as the saviors of the soul of God’s people in a time of upheaval, by stressing cultic practices and giving them a primacy over other duties, such as justice and charity. God’s Law does save us, because it reveals who God made us to be – His children, made in His Image and Likeness. However, in their zeal, which began as a good work with upright and pure intentions, the Pharisees turned the Law into an unbearable burden of “do’s and don’ts.” It became an enslaving weight instead of a sign of freedom and covenant with the God of Love.

After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 A.D., the Pharisees were the only Jewish sect that continued. Therefore it should not be surprising that the attitudes of formalism which they fell into are still with us today.

“Today, such formalism can arise amongst those who think to please God in an exaggerated legalism at the cost of Christian charity” (Ermatinger, Sacerdos: Homilies, Cycle B, August-September 2006, p. 22). There are two common forms of pharisaism today. One is a refusal to accept and put into practice the liturgical reforms presented by the Church. This can manifest itself either in a “progressive/liberal” do-it-your-own-way Mass where people take the liberty to change the words of prayers and actions of the Mass – either by adding to or subtracting from what the Church has given us. Or it can manifest itself in a “traditionalist/conservative” rejection of anything different from “the way we always did it before.” The liturgy does not belong to any of us, it belongs to the Church, manifested in the proper hierarchical structure.

Another common form of pharisaism today is the attempt to “naturualize” the supernatural. For some people the Gospel is reduced just to “social justice” and the mission of the Church is seen as being limited just to the social sphere of work. Certainly we are called to build up the Kingdom of God here and now, however we must never forget the spiritual reality that the Kingdom of God will only be complete when we are in communion with God for all eternity in Heaven.

“We can fall into pharisaism if we think that our work of saving souls and being sanctified have more to do with our own productivity than with the grace of God. As well, we find expressions of formalism in a passive Christianity that simply goes through the motions of prayer and sacramental life, but does not live God’s first commandment of charity, above all in the area of apostolate” (Ermatinger, Sacerdos: Homilies, Cycle B, August-September 2006, p. 22).

Elsewhere in the Gospel, Jesus tells His disciples to change their hearts. This was a call to change the very center and core of who they were, so that obedience to the Word of God would be the center and core of all they were and did. Only when they experienced this change of heart would they be able to live in the freedom of being a child of God, and live the antiphon to today’s Responsorial Psalm, “One who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord.” This is what it means to really be a Christian, and not just one in name. This is the heart of discipleship.