Tag Archives: Pharisee

The Righteous Who Despise

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This coming Sunday the gospel is the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. In the previous post we considered the meaning of “righteous” as a prelude to the parable’s beginning: He then addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. The Greek pepothoitas normally means “to convince” or “to persuade;” however, it can also mean “to seduce,” “to corrupt.” It would have been interesting had the translators chosen “those who seduced themselves that they were in right relationship to God.”

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What is right

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This coming Sunday the gospel is the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. We hear this parable differently than the first century listener.  We know how the parable ends and we also know how Luke has been describing the Pharisees, thus even at the words one was a Pharisee we know how this will end. Won’t it be that the Pharisee will represent the one who trusts himself and his own righteousness rather than God and the one who judges others and holds them in contempt? But let’s consider how the first century listener might have heard this narrative.

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Persistence, Presumption, and Promise

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This coming Sunday the gospel is the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. This gospel follows the parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge (18:1-8).  While the common thread is certainly prayer, there are other aspects which bind together these two narratives. One of Luke’s ongoing themes is the inclusivity of the Gospel. In these two parables, prayers are answered by God for a (saintly and probably poor) widow and the sinful (and probably rich) male tax collector. Luke continues to demonstrate that the Reign of God is open to all – a message of keen importance to his Gentile audience.

The two parables are well placed. Alan Culpepper (Luke, 340) notes that “By reading these two parables together, the reader is instructed to pray with the determination of the widow and the humility of the tax collector. Peter Rhea Jones has characterized the complementary themes of the two parables as ‘The promise of persistent prayer’ (18:1-8) and ‘The peril of presumptuous prayer’ (vv. 9-14).”  Each parable is instructive for the disciples of all ages about the nature of Christian prayer.

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Humility and Humanity

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This coming Sunday is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time. This has been a series of posts critiquing the scribes and Pharisees and admonishing the disciples to take another path and follow Jesus as the authoritative teacher of the Law. 11 The greatest among you must be your servant.  12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.  Continue reading →

Admonitions

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This coming Sunday is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the previous posts we considered the three critiques of the scribes and Pharisees. At this point the conversation seems fully directed to Jesus’ disciples.

8 As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. 10 Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you must be your servant.  12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted. 

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The stringent path

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This coming Sunday is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the previous post we considered the first of the three critiques of the scribes and Pharisees: they teach but they don’t practice what they preach. In this post we move to the second: They burden others while failing to act themselves.

4 They tie up heavy burdens (hard to carry) and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. 

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Critique of the Scribes and Pharisees

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This coming Sunday is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time. In Matthew’s timeline it is (still) Tuesday of Holy Week and Jesus is still in Temple precincts. The audience continues to be the crowds gathered around the man from Galilee, but the conversation will soon pivot to the disciples – in each case a critique and warning. Jesus’ critique of the scribes and Pharisees will have three elements Continue reading →

Setting the scene

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This coming Sunday is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Lectionary Cycle A. For several Sundays we have been in the midst of confrontations between Jesus and the Jerusalem leadership. On the 29th Sunday, we moved into a section of Matthew’s gospel that comprises a series of controversies between Jesus and the religious authorities of Jerusalem.

  • “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” (asked by Pharisees and Herodians: 22:17);
  • “In the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be?” (asked by Sadducees; v. 27);
  • “which commandment in the law is the greatest” (asked by a lawyer; v.34; the core of the Gospel for the 30th Sunday, Year A)

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A Parable of Right Relationships

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This coming Sunday is the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in prayer in the Temple. Culpepper (Luke, 343) concludes his comments with:

The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, contrary to some interpretations, is a two-sided parable. To read it as simply a warning against pride, self-sufficiency, or a relationship with God based on one’s own works is to miss the other side of the parable, which connects the Pharisee’s posture before God with his contempt for the tax collector. To miss this connection would be tantamount to emulating the Pharisee’s blindness to the implications of his attitude toward the tax collector. The nature of grace is paradoxical: It can be received only by those who have learned empathy for others. In that regard, grace partakes of the nature of mercy and forgiveness. Only the merciful can receive mercy, and only those who forgive will be forgiven (6:36-38). The Pharisee had enough religion to be virtuous, but not enough to be humble. As a result, his religion drove him away from the tax collector rather than toward him.

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