The Pharisee in Us

John A. Sanford in his book, The Kingdom Within, suggested the presence of  a “Pharisee is in each of us.”  I know the Pharisee lives in me and I’ve been wrestling with him for years—ever sense I became conscious of his presence.  Jesus called the Pharisees “hypocrites,” a word which means an “actor.”  An actor in Jesus’ time literally wore a mask to depict the role he was playing.  Jesus, by calling the Pharisee a hypocrite was suggesting that the Pharisee was a mask-wearer—not really real, but acting out a role in life.  In this sense we are all pharisaical, because we all wear a mask(s), an outer mask.  The mask is the person we pretend to be—the person we show to the world.  What and who we pretend to be is contradicted by what and who we really are when we take the time to look inside ourselves.

Like the Pharisee we don’t want folk to see us as we really are.  Like the Pharisee we want everyone to see us as benevolent and important persons—giving alms, being generous, wearing clothes that cause us to stand out in the crowd, attempting to impress people with our religious and intellectual prowess. The Pharisee is always wearing his mask and always putting on a show.  This play-acting takes place in individuals, in groups, in the workplace, in the churches, in communities, and in the nations. 

“Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You who clean the outside of cup and dish and leave the inside full of extortion and intemperance…You who are like whitewashed tombs that look handsome on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of corruption…” (Matthew 23:25/Luke 11:39-40).

Jesus stripped away from the Pharisees their masks and exposed them to themselves and to the multitude.  He was fulfilling the prophetic function of “truth-telling.”  This is what Jesus did then and still does in the world.  The Pharisees hated him—for there is no hatred more bitter than hatred for one who strips away from us the facade behind which we are hiding.  Jesus calls us to become fully human, to accept our many selves and to bring them all together into the person we are meant to be, thereby avoiding the contradiction between the outside and the inside and becoming holy (whole).  

“You are the very ones who pass yourselves off as virtuous in people’s sight, but God knows your hearts.  For what is thought highly of by men is loathsome in the sight of God” (Luke 1615). 

"There's a long, long road a'winding"
in the spiritual journey.