This is an adapted form of the sermon I preached today, the 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The gospel reading was Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26. You can view the sermon here.

I want to talk about the Pharisees today. The Pharisees show up frequently in the gospels. And there’s a common pattern to these stories. In many of them, like this one, Jesus does something controversial, and the Pharisees show up and argue with him about it. And Jesus always wins the argument. It’s easy to see the Pharisees as the bad guys in the gospel. The ones always out to get Jesus. The ones who understood everything wrong.

But let’s talk about who the Pharisees really were. They were a group of faithful Jews who took their religion very seriously. Life as a Jew in first-century Judea, under the rule of the Roman Empire, was not easy. The Jewish people had a long history of being under the thumb of various empires, but there had never been an empire quite like Rome. Their authority was absolute over everything they touched. They were unmatched in military power, and in their administration of dozens of territories. They ruled most of the known world, millions of people. They taxed all these people heavily, with the heel of a soldier’s boot at the ready for those who questioned their authority or balked at the taxes.

It was a hard life for anyone living under Roman rule, but perhaps even harder for the Jewish people. They understood themselves as the chosen people of God. They had been chosen by God to live a certain way, and to proclaim a certain message, and to live in complete trust in God. And God promised that from them would shine a light to the world, sharing with the whole world the sovereignty, steadfastness, and love of God. But to shine that light, the Jews had to live out their faith a certain way. And Roman rule made it very hard to live that faith.

So the Jewish people did what they could to survive in a world like that. There were a couple of different ways they did that. On one extreme were the Sadducees, a group made up mostly of religious professionals, priests and other temple workers. The Sadducees were collaborators. They made the decision to work with the Romans, and that gave them limited power and some amount of wealth. The Romans always rewarded collaborators.

On the other extreme were the Essenes. They were the ones who checked out. These were small bands of religious Jews who left the cities and towns and went to live in the desert, like hermits or monks. They escaped from a world they saw as corrupt, and tried to live with integrity, as purely and faithfully as possible, in the desert. So long as they kept their heads down, the Romans left them alone. Some people have suggested that John the Baptist was, at least at one time, a member of this group.

And in the middle were the average people, the fishermen and herders, the merchants and craftsmen. They just wanted to live, to get by. And if that meant they had to compromise, and give up some of their faith to do it, that was okay with them.

But among that middle group there also arose some people who called themselves Pharisees. These people took their faith very seriously, and they believed they could still follow as God had called them, even in a world that had gone crazy. They read the scripture voraciously, and found every rule and command they could there. They followed those commands strictly, even many of the rules that were only written for the priests. They felt that if they were holy enough, if they were faithful enough, if they led pure lives and encouraged and urged others to do the same, then maybe God would be moved to come down and do something about the Romans, and save the people.

They were deeply religious, and they believed that they could make a difference, through their sacrifice. They were trying to do the right thing, and they were trying to get the whole nation to follow their lead. And they were so frustrated when the people around them didn’t follow them. They weren’t trying to be cruel or arrogant. But they did come across that way.

And Jesus had no time for the Pharisees. Every chance he got, he spoke against them, correcting them and telling them how wrong they were. Jesus never had a harsh word against the average person, but against the very religious? Sure. All the time.

I just said that Jesus had no time for the Pharisees. But on the other hand, it seems like Jesus actually had a lot of time for them. Because they appear so often in the gospels, way more than the Sadducees or the Essenes. And so often, Jesus is trying to teach them something. They never seem to listen, but Jesus continues to teach them.

And I think maybe that’s because the Pharisees were so close to getting it right. Jesus himself was very similar to the Pharisees in a lot of ways. Like them, he believed that you could live a righteous life in the midst of the Roman occupation. Like them, he refused to collaborate or work with the people in power. Like them, he believed that following God was right and good, and that the salvation of the people would come through his obedience to God.

But they did have one major difference. And Jesus called it out directly in this gospel reading. He said to the Pharisees, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” Surely they knew that he was quoting the prophet Hosea, which we heard as our first reading today.

And the Pharisees were living a life of sacrifice, sacrificing everything to try to follow the Law perfectly. But Jesus said, “No, that’s not it.” I think Jesus knew they were so close, and he wanted to help them get the last piece. And that last piece was, “not sacrifice, but mercy.”

And Jesus shows us precisely what mercy looks like throughout this whole story. We see Jesus calling a tax collector to follow him. Even though he was in a hated profession, Jesus had mercy on him, and called him to follow.

We see Jesus eating dinner with the wrong kind of people. He had mercy on them and shared a meal with them.

We see Jesus show mercy to a leader of the synagogue, whose daughter had died. He showed mercy, and followed the leader home.

Along the way, we see Jesus show mercy to a woman who had suffered for twelve years.

And finally, we see Jesus show mercy to a girl who was dead. Even though she was far beyond help, he showed her mercy, took her by the hand, and she got up.

Mercy upon mercy upon mercy.

And Jesus has showered mercy upon us. Every one of us in this room is here because Christ showed mercy to us. None of us has earned the right to call ourselves children of God, yet that is who we are, thanks to Christ’s mercy. None of us are so good, so righteous on our own that God loves us on our merits. No matter how much we have tried to follow the rules, we have failed. Every one of us. Yet God loves each of us, and all of us, so deeply, and we see that in Christ’s mercy.

And Christ sends us out to share that mercy with others. To share his mercy with everyone we encounter, whether they are among us or not. Whether they look like us or think like us or not. Whether they’re Republican or Democrat, whether they are black or white or brown, whether they are male or female or something else, whether they are kind or cruel, whether they are wealthy or homeless, whether they are Christian or Jewish or Muslim or atheist or anything else.

Christ has shown mercy to us, so we are to show that same mercy to others. Not to judge them like the Pharisees did. We are not called to be Pharisees, to try to be perfect. We are called to be the broken, sinful people we are, to receive Christ’s mercy, and share that mercy with other broken, sinful people. And that is how the world changes.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash