There’s a deep irony to this parable, that whenever we read it, we are tempted, aren’t we, to mutter, “Thank God I’m not like that Pharisee!” (Luke 18:9-14)

Jesus told this parable to those who trusted in themselves, instead, it is implied, in the deep and abiding mercies of God. There is a tragedy in the telling of this parable, which is that the Pharisee, who does everything right, everything good and well, cannot be satisfied without comparing himself to the tax collector, without finding someone else to scapegoat, someone to be better than.

Jesus told this parable to those who trusted in themselves, and regarded others with contempt.

In the modern psychological mode, we might see the Pharisee as an overgrown child, still cowering in fear before a strict parent, unable to trust that love will prevail, casting anyone and everyone else in front of him to shield himself from judgement: I’m a good child! He’s the bad one! He did it! We might even feel sorry for him. Which makes us even less likely to want to be like him. And so the spiral continues.

The irony of this parable and its type-casting of the Pharisee deepens when we consider biblical historical scholarship that suggests that Jesus might himself have been closer to the Pharisees than we often assume. Now, this is something of a mystery, because the historical record itself is sparse regarding Pharisees, but the story goes something like this (and here I’m drawing on opinions from Amy-Jill Levine, Jewish New Testament scholar [i], and Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, who has written a series of researched blog posts on the subject [ii]; but don’t blame them if I’ve made any errors below):

In the first century, there were several distinct groups within Judaism that we know something about. One was the Sadducees: we see them in the Gospels. We know that they are associated with the Temple, and that they don’t believe in resurrection. They are the ones who ask Jesus the question about the man whose widow marries seven brothers in succession, hoping to trip him with the technicality of who will possess her in the afterlife. Jesus artfully escapes that snare by setting the widow free (Luke 20:27-40).

Another was the Essenes: the ascetic band who lived in the caves of Qumran and gave us the Dead Sea Scrolls. You may have heard speculation that John the Baptizer was one of those.

Apparently, the Essenes called the Pharisees “seekers after smooth things”, because they did not live in the caves but, as Jesus describes elsewhere, liked to wear long robes and swirl them around the marketplace (Luke 20:45-46; Matthew 23:1-12). The definition of the word Pharisee is itself murky, but one strong contender is that to be a Pharisee means to be an interpreter. An interpreter of what? An interpreter of the Law. As such, the Pharisees are often considered the ancestors of the rabbis who continued the Jewish traditions after the destruction of the Temple, reinterpreting and continuing the ancient traditions into a new and devastated landscape.

Who were the Pharisees in relation to Jesus? They argued points of the Law with him, and he argued back. They were Saul of Tarsus, later Paul, who boasted in his Pharisaism (Acts 26:5; Philippians 3:5). They were Gamaliel, Saul’s teacher, who argued on behalf of Peter and the apostles before the Sanhedrin (Acts 5:34-39). They were Simon, who invited Jesus to dinner (and whose invitation Jesus accepted; Luke 7:36), and Nicodemus, who came to Jesus at night (John 3), and who helped Joseph to bury him in a new tomb after his shameful and false execution (John 19:38-42).

So, was Jesus one of them? Does it matter? Well, only if we consider that the parable he is telling is not about comparing one group to another: Pharisees bad, tax collectors good; Pharisees proud, tax collectors humble; Pharisees fraudulent, tax collectors true. That would be a good parable, in that it turns communal wisdom on its head and shocks its listeners into a new understanding; but it wouldn’t really ring true, and it would only reinforce the tendency I think Jesus is aiming to subvert.

Because the Pharisee in the parable, and the ones listening, were righteous. They did, by and large, pray regularly, tithe willingly, fast rigorously, keep the Law. And the tax collectors were too often downright cheats and collaborators.

The point of the parable is not to elevate one group of people and condemn another, but to undermine the very bases for comparison that society uses to stratify human beings made in the image of God.

Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and regarded others with contempt. It’s the contempt that he is condemning in this parable, not the righteousness. Because he was willing, always and everywhere, to reach beyond his own and embrace the lost, the lonely, the unloveable. He literally broke the mould.

When the Pharisee says, “Thank God I’m not like him,” he’s really saying, “God, that one’s really not your best work.” Excuse me? That person, made in the image of the living and loving and liberating God is a reject? I don’t think so! And when we read the parable and think, “Well, thank God I’m not a Pharisee!” don’t we risk making the same mistake? And if there’s just a hint of a chance that Jesus was also a Pharisee, might that make us more careful of it?

Stereotyping is dangerous. It is deadly. Painting Jesus as just another rabble-rousing Jew at Passover, casting him as a Zealot, led those in authority to crucify him. You know how dangerous and deadly stereotyping can be. You know how deadly stereotyping can be, and you know how the solidarity of the Gospel undermines it.

When we pause to see each person as God’s image in human form; when we live out our baptismal promises to seek and serve Christ in all persons, we undermine the stereotyping that leads to contempt, to dehumanizing, to death. When we cast ourselves on the mercy of God, we are saved.

Because this is the truth of the Gospel: that none of us is saved not by our own righteousness, not by belonging to the right group, or the right church, or the right practices. We can do everything right, and still die. We can do everything right, and still, we die.

But Jesus is one of us. He has been there with us and for us. This is the truth of the Gospel, that Jesus lives for us, loves us, and will be with us to the end of the age, Emmanuel, God with us, God one of us. So look up, take heart, and live.

[i] Podcast: The Bible for Normal People, by Pete Enns and Jared Byas. Episode 278: Amy-Jill Levine – Who Are the Pharisees Actually?

[ii] Jesus and the Jews (Part 1) https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/pharisees/, Jesus and Beit Hillel (Part 2!) https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/jesus2/, Wrapping Up Jesus (Part 3) https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/jesus3/