Recovering PhariseesRecovering Pharisees

“The power of sin is centrifugal.”

“When at work in a human life, it tends to push everything out toward the periphery. Bits and pieces go flying off until only the core is left. Eventually bits and pieces of the core itself go flying off until in the end nothing at all is left. ‘The wages of sin is death’ is St. Paul’s way of saying the same thing.”

✦ Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, HarperSanFrancisco (1973), pp. 88-89

“The power of sin is centrifugal.”

“When at work in a human life, it tends to push everything out toward the periphery. Bits and pieces go flying off until only the core is left. Eventually bits and pieces of the core itself go flying off until in the end nothing at all is left. ‘The wages of sin is death’ is St. Paul’s way of saying the same thing.”

✦ Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, HarperSanFrancisco (1973), pp. 88-89

Sin Dis-Integrates UsSin Dis-Integrates Us

“Other people and (if you happen to believe in him) God or (if you happen not to) the World, Society, Nature--whatever you call the greater whole of which you’re part--sin is whatever you do, or fail to do, that pushes them away, that widens the gap between you and them and also the gaps within yourself.”

“Other people and (if you happen to believe in him) God or (if you happen not to) the World, Society, Nature--whatever you call the greater whole of which you’re part--sin is whatever you do, or fail to do, that pushes them away, that widens the gap between you and them and also the gaps within yourself.”

Sins of the PhariseeSins of the Pharisee

“For example, the sin of the Pharisee is not just

(a) his holier-than-thou attitude which pushes other people away, but

(b) his secret suspicion that his own holiness is deficient too, which pushes part of himself away, and

(c) his possibly not-so-subconscious feelings that anybody who expects him to be all that holy must be a cosmic SOB, which pushes Guess Who away.”

“For example, the sin of the Pharisee is not just

(a) his holier-than-thou attitude which pushes other people away, but

(b) his secret suspicion that his own holiness is deficient too, which pushes part of himself away, and

(c) his possibly not-so-subconscious feelings that anybody who expects him to be all that holy must be a cosmic SOB, which pushes Guess Who away.”

Three Fatal Flaws of PhariseesThree Fatal Flaws of Pharisees

Their view of GOD

Their view of THEMSELVES

Their view of OTHERS

•Do we see God as good and loving?

Do we see ourselves as undeserving of God’s love?

Do we see everybody else as just as equally undeserving, yet just as loved as we are?

Their view of GOD

Their view of THEMSELVES

Their view of OTHERS

•Do we see God as good and loving?

Do we see ourselves as undeserving of God’s love?

Do we see everybody else as just as equally undeserving, yet just as loved as we are?

TextText

Matthew 23 29-32"You're hopeless, you religion scholars

and Pharisees! Frauds! You build granite tombs for your

prophets and marble monuments for your saints. And you say that if you had

lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would

have been on your hands. You protest too much! You're cut from the same cloth as those

murderers, and daily add to the death count.

Matthew 23 29-32"You're hopeless, you religion scholars

and Pharisees! Frauds! You build granite tombs for your

prophets and marble monuments for your saints. And you say that if you had

lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would

have been on your hands. You protest too much! You're cut from the same cloth as those

murderers, and daily add to the death count.

Do we too praise Do we too praise

Jesus and God’s Jesus and God’s

prophets while prophets while

ignoring their ignoring their

warnings and warnings and

Twisting their Twisting their

teachings?teachings?

TextText

Matthew 23  33-34"Snakes! Reptilian sneaks! Do you think you

can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper? It's on

account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and

scholars generation after generation—and generation after generation

you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding

them with abuse.

Matthew 23  33-34"Snakes! Reptilian sneaks! Do you think you

can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper? It's on

account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and

scholars generation after generation—and generation after generation

you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding

them with abuse.

Because He Because He

loves us, Jesus loves us, Jesus

keeps sending keeps sending

His people to His people to

teach usteach us

to face up to to face up to

the truth.the truth.

TextText

Matthew 23  35-36"You can't squirm out of this: Every drop of

righteous blood ever spilled on this earth, beginning with the blood of that good man Abel

right down to the blood of Zechariah, Barachiah's son, whom you murdered at his

prayers, is on your head. All this, I'm telling you, is coming down

on you, on your generation.

Matthew 23  35-36"You can't squirm out of this: Every drop of

righteous blood ever spilled on this earth, beginning with the blood of that good man Abel

right down to the blood of Zechariah, Barachiah's son, whom you murdered at his

prayers, is on your head. All this, I'm telling you, is coming down

on you, on your generation.

Pharisees Pharisees risk risk

great great

perilperil

by constantly by constantly

rejecting His rejecting His

truth and truth and

ignoring His ignoring His

warnings warnings

TextText

Matthew 23   37-39"Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets!

Killer of the ones who brought you God's news! How often I've ached

to embrace your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn't let me.

And now you're so desolate, nothing but a ghost town. What is there left to say? Only this: I'm out

of here soon. The next time you see me you'll say, 'Oh, God has blessed

him! He's come, bringing God's rule!'"

Matthew 23   37-39"Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets!

Killer of the ones who brought you God's news! How often I've ached

to embrace your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn't let me.

And now you're so desolate, nothing but a ghost town. What is there left to say? Only this: I'm out

of here soon. The next time you see me you'll say, 'Oh, God has blessed

him! He's come, bringing God's rule!'"

If we’re If we’re

Pharisees, Pharisees,

then the most then the most

we can hope we can hope

for is to for is to

become become

Recovering Recovering

PhariseesPharisees

Charitable LoveCharitable LoveCharitable LoveCharitable Love

I CHOO I CHOO

CHOO CHOO

CHOOSE CHOOSE

YOUYOU

I CHOO I CHOO

CHOO CHOO

CHOOSE CHOOSE

YOUYOU

TO BE MYTO BE MY

VALENTINVALENTIN

EE

TO BE MYTO BE MY

VALENTINVALENTIN

EE

Charitable LoveCharitable LoveC.S. Lewis,The Four LovesCharitable LoveCharitable LoveC.S. Lewis,The Four Loves

“We are all receiving Charity. There is something in each

of us that cannot be naturally loved. It is no one's fault if they do not so love it ... You might as well ask people to like the taste of rotten bread or the sound of a mechanical drill. We can be forgiven, and pitied, and loved in spite of it, with Charity; no other way. All who have good parents, wives, husbands, or children, may be sure that at some times -- and perhaps at all times in respect of some one particular trait or habit -- they are

receiving Charity, are loved not because they are lovable but because Love Himself [Christ] is in those who love them.”

“We are all receiving Charity. There is something in each

of us that cannot be naturally loved. It is no one's fault if they do not so love it ... You might as well ask people to like the taste of rotten bread or the sound of a mechanical drill. We can be forgiven, and pitied, and loved in spite of it, with Charity; no other way. All who have good parents, wives, husbands, or children, may be sure that at some times -- and perhaps at all times in respect of some one particular trait or habit -- they are

receiving Charity, are loved not because they are lovable but because Love Himself [Christ] is in those who love them.”

If We Accept the If We Accept the Fact that We All Fact that We All

come fromcome from the Island of the Island of

Misfit ToysMisfit Toys,, ThenThen Charitable LoveCharitable Love Seems Not JustSeems Not Just AppropriateAppropriate But But Indescribably Indescribably MiraculousMiraculous

If We Accept the If We Accept the Fact that We All Fact that We All

come fromcome from the Island of the Island of

Misfit ToysMisfit Toys,, ThenThen Charitable LoveCharitable Love Seems Not JustSeems Not Just AppropriateAppropriate But But Indescribably Indescribably MiraculousMiraculous

This is how God sees us This is how God sees us