I’ve always had a sneaking sympathy for the Pharisees; after all, they were the leading religious and spiritual folk of their day. They were zealous for God promoting his standards and expectations. They attended to worship, to the major and minor facets of behaviour all with the highest and most sincere of motives. They defined what was acceptable conduct always in relation to scripture and its interpretation, always with God and His standards in mind. They demanded that everyone conduct themselves in ways that were worthy and that the Law be not broken or treated frivolously. They were, in themselves, paragons of virtue and they demanded the same standards from everyone else. The Law was paramount. It gave definite answers to all questions concerning religion, redemption and acceptable conduct, both in religious and secular living. The Law was not to be broken or taken lightly.
Then an upstart young preacher came on the scene. He was a tradesman, son of a tradesman, scarcely educated. He broke the Law. He worked on the Sabbath healing people, sometimes in a Synagogue. He lampooned the Pharisees, called them by nasty names, told people they’d got it wrong and that God wanted to be worshipped freely and that love and faith and trust in God meant more than the Law. He told pointed stories. He even went further and spent time with outcasts, bad people and those who didn’t go to Church. There was even a claim that he was God’s Son and had special qualities and that, in fact, he was a king - The King.
This was bad. The Pharisees were responsible people so they did something about it. They got rid of Him, but the damage was done. The things he had said and done stuck. Among the things that stuck were Jesus’s stories. He had followers.
One of those stories had to do with a feast in which the invited guests failed to turn up so their places were filled with people off the streets, the outcasts, ne’er-do-wells and so on. The feast went ahead without the best people in attendance, without the religiously good and so on. Very pointed. Now I wonder, who are to-day’s outcasts? What created them, and shouldn’t we be inviting them in? Is it possible that a new type of Pharisee is responsible and continues to exclude them?
I believe so, for among the outcasts we have a new group - the homosexuals. Their existence has become an issue to some. It ought not to be so. They’ve always been with us but never so intensely identified and labelled as today. And for that we thank some religious people. They appeal to the Bible, but there is nothing therein that supports their understanding of homosexuality, and Jesus, the teller of stories, friend of outcasts, said nothing of it. They claim it’s a chosen life-style. The only research that supports that conclusion, is driven by erroneous beliefs. All such studies are methodologically and logically flawed because they seek predetermined answers.
So these new outcasts are created by the belief of some and suffer persecution, condemnation and discrimination at the hands of today’s righteous faith-keepers.
Recently, some of them went from Christchurch to Dunedin in an attempt to disrupt an ordination of a gay man in the latter city. In so doing they broke an ancient Church discipline in which Bishop and Diocese are supreme. Uninvited, they invaded another Diocese in the name of a pharisaic law, thus showing ignorance and the desire to persecute someone for the way he was created.
The same people wrote to the Archbishops endeavouring to have them endorse a legalistic interpretation of a study document - the Windsor Report . Ironically, where a custom and, by practice a law, existed, they ignored it; where there was none they invented many laws to support their beliefs.
The Christ moved beyond legalism to love, inclusion and acceptance and taught a new humanity, both in his life and in his statements and stories. Those who ignore this and create outcasts and persecute them have departed from the Gospel. They do not diminish the Christ. They cannot. They do diminish themselves, religiously, spiritually and as people.
I believe that the groups I write of have redefined the Christian Faith to fit their own preconceptions and to enhance their comfort zone. They fail to realise that the Church ever seeks truth and that open discussion and debate is healthy and life-promoting. Among their sins is that of requiring everyone to believe and do as they do.
JOHN S. FISHER (The Reverend)
