The Pharisees set high standards. Because
of what we know about their relationship with Jesus, we are inclined to be
fairly dismissive of their piety. We see
them as mere legalists. It is entirely true that they had become over-concerned with minute
details. As Jesus himself once said –
it’s recorded in Matthew 23:23 – You hypocrites! You give to God a tenth even of the seasoning
herbs, such as mint, dill, and cumin, but you neglect to obey the really important
teachings of the Law, such as justice, mercy and honesty. Indeed, he went further in verse 24 – Blind
guides! You strain a fly out of your
drink, but swallow a camel. In saying that, Jesus was over-stating the case. I don’t
imagine there was ever a Pharisee who drank a liquidised camel. But the point remains. They thought that getting all the details
right would ensure living in the way that God wanted. Jesus recognised that it is not so
simple. He wants us to have the bigger
picture as our guide.
Still today there are many, and many within the church, who would
prefer things to be the way that the Pharisees set them out. Many of these people don’t realise that to be
what they are seeking; but they, explicitly, or sometimes more subtly, ask for
a line to be drawn and it to be made clear where everything fits, on the
forbidden side or on the permitted side.
Jesus recognises that life is far too complex for us to be able to list
every possible and decision to be made and make it clear on which side of the
line it sits. Indeed, there are, I am
sure, particular actions that can be right in one situation, but wrong in
another. Jesus is pursuing what we might
describe as an enlargement agenda. As
one commentator puts it, referring as an example to the comments on murder and
anger – “The verses on anger offer us an interpretation that enlarges the frame
for understanding the prohibition against murder …. Clearly Jesus is not rescinding
the prohibition against murder, but he does place murder on a continuum of
outcomes related to anger.”[1]
If we approach this using a different concept, we can think about
radicalisation. Because of some of the
things that have opened the past few years and the use of that term, not
inappropriately, as a description of those, we have tended to see
radicalisation in a negative light.
However, radicalisation can be positive, as it is here. Sticking with the murder/anger case study, we
may see that “Jesus radicalises the matter by insisting on going to the heart
and addressing at that level the anger that can lead to a whole scale of insult
and injury to others, of which murder would simply be an extreme outcome.”[2]
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