The Art of being a Pharisee

This morning I read an interesting article in the news. The Article starts off by saying that after Al Gore received an Oscar for his feature film documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth”, he now needs to put his own house (or should we call it a mansion) in order. According to the article Al uses a whole lot of electricity and natural gas and they think far more then he needs. They were basically saying that there is some real hypocrisy being shown by Al and that he needs to practice what he preaches. (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200702/CUL20070227c.html)

I have seen Gore’s documentary and really enjoyed it. I think we need to give Al some slack here and let him answer his accusers. At the same time this subject of hypocrisy is an important one to me...

The other day I was reading in the Gospel of Luke and in Chapter 11 Jesus really speaks strongly against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The Pharisees of Jesus day were a Jewish group that put a heavy emphasis on ceremonial cleanliness and the keeping of the law. They seemed to follow Jesus around checking on him constantly to see if he fulfilled all the traditions and the Law the way they believed they should be fulfilled. Why did Jesus call them hypocrites? In their desire for ceremonial purity etc… they became experts in trying to keep the literal interpretation of the Law but totally missing the inner spiritual significance of it. Jesus said in Luke 11:39,40,” …You Pharisees are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside your are still filthy—full of greed and wickedness! Fools! Didn’t God make the inside as well as the outside?”

So why am I so interested in the problem of hypocrisy or talking the talk and not walking the walk? Well because I think we are all guilty of this. Whether or not Al Gore is guilty of wasting too much energy at his Mansion and guest house, while he speaks about global warming, I still need to consider my own life and make sure that I am living what I am preaching.

I believe that God created the heavens and the earth and put us humans here to take care of it. But I find that I am real quick to forget about recycling and wasting energy too.

I believe that I am to do for others what I would like them to do for me (the golden rule right?). And yet I find myself demanding things from others that I am not prepared to give to them.

I believe that I am to love my neighbor as myself. And at the same time I find that I am always looking out for number one, “ME”, more than anyone else.

When it really gets down to it I find that I am much more concerned about the way other people perceive me then I am about the way that God perceives me. Even though I know that He knows me better than anyone else. I guess you could say that I have my Pharisee tendencies. And if I go farther with this, I guess we could say that we are all hypocrites at times. We say that we believe one thing but often do just the opposite. We act one way but deep in our hearts we believe something else and given the right circumstances when no one is looking we live out what we really believe.

Being real and walking the walk is something that I need help in order to do. I seem to fall short all the time with my own efforts and the Bible makes it very clear that God knows our hearts and nothing is hidden from him. He knows who I really am and He still loves me and offers me a trade. He says, I will make a trade with you, your hypocrisy for “My” truth. Jesus says, “I am the way the truth and the life, No one can comes to the Father except through me.”

Condemned or Accepted

Here in Stockholm I live in a multicultural community. This means that when I walk down to the mall near my house I do not hear a lot of Swedish being spoken. Even though I live in the Swedish capital city there are a lot of people groups that are represented here. In my community, I have heard it said that 40% of the people are from immigrant background.

Living in a multicultural community can add a lot of diversity to ones life. I could write all day long, I am sure, about the differences that I can find between the cultures that are represented in my neighborhood. But recently I have been thinking about one thing that all cultures seem to experience in the same proportion. The longer I live here on earth the more I realize that all of us deal with feelings of condemnation. In other words, all of us feel condemned at times. This seems to cut right across the different religions that are represented in my neighborhood too. Whether we call ourselves Christian, Muslim, Buddhist etc… we all struggle with the feeling that things are not what they should be and that we are not what we should be and because of that we are condemned by others, perhaps even our own family and, sad but true, also the God that we worship.

Just recently I had the most interesting conversation with a man I met in a Pub near my house. ...
We had been introduced through a common friend and when we started talking and he heard we were starting a new church in the community he shared with me his religious background and then opened up and told me how he felt that his parents were not happy with the life style he was living. His parents shared his religious faith but they did not like the life that he was living. As I listen to him talk he then went one step farther and shared with me how he also felt that the God he worshiped was also not pleased with him. In other words he felt condemned by both his family and his God.

The more I thought about the conversation the more I realize that this man is not alone. Maybe you also feel this feeling of condemnation as you are reading this blog. It is a nasty feeling and trust me you are not alone if you feel this way. I am sure there are many books and articles written about this feeling and many people walk around bound in the chains that this feeling can produce.

Now let me get back to the conversation I was telling you about. When this new acquaintance shared with me his feelings, I though about the book that I read that encourages me when I have these feelings myself. I asked him if I could read to him from this book and he said yes. So, if you don’t mind, I will do the same for you. I opened the Bible that day and read to him some verses that talk about the love of God. That’s right; I am talking about love and not condemnation. Listen to these verses in the Gospel of John chapter 3, verses 16 and 17,

“For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.”

When I read these verses I begin to realize that those feelings of condemnation that I feel at times are not coming from God. It is clear in these verses that God is not condemning us; He is actually doing all He can to show us how much He loves and accepts us. Even though we don’t always feel accepted the Bible shows us that God loves us so much that He actually came down to earth as a man, took upon Himself the condemnation that we feel and took it to death when He died on the cross that day in our place. But it didn’t end that day! The Bible says that He then arose from the dead, and because of what He did for us that day, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

No Condemnation! I am accepted by God. I can’t speak for the family members that my friend was struggling with, but I do know that when we feel condemned it is easy to condemn others too. The “Good News” is that we don’t have to feel condemned any longer. God, the Creator of heaven and earth accepts us and does not condemn us. He is there right now telling us this. He is not condemning us; He is trying to get our attention to tell us that He accepts us and desires to have a relationship with us.