Better than the Pharisees

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, June 5, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 9:18-34.

It is amazing the way the human mind works.  We have the ability to create incredible, awesome things. We have created computers that can make incredibly complex calculations in less than a second.  We can communicate all over the world in an instant.  We can send people into outer space and bring them back.  We truly are amazing.

            But of course, the human mind is amazing in other ways, too.  We have an incredible ability to justify ourselves to ourselves.  If we want to, we can convince ourselves to do all kinds of bad things, and find a way to convince ourselves that they’re not really bad, that they’re even good.  The human mind can find a way to rationalize anything, if we want to badly enough.

            And the human mind is also amazing in its ability to find ways to believe that the things we want to be true actually are, and the things we want to believe are not true actually are not.  We can do this despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.  It’s called “confirmation bias”.  We accept anything that agrees with what we already believe or want to believe, and we reject anything that disagrees or even calls into question what we don’t believe or don’t want to believe.  

            And please understand, this is not the pastor acting like he’s better than anyone else.  This is not me saying you do this and I don’t.  I do it as much as anyone.  I’m sure I do it more than some people.  But the point is that almost all of us do this to some degree or another, whether we realize it or not.

            So what does all this have to do with our Bible reading?  Well, look at what happened here.  A woman who had been bleeding for twelve years came to Jesus, touched the edge of his cloak, and was healed.  Jesus said that her faith had healed her.  Jesus goes into the house of a girl who has died.  Jesus restores her to life and heals her.  Two blind men come up to Jesus.  He asks them if they believe he can help them.  They say they do, and Jesus heals them.  They can see.  A man who is possessed by a demon and cannot speak is brought to Jesus.  Jesus drives out the demon and the man speaks.

            Now, that’s all pretty strong evidence of Jesus’ power, right.  It’s pretty strong evidence that Jesus has power that could only come from God.  And a lot of people did believe that.  News of what Jesus did spread all over.  People were amazed at what Jesus could do.

            But what do the Pharisees say?  Listen to it.  “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”  In other words, they were saying Jesus’ power did not come from God, but from Satan.

            Now, think about that.  That’s an absurd statement, when you think about it.  Why would Satan want to drive demons out of people?  It’s Satan who got the demons into people in the first place.  The demons work for Satan.  Why would Satan want to drive them out?  What the Pharisees were saying makes no sense whatsoever.

            And yet, somehow, the Pharisees were able to make themselves believe it.  They did not want to believe that Jesus was the divine Son of God.  They did not want to believe that Jesus had power that came from God.  And so, despite everything Jesus did, they refused to believe it.  It did not matter what Jesus did.  It did not matter what Jesus said.  It did not matter what anyone else did or said, either.  They had made up their minds that they were not going to believe in Jesus, that they were not going to accept Jesus, and that was that.  

And so, no matter what happened, they were going to find a way to explain it that did not include belief in Jesus.  The explanation did not make any sense.  The explanation was, in fact, ludicrous.  But they believed it.  They believed it because it fit with what they wanted to believe.  And that was good enough for them.

My point here, though, is not to hammer the Pharisees.  Because, remember, almost all of us do this, to one degree or another.  And we do it, sometimes, in regard to our faith.

You know, the gospels tell us a lot of things that Jesus said while he was on earth.  Not everything, of course–the gospel writers did not follow Jesus around with a recording device and transcribe every statement he made.  I wonder, sometimes, about some of the things Jesus might have said that we don’t know about, but the fact is that we have quite enough to do trying to deal with the things we know Jesus said.

And because some of the things Jesus said are hard, because some of them tell us to do things we don’t do and don’t want to do, because some of them are things we’d really rather not believe, we try very hard to find ways to explain them and rationalize them away.  We try very hard to come up with reasons why we don’t really need to do the things Jesus told us to do.  Too often, we don’t read what Jesus said and then decide to live our lives based on that.  Too often, we decide how we’re going to live our lives and then try to read what Jesus said in a way that allows us to live our lives our way.

And again, I have done this, too.  Many times.  I’m sure there are times I still do.  I’m an expert at convincing myself to do the things I want to do and convincing myself I don’t need to do the things I don’t want to do.  

But think of some of the things Jesus told us to do.  Love your enemies.  Do you do that?  Do I do that?  I mean, we might not do things that hurt our enemies, but do we really love them?  If so, what is it that we do that shows we love them?  Because the next thing Jesus says is “do good to those who hate you.”  Do we do that?  How often have you done something good for someone who hates you?  How about “bless those who curse you”?  I mean, we might, sometimes, manage to look past people who curse us.  We might be able to get over it and move on.  But do we really bless those who curse us?

And again, I just want to emphasize, this is not me telling you you’re a bunch of sinners who fall short.  I struggle with this as much as anyone.  And I come up with all sorts of good excuses for why I should not have to do these things, even though Jesus said to do them.  And when I say “good excuses”, they’re not really good excuses at all.  But they’re good enough for me, at the time, because they let me do what I want to do and excuse me from doing what I don’t want to do.

And the thing is, I did not even get to the hardest things Jesus said.  Things like, “if someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other also.”  Things like, “if someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.”  Things like, “give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.”  Most of the time, we don’t even consider doing those things.  We know Jesus said them, but we usually either try to explain them away or, if that fails, just ignore them.

So, in many ways, we’re no better than the Pharisees.  We know what Jesus said, but it does not fit what we want to believe.  And so, we find reasons to explain away what Jesus said.  Our explanations may not make a lot of sense, but we convince ourselves of them, because they do fit what we want to believe.

So, the question is, what can we do about this?  I mean, I hope we want to be better than the Pharisees.  I hope we want to truly follow Jesus, and stop making excuses.  So what do we do?

            Well first, we need to take Jesus’ words seriously.  That means we need to take the Bible seriously.  We need to read it, yes, but we need to take some time with it.  We need to think about how we can apply what it says to our lives.  We especially need to think about how we can apply what Jesus said to our lives.  Not explain it away, not come up with reasons why we don’t have to do what Jesus said, but actually apply it to our lives.

            And then, we need to start actually applying it.  We need to actually start doing the things Jesus told us to do.  Yes, some of them are hard, but we need to stop using that as an excuse.  We need to find a way to apply Jesus’ words to our lives, no matter how hard they may be.

And for me, that way is through God’s Holy Spirit.  Maybe it’s different for you, I don’t know.  But I know that I cannot do this by myself.  I will keep making excuses.  Even if I tell myself I’m not going to, I will.  The only way I can stop myself from making excuses, and truly apply Jesus’ words to my life, is with the help of God’s Holy Spirit.

            So that’s what I suggest all of us do.  Including me.  Read Jesus’ words, and as we read them, ask God’s Holy Spirit to be present with us.  Ask God’s Holy Spirit to help us really take Jesus’ words seriously.  Ask God’s Holy Spirit to take away our excuses, and help us truly apply Jesus’ words to our lives.

            I don’t mean to imply this will be easy.  God’s Holy Spirit is not a magic genie who’s going to cross his arms, nod his head, and boom, everything is changed.  But at the same time, there is nothing that is beyond God’s power.  If we do our part, we know God will always do God’s part.  If we truly open our hearts, and follow the leadership of God’s Holy Spirit, this can happen.  We can stop making excuses and truly apply Jesus’ words to our lives.

            Let’s be better than the Pharisees.  Let’s stop ignoring Jesus’ words just because they don’t fit what we want to do.  Let’s take Jesus’ words seriously.  Let’s open our hearts to God’s Holy Spirit, and truly live the way Jesus wants us to live.  Then, everyone will know that we truly do believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior.