I don’t remember the documentary or the person, but the quote is memorable. Some guy found himself in jail and with one phone-a-friend offered these words: “Dude, this road we’re on — it’s the wrong one.”

In the Gospel of Luke, chapters 11-18, Jesus spends a great deal of time warning the church to avoid, in Calvin’s words, “slipping into unrighteousness.” As his example of what to avoid, Jesus uses religious leaders, most notably Pharisees. Of course, this is shocking because Pharisees had the reputation of knowledge and piety. 

I wish Jesus had not been specific and not named them. Sometimes Jesus was more generic in his criticism. This would make it easier to ignore. And possibly it is for that very reason that Jesus was purposefully specific. Moreover, Luke’s Gospel has a way of inviting us into the action. We can, if we have the courage, insert our own family name, our denomination, our ethnicity, or our interest group in place of the word “Pharisee.” Then we, not only recognize how offensive Jesus’ criticism was for the Pharisees. We may hear these words of Jesus as directed to us.

Luke highlighted many characteristics of the religious leaders. I will list five:

1. They loved money (16:14).  In the Parable of Prodigal Son in Luke 15, there is a juxtaposition between the limited power of an inheritance and the inexhaustible grace of the father. The religious leaders valued money more than the grace of God. 

2. They were separatistic. In Luke 18, the religious leader prays, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” They are unwilling to associate with others deemed less righteous. The root word of Pharisee is “the separated ones.” 

3. They interrogated (17:10). The questions of the religious leaders were intended to judge and exclude rather than being gracious and inviting. Even when Jesus healed people, they questioned why he did it on the Sabbath. 

4. They were demanding. In the list of “woes” in Luke 11, Jesus said, “For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them.” 

5. They were prideful. Again the words of Jesus: “For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds and neglect justice and the love of God.” (11:42)  
   

According to Jesus, these religious leaders were also prone to selfishness, worry, and legalism. They were skittish, persnickety, and afraid. They loved power and lofty positions. 

Maybe the point to Luke’s specificity and Jesus’ criticism is for us to see ourselves as in a mirror. These religious leaders are us.

Some have said these leaders got a bad rap. After all, they read the Scriptures, prayed, and followed a lot of rules. Still, Jesus denounces them so strongly because they were heading in the completely wrong direction. Although they believed in God, they did not act like it. They were hypocrites. Unless they repented and turned around, they would not be part of the kingdom of God. 

Joachim Jeremias, in Jerusalem at the Time of Jesus, concludes that the Pharisees had reached an exclusive status in their religion, not because of their education, but because of their voluntary and stringent commitment to their own precepts. Jeremias says Jesus took “unparalleled risk” by calling them to repent.  

In contrast, on the pathway of Jesus, it is the poor in spirit, the dying thief, and those riddled with disease who receive the reign of God. 

In Luke 11-18, Jesus defines fruitfulness or “success.” To be a successful church is not about numbers of people or amounts of resources. The best church has the fewest of these sinful characteristics to which religious leaders — then and now — are susceptible. The way of Jesus is a cross, with humility and inclusiveness. 

In Book II of The Institutes, John Calvin spends an inordinate amount of pages begging his readers to consider their righteousness as a gift of the Holy Spirit. Only then will they be free from the prison of their own legalistic structures. Only then will they be free to love all people. 

The ways of the religious leaders, however, are attractive. They are as desirable as the residents Lake Wobegon in Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion, “Where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.” 

Many years ago, I was the pastor of American Reformed Church in Orange City, Iowa. American started in 1885 for people who didn’t speak Dutch in a mostly ethnic village. According to some in town, lacking the ability to speak Dutch also made these people less holy. There was a derogatory Dutch phrase used to describe the American Church. It was probably said with a spit, “Anybody can go there.” I wanted to put it on the cornerstone!

Today, American Church continues to be the “thou” for all the “holier than thous,” albeit for other reasons. 

Last year, a group of ministers from the Christian Reformed Church, who had been pushed away from their denomination, wanted to join our classis and become members of the Reformed Church in America. I was thrilled and thought our classis would be eager to act as a sanctuary for these refugees. But I was stunned with anger and embarrassment when a few from our classis questioned whether these pastors could meet the lofty standards of our esteemed gathering. Our new friends were unperturbed. “We are used to this,” they said. 

Consider the church — time spent with money, the divisions, the boasting about accomplishments, the incessant questioning, the host of demands, the filling the air with oughts and musts and shoulds, pushing people out rather than welcoming them in. All the while today’s church is worried, fearful, and judgmental.

According to Jesus, “This road we’re on, it’s the wrong one.”

Muddy road photo by Duc Van on Unsplash
Jail cell photo by Harry Shelton on Unsplash