The Greater Righteousness: thoughts on the politics of domination and control in the church

“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5: 20.

Jesus saved his harshest words in the gospels not for heathens and pagans, but for religious people. One might presume that he had an intrinsic dislike of organized religion. But that is not a fair reading and interpretation of the text. There is an adage out there that says, more often than not, that we hear the harshest words about ourselves from the people who love us the most. One of the reasons that allow for this dynamic is the deep intimacy that occurs among friends and loved ones, that also paradoxically allows for deeper hurt because that intimacy acts as a mirror that reflects our own souls.

It is fair to argue that the theological construct that the Pharisees erected was built around the scaffolding of their alliance with the power of imperial Rome. David Fitch – theologian, scholar, colleague, and friend – in his book, Reckoning with Power, argues persuasively that there are two kinds of power: worldly power, and Godly power. He demonstrates that the church always fails when it is on the wrong side of power, when it aligns itself to worldly power. This kind of power is a power that desires to have “power over” others, while Godly power seeks to have “power with” others. The former seeks control and dominance; the latter seeks to serve and empower. Consequently, the religious laws and the “rules and procedures” the Pharisees constructed became authoritarian instruments of political control. This required the whole Pharisaic ecosystem to produce a pattern of recognition in the culture that normalized their will to power and hegemony. By using propaganda, fear, and ideology, they used this constructed pattern of recognition to frame their rule as normative, fair, and even portray that what they are doing as beneficial to the fellowship or the community. In creating a consistent, recognized, and dominant narrative, they made their authority seem legitimate. But it is a construct built on lies.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!

This famous idiom from Sir Walter Scott’s 1808 poem Marmion means that, when you tell an initial lie or act dishonestly, you create a complex, uncontrollable chain of problems—a “tangled web”—that requires further lies to cover up, ultimately trapping you in your own deception. When analyzed, this is one of the salient elements of a dysfunctional and a spiritually unhealthy church – buried under layer upon layer of self-deception.

In the notable story of Jesus healing the blind man by the pool of Siloam in John ch. 9 ff., the Pharisees are recorded to say about Jesus, “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath.” In healing the blind man during the Sabbath, Jesus violated the recognized pattern of compliance and control that the Pharisaic culture sought to enforce through their fixation with “rules and procedures.” Jesus deeply felt that the people of God, his disciples, the Temple of his presence, are the mirrors of his message and his very presence and personhood. And to that extent, the integrity and unity of the proclamation and witness of God’s people with his very person is a bond that must not leave any contradiction. This was at the root of his harsh words to the Pharisees. It came not from condemnation, but from his deep concern and love for the faithful witness of God’s people.

The methodology of interpretation known as hermeneutics has taught us that every reading of sacred text – or any text for that matter – is an interpretation, anchored in the active participation of the reader who brings her/his own layers of social constructs and frames of reference into the activity. But, alas, it is really not a new discovery of hermeneutics. Perhaps as a sound theory, its contribution lies more in systematizing its discoveries of the innate social and cultural factors that shape the formation of our perspectives, and then organizing them as a vital tool in the task of understanding sacred text faithfully.

 But Jesus already addressed this innate condition of the provisional nature of our understanding of life and the world when, addressing the legalism and the literalism of the Pharisees, he declared the true foundation of all interpretation: 
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5: 39-40, italics mine for emphasis). The kingdom of God, he argued to them, is a kingdom of love, mercy, compassion, and justice. And the path that leads to abundant life that this kingdom opens, is a path that is led by the heart of God personified in the life and person of Jesus. The law is inadequate in the kingdom of love, because this kingdom is ruled by the heart of God. And in that reign, one’s righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees.

And so, theologically, Jesus is the prism through which we understand all of scripture, not the other way around. When light passes through a prism, it refracts the seemingly colorless light and disperses it into a spectrum of colors, revealing to the observer the full and glorious properties of light. When Jesus said that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill them, he meant that the full spectrum of meaning of scripture is revealed when seen and understood through his person and ministry.

(Featured photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash)