THE ENEMY WITHIN

By Kenneth L. Gibble
Psalm 17:1-13, Matthew 5:17-22,27-28,43-45
Preached in the Chambersburg Church of the Brethren
Chambersburg, PA
October 1, 2000

Who were the Pharisees? If you've read much of anything in the New Testament, you probably know that the Pharisees were a group of men frequently criticized by Jesus. A verse from our text from Matthew illustrates his attitude toward the Pharisees. Jesus says:

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

That's rather sharp, isn't it? At other places in the Gospels, we read that Jesus used some pretty strong language to describe the Pharisees. He called them, among other things, hypocrites, blind guides, serpents, white-washed tombs.[1] And because we love Jesus and trust him, we naturally take his side on this one. If he used that kind of language to describe the Pharisees, stronger language than he used about any other group, we are sure the Pharisees must have been really bad people.

But let's not be too hasty about that. The Pharisees were not bad people at all. In fact, they were good people; they were very good people. They were, as Mark Twain once described someone, "good people in the worst sense of the word." That is, they were so intent about being good that they missed the essence, the heart, of what true goodness really is.

Let me explain. We know from historical records that the Pharisees devoted themselves to observance of the law of Moses. They obeyed not only the 10 commandments, not merely all the laws written in scripture, but also the hundreds of laws developed by rabbis over a period of centuries. They were scrupulous about observing the sabbath. They tithed. They made sure they followed every dietary rule about what to eat, when to eat, and how to eat. The Pharisees believed that God had given the law to God's people to help them lead holy lives, and they were determined to do whatever they could to make sure their lives were pleasing to God.

In short, as I once heard a speaker say to a gathering of pastors, the Pharisees were the kind of people every pastor would like to have in his or her congregation. If all of you here this morning were Pharisees, if you all tithed your incomes, our church budget would be at least three times, probably four times, what it is now. Think of all the good that could accomplish. And the money needed for a building project? That would have been raised long ago.

So if the Pharisees were such devout people, such good people, why was Jesus so hard on them? Good question. And the answer is that the best word to describe Jesus' relationship with the Pharisees is "lover's quarrel." What do I mean by that?

I mean that the Pharisees held the law of Moses in highest regard. So did Jesus. In fact, there was probably no group of people in Jesus' day he had more in common with than the Pharisees. And because he had so much in common with them, it grieved him deeply, it made him angry, when he saw that the Pharisees did not grasp what authentic goodness, what true godliness, was all about. They observed the letter of the law, yes, but they missed the spirit of the law. They were more concerned about obeying the law than caring about people. They were more concerned about being good than about being loving. They took great pride in being righteous, and their pride got in the way of being fully human. They didn't know that the essence of goodness is love.

Isn't it true that your deepest disappointment, maybe even your greatest anger, is directed at your closest friends and members of your own family? Because you love them, because you want only the best for them, it tears you up when they do things that you know are wrong, things harmful to others or themselves.

I confess I feel that way about some of my fellow-Christians. When I hear Christians speaking unkindly of others, when I see Christians engaging in actions that are unloving of themselves or of others, when I learn of Christians who say and do things that are completely opposite of what Christ would say and do, it not only disappoints me, it makes me furious. I think to myself: how can anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ do and say things that he would never do or say? At such times, I am almost embarrassed to call myself a Christian. I resent the fact that the wonderful word "Christian" has been, at least to my mind, misrepresented, even corrupted.

So I can understand, at least to some extent, why our Lord lashed out at the Pharisees, why he called them "blind guides." He told them: Look, it isn't enough to refrain from committing adultery or from committing murder. To think lustful thoughts about someone is to turn that person into a mere object. To engage in name-calling is to entertain murderous thoughts. Doing the right thing is important, yes, but if love is absent from your actions, you are missing the mark.

The Pharisees were good people, but they were missing the mark, all right, and so you and I can be rightly critical of them. What is much harder for us to see is that there is a good bit of Pharisee in each one of us.

How so? Well, think of what your usual reaction is when you read about someone committing a terrible crime, or maybe even a not-so-terrible crime. It's my usual reaction too. I say to myself: how could anyone do such a terrible thing -- abuse a child, be a hit-and-run driver, sell drugs, commit murder? And as I think those thoughts, I automatically put myself into the category of "good person." I'm a do-the-right-thing kind of person. Or at least a try-to-do-the-right-thing kind of person. In contrast to child abusers, drug pushers, and murderers, I am indeed, by almost anyone's definition, one of the good guys.

But there is real danger in this kind of thinking. There is a lot more to goodness than not being a law-breaker. The pages of human history testify to the sad fact that when enough people begin to define themselves as "good" in contrast to others who are "bad," it is only a small step to thinking of those "bad" people as less than human.

The crime of genocide, wherever it has taken place -- in Nazi Germany, in Rwanda, in Bosnia -- is justified in the minds of those who do it on the grounds that it is not real people who are being killed; rather, they are destroying something evil. And those doing the destroying think of themselves as the good people.

Commenting on this subject, Kathleen Norris says:

I feel that it is my business, when I read the news account of some horrible crime not to regard my "good" self as completely separate from the "bad" people depicted in the story but to search my own heart for a connection. I try to see if I can understand how it is these people have done what they have done. Not to excuse them, but to draw closer to them to pray for them and also to pray over what it means to be linked to them in a common humanity. And sometimes murderers do help me recognize that my own anger feels like murder; I can comprehend all too well how my rage, left unchecked, might translate into a careless or even truly terrible act meant to destroy another.[2]

Maybe those words don't make much sense to you, but they do to me. I'm sure you've heard humorous examples of people who have a hard day at work and when they get home, take out their frustrations by kicking the dog. Stories like that are not funny to me for a very specific reason.

Years ago, in my early days of being a pastor, I came home one afternoon to discover that our dog, no doubt unhappy at being left alone, had chewed huge pieces out of a beautiful chair that had been donated to the parsonage by a family in the church, a family that had been rather critical of my work as pastor. I was horrified at the sight before me. I snapped. In a rage, I picked up our dog and threw her against the wall. I can still picture the scene. It still fills me with shame. Fortunately, she was not hurt, but my eyes were opened to a stark truth about myself. I knew, then, without a doubt, that, hidden within the heart of this "good" person, Ken Gibble, lay the capacity, the will, to commit terrible violence, even murder. I was changed forever by that moment of realization.

Jesus knew this truth about the human heart. He knew every single one of us is capable of doing terrible things. He knew we all like to find scapegoats, people on whom we can project our fears, our self-doubt, our self-hatred.

When I was a seminary student, I worked for two summers at a dairy in Chicago. The men I worked with came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds: we were a mix of Polish Americans, Italian Americans, Irish Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans. And though on the surface, we all got along pretty well together, there were times when I saw faces clouded in anger and I heard ugly words muttered, words like dumb Pollack, nigger, spic. And I realized that the men of each ethnic group felt a need to look down on some other group in order to feel better about themselves.

If you do much reading in the book of Psalms, you will come across some language that will make you uncomfortable. At least that has been my experience. Although the psalms contain wonderful words of praise, words that bring hope and comfort, many of the psalms also contain other kinds of words. Again and again, the psalms express anger, even hatred, of the "wicked," of those referred to as "the enemy." Here are some examples from the 17th psalm.

Guard me . . . from the wicked who despoil me, my deadly enemies who surround me. They close their hearts to pity; with their mouths they speak arrogantly. They track me down; now they surround me; they set their eyes to cast me to the ground. They are like a lion eager to tear, like a young lion lurking in ambush.

Rise up, O LORD, confront them, overthrow them! By your sword deliver my life from the wicked . . . [3]

Words like those appear many times in the book of Psalms. They express fear, hostility, and rage at the enemy. So why are such things in the Bible? First, I think, to indicate that "good" people like the psalmist are not exempt from such feelings. "Good people" like you and me have them. Sometimes those feelings are buried deep in our unconscious and may only come out in troubling dreams. Sometimes such feelings are very near the surface. But we all have them. So the Bible is honest about what lies within us.

But a second reason such feelings are expressed in the Bible is to tell us what to do about them. We should acknowledge them and then turn them over to God. Instead of acting on them, instead of shouting insults at the "enemy" or lashing out in violence, the writer of Psalm 17 calls upon God. "You confront them, O God. You take care of it." The psalmist realizes the danger in acting out one's feelings of rage. Giving them instead to the Holy One avoids terrible consequences for everyone.

That is such a healthy way to deal with anger, even when the anger and hatred are directed at ourselves. So many times when we find ourselves upset with someone else, it's really ourselves we are upset with. Most of the time, the real danger is not from someone out there, it's from deep inside ourselves. The oft-quoted line from the comic strip Pogo rings true: "we have met the enemy . . . and he is us."

Mother Teresa knew that. Someone once asked her why she spent her life helping the poorest of the poor, and she said she engaged in her ministry of love because she knew there was a Hitler inside herself. That's hard to believe, isn't it? But surely, if that was true of someone like her, it is also true of each one of us. There is a proud Pharisee, a Lord-denying Peter, a betraying Judas, an Adolf Hitler, inside you, inside me.

Jesus isn't shocked by that. And he isn't afraid of it. He knows the enemy that exists within us. He knows all that about us, knows the full potential of our hearts for good and evil. He knows how easy it is for us to find others to blame, to hate; he knows how easy it is for us to look for a scapegoat.

But more than that. He volunteers himself to everyone who needs a scapegoat. I will take the blame, he says, you can give it to me. Give me what you hate, you fear, out there and deep inside. I am not afraid of it.

And then he says, Come to my table with others, sit down, whoever you are. Bring all your fears of others and of yourself, bring your anger at others and yourself, and take, eat. This is my body given for you. [4]

Notes

1. Matthew 23:13, 15:12, 23:33, 23:27.
2. Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace, Riverhead Books, 1998, 176.
3. From Psalm 17:10-13.
4. Last two paragraphs adapted from Barbara Brown Taylor, Bread of Angels, Cowley Publications, 1997, 103.

Kenneth L. Gibble
Chambersburg, PA.
October 1, 2000