the Pharisees vs. the Gospel

In the not-quite-nine years of this blog’s existence, I have published 249 posts and currently have a backlog of 99 drafts. So if you’re reading this, this post managed to become the 250th post instead of the 100th unfinished draft. Random fact of the day.

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One of my very first weeks at the Anglican church, a line from Father Joe’s sermon stuck with me: “In my previous tradition, the Baptist church, what we seemed to care about most was how to be really good at arguing.”

I’ve never been Baptist, but I’ve been in a fair number of churches where the primary value was definitely arguing. The “best” Christians were always in a defensive stance, holding onto the Bible as both sword and shield, as if our purpose was to guard God Himself from the people and ideas “out there.” I learned all the tactics and talking points, and I learned the Bible really well so I could make even better moves than most. When I was in it, it was fun, like playing a sport with my “team,” and all the camaraderie and belonging that entails—even though in reality, we were little more than gossips and keyboard warriors, too cowardly to have meaningful discussions with real people about real things that didn’t fit neatly into our categories.

If I had stopped there with my study of the Bible instead of digging deeper, if my life had stagnated instead of winding through periods of intense pain and change, if God had not proved far more faithful to me than I was to Him, I’d probably still be having fun playing for that team in our imaginary game—while blind to the real war trying to rip God’s Creation apart.

This is the war Jesus came to fight, not as a great arguer or even a great warrior, but as a human baby, a growing boy, a man of sorrows and a suffering servant. He expanded the boundaries of God’s holy kingdom by feasting with the poorest sinners. He rebuked those who weaponized the Scriptures by being the Word of God in the flesh. He seized authority over all Creation by bowing His neck to His accusers, He ascended to the throne of heaven by being crowned with thorns and raised up on an execution tree, and He shattered the power of death by committing His spirit into the hands of God.

And He left us with one job: to take the good news of His kingdom to every corner of the earth, welcoming people from every tribe and tongue and nation to the glorious banquet halls of His communion table, where there is no space for the greed and self-importance of the flesh. This vocation is the continuation of Christ’s mission to sew the world back together, to undo the power structures and value judgments and myriad abuses of a post-Edenic humanity through the abundant hospitality of the Holy Spirit. To usher in the New Creation.

The real war is not the old game of “my church vs. the outside world.” It’s not Christians-who-are-right-about-everything vs. Christians-who-are-wrong. It’s not cultural ideas vs. God, who needs His army of Bible-wielders to shield Him; it’s not conservatives vs. progressives; it’s not men vs. women or white vs. black or rich vs. poor.

In this country, like ancient Israel before us, it’s a lot more like the Pharisees vs. the Gospel of Jesus Christ (see Luke chapter 15).

We can all stand on the defensive around an invisible idol, protecting our small god and his many demands and limitations from anyone’s questioning, or we can lay down our weapons and come together to the table of the bounty of the King of Kings. He is delighted for anyone to repent and return to His open arms—the question is, will we, too, be delighted when even sinners are welcomed to eat at this table? Or, like the embittered older son who did everything “right,” will we resent our Father’s goodness toward the prodigals, and reveal ourselves to be a long way off from the true heart of God?

Jesus said of the Pharisees in His day,

“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.”

Matthew 23:2-4

This was the reality of being on that argumentative “team.” I could tell you all the right things to do and think and believe, and back them up with Bible verses—but never lift a finger to love you through your real-life pain, proving my knowledge to be meaningless.

I’ve grown weary of spending my life on the defensive for a God who does not need my defending. Let me spend it instead throwing open the doors of His love, mercy, and grace for every hungry soul I can find, whether they fall in line with my particular statement of beliefs or not.

together church

In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul makes a statement that I’ve always thought somewhat extraordinary: “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” It makes Paul sound either really arrogant or really spiritual. After all, Christ is the perfect Son of God. Who does Paul think he is?

But these last six months have given me a greater appreciation for imitation as a spiritual practice.

In the nondenominational evangelical tradition I am most familiar with, there’s a lot of telling people what they should do to be like Christ. Pray more, read your Bible a lot, love others, go to church, repent often, worship authentically. Those who are enduring trauma, loss, grief, addiction, illness, and other kinds of suffering are often met with “Biblical counsel” that sounds a lot like Job’s unhelpful friends: Have more faith! Confess more sins! Read more Scripture! Claim more promises!

There’s a lot of “Do as I say.” But Paul said, “Do as I do.”

In my migration from that tradition to High Church liturgy for the first time, this is where I notice the starkest contrast.

The Anglican liturgy is built on worship, prayer, and Scripture, and is entirely oriented toward the culminating event of partaking in the Eucharist together. We sing praises together; we stand and hear the Scriptures together; we kneel and confess our sins together; we sit and receive the Word together; we break bread together; we celebrate and rejoice in the God of our salvation together. Some of my favorite moments in each communion service are when we all rise from our knees to hear the priest recite the “Comfortable Words” (which are Matthew 11:28, John 3:16, 1 Timothy 1:15, and 1 John 2:1) and when we all shout “Thanks be to God! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!” together after the closing hymn.

These centuries-old liturgical practices, rooted in Scripture and bathed in a long history of the prayers of the saints, provide a framework for us to actually do what we say, not merely say what to do. Strip them away, and it makes sense that in my previous tradition, so much time on Sunday mornings is devoted to hearing from a man rather than meeting with God.

I don’t think everyone needs to become Anglican or return to High Church liturgy, even though I love it and wish I could share my love for it with everyone. But I do think all churches would benefit from giving people a model to imitate, not just sermons to hear.

For example, I do not remember a single time in my 30+ years of churchgoing that we were prompted in church to confess our sins (outside of an altar call, of course). I do remember hearing plenty of sermons about how confession should be part of my prayer life. But most people learn far quicker by doing something than by being told what to do—especially if they get to practice it together, week after week.

What if we modeled confession by actively including confessional prayer? What if we modeled unity by reciting the Apostles’ Creed together? What if we modeled the importance of prayer by weaving it into every portion of the service, instead of just the beginning and the end? What if we modeled spiritual quiet time by inserting periods of silent contemplation? What if we modeled the authority of Scripture by speaking it directly to the powers of sin and death that threaten us, rather than just telling our suffering people to read more of it and move on?

I keep thinking of that old cliche, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” A model is a picture. As any parent who’s paying attention knows, children do what they see us doing, not what they hear us saying—and it’s no different with the children of God.

I know that liturgy and practice and doing-together is no cure-all. No tradition is immune from legalism or moralism. Plenty of people have made an exodus from liturgical traditions into nondenominational ones the very same way I’ve left nondenominational evangelicalism for liturgy—and we are all just searching for the freedom of Christ, with His easy yoke of grace and mercy.

Personally, my life in evangelical traditions was marked by an individualistic pressure to do it all, and do it alone. Everything came down to my faith, my sinner’s prayer, my fruitbearing, my testimony, my prayer life, my quiet time, my sin, my gifts, my service. Every sermon could be distilled down to applications for me, what I needed to do to be a better person, wife, mother, disciple, church member, or what have you. It even shaped how I studied and read the Bible, looking primarily for practical principles that were peppered with a lot of the word “should,” and leaving very little room for the kind of slow, agenda-free meditation that actually lets the Scriptures do the work.

We still have sermons in the Anglican church, and I love them. But more importantly, we have an hour and a half composed of marinating in Scripture readings, Scriptural prayers, Scripture-inspired hymns, and the Scriptural sacrament of communion. Together.

The burden is much lighter together.

I am not the Body of Christ, and neither are you. Only we, together, can be the Body—only we, together, can be what He intended His disciples to be. And it has to mean something more than being in the same place at the same time one morning a week, because we can do that with anyone.

It has to mean more than a set of worship songs and a great sermon, because we can get that on YouTube.

It has to mean more than a creed and a set of moral expectations we all adhere to, because we can get that in any religion.

What is “more”? It’s the kingdom of heaven. It’s new creation. It’s Isaiah 11 modeled in real life. It’s the living proof that Jesus really did conquer sin and death and the powers of evil that would leave us otherwise lost in our natural human state of greed, hatred, self-preservation, and lust for power.

“The wolf will live with the lamb.” The rich will sit at the table with the poor. The women will be on equal footing with men. The children will be as valuable as the adults. The outcast will be welcomed in. The powerful will kneel down to serve the powerless.

There really is no passable counterfeit for this. We’re either living it or we’re not.

In the Anglican liturgy, I get to live it: There is no difference between how I participate as a woman and how everyone else does. The same is true for my children, and for anyone else who walks through the door, no matter who they are or where they come from. No one preaches from several steps higher than the congregation or performs worship from a stage. There’s no distancing or dividing over differences on secondary issues. I felt more like family on my first Sunday there than I had in 6 years of attending my previous church every week.

That’s “more.” That’s everything.

Thanks be to God. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

what if you're wrong?

This is one of my favorite questions to ask myself. I’d probably ask it of others, too, if it didn’t sound quite so confrontational—that’s not the way I intend it, but we all hold our beliefs rather personally and it can be hard not to go directly on the defensive when they feel threatened or questioned.

Today, I’m examining a belief I held tightly for the first 20, maybe 24 years of my life—and have held a bit more loosely for the last half-decade or so, as real-life experiences and extensive study have required me to do so. Here it is:

Men and women have different but complementary roles and responsibilities in marriage, family life, and religious leadership.

This is the official Wikipedia definition of the term “complementarianism,” which is Christianese for patriarchalism. In complementarian theology, a selection of Pauline passages and Genesis 1-3 are used to justify the idea that men and women are equal, but women are both naturally created and divinely called to subjugate themselves to men, and men are both naturally created and divinely called to exercise authority over women. Some “softer” complementarians will say that they do not believe women in general must submit to men in general—only a wife to her husband—but that distinction is difficult to support practically, since the same will typically say that within the context of church, women as a group are still expected to submit to the general male leadership of the church, and under no circumstances should a woman be allowed to hold a position of authority over the men in the church.

In any case, complementarianism is the doctrine of gender roles I was taught from a young age all the way through my time in Bible school. It’s about then, suddenly armed with a far broader understanding of God’s Word than I’d ever had before, that this doctrine began to not sit well with me, but every time I was tempted to consider other views I got scared. What if they’re wrong?

It’s been a decade since then. I have more life experience, more church experience, and more importantly, a lot more Bible studying experience now. And slowly, the question bugging me has shifted from “What if they’re wrong?” to “What if I’m wrong?”

What if complementarian theology is wrong?

I’m not a historian, a Greek language scholar, or a PhD in Paul’s epistles. Plenty of incredible people are, and they have put a lot of work into this debate. Paul and Gender by Westfall, The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Barr, and On Purpose by Coleman are all good places to find Biblically-serious treatment of the topic if you are looking for further study.

I’m more interested, for the moment, in asking the uncomfortable questions that may help us examine the quality of the fruit this doctrine has been producing over time.

Let’s consider. If complementarian theology is right, then some of our biggest concerns for the Body of Christ should be:

• Ensuring that those who lead in the church are physically and spiritually qualified to do so.

• Ensuring that men never hear the Word of God preached or taught by a woman.

• Encouraging women to submit themselves to the authority of their husbands and the church.

• Encouraging and equipping men to lead their wives and the church.

If, on the other hand, Scripture favors equality between men and women as image bearers of God and co-rulers over Creation (as Genesis 1-2 and Galatians 3:28 would suggest), then the biggest concerns for the Body of Christ should be:

• Ensuring that those who lead in the church are spiritually qualified to do so.

• Encouraging all believers to submit to God.

• Equipping all believers to know, understand, and share the Word of God.

• Empowering families to reflect the selflessness of Christ in every role.

In the complementarian vision for the Church, men are up front, visible, leading the way for everyone else to follow Christ. Women are behind them, following and making sure the children don’t get left behind. Men who don’t enjoy the role of leader or don’t feel equipped to spiritually direct their homes are required to do it anyway, or at least made to feel sinful for not doing it; women who are gifted in leadership and spiritual shepherding are required to set those gifts aside, or at least relegate them to the nursery and the Pre-K class. What’s taught from the pulpit on Sunday mornings and in co-ed Bible studies throughout the week is reflective of what the male leadership of the church considers important. Topics deemed to be mostly of concern to women are left to the discretion of women-only Bible studies (although these, too, are subject to veto by the board of elders). In this way, the very structure of the church is designed to prevent anyone from questioning or reconsidering its rightness.

But is this the Messianic vision for the Church?

Jesus’s ministry on earth began with a declaration that the Kingdom of Heaven had drawn near. That kingdom began in a paradise called Eden, but humans lost access to its threshold when they disobeyed God’s command—and part of that tragedy was a destruction of the oneness between male and female (see Genesis 3:16). The Kingdom vision of man and woman as two halves of God’s image, ruling together over His Creation, was lost to the suffocating grasp of sin and death, leaving gender hierarchy in its place.

But if Jesus’s death and resurrection defeated sin and death, and if following Him means joining Him in taking back every lost inch of territory for the Kingdom of Heaven, why would we choose to remain in our fallen and divided state as men and women? How can the Church, which is Christ’s Body, animate His heart for the New Creation when we are still clinging so hard to the old?

What if, in the Messianic vision for the Church, men and women are side-by-side, each using their gifts to build up the others, with all eyes set on the selfless example of Christ? There are men teaching and preaching and leading, but there are also men serving invisibly behind the scenes to protect the vulnerable and care for the children; there are women faithfully raising their families and staffing the nursery, but there are also women speaking the truth of God’s Word with strength, clarity, and conviction. Men are educated and enriched by the perspectives brought to them by these women, and the women’s entire experience of life in Christ is finally made abundant when they are set free from the demands of the Pharisees.

What if that is what we are missing when we subscribe to complementarian theology? What if we have tied half the church behind Christ’s back with our gender doctrine? And what if we are wrong?

I struggle to imagine a ministry or aspect of Christian life that would not be enriched if both men and women were equally interested, involved, and obedient in it. But I can clearly see that many ministries and aspects of Christian life are suffering from being lopsided in one direction or the other. Surely a family where both parents exemplify spiritual leadership and mutual respect for one another is better off than a family where that entire responsibility falls to the father? Surely a children’s ministry where both men and women feed into kids’ lives is better off than one where the children are only treated as valuable by women? Surely pastoral counseling for a couple in a broken marriage will be far more effective when a woman’s voice is present, too?

There’s a phrase we all like to pull out when we imagine meeting Jesus face-to-face. “Well done, good and faithful servant.” It comes from the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30—when the master praises his servants for stewarding his resources well in his absence, and even increasing their value. But he says something very different to the servant who, out of fear, buries his master’s money uselessly in the dirt.

What if Christ’s servants and earthly representatives have buried half the wealth of the church under a fallen idea of what it means to be a man or a woman? What will be said to us when King Jesus returns in glory?

We aren’t all called or gifted to be teachers and preachers and leaders. But some of us are. And some of us are women.

We have tried to fit these callings and giftings into the complementarian framework for decades now. And the Church and its testimony are suffering for it. The tree is bearing rotten fruit. It’s time to ask the hard questions.

What if we’ve been wrong?