It is difficult for us to imagine Christ being deliberately abusive towards anyone, but even so, some of the language he uses on the Pharisees is anything but gentle.

Pharisaism began during the time of the Babylonians conquest of Israel, some six centuries before Christ.

While in exile, a group of those familiar with Mosaic law took it upon themselves to organise the study and teaching of the law. They set up schools and synagogues. Since there were no priests available to most of the people, they took upon themselves the organisation of worship and the priestly function of interpreting the scriptures and applying them to day-to-day life.

It worked. Israel came back to Jerusalem as a people still rooted in scripture. But something very new had entered the picture, the authority of a living tradition. The idea that the law was not fixed in granite but rather could, must be, interpreted, applied to day-to-day situations. Even more radical was the idea that that could be done not only by priests but by the laity as well.

What went wrong? It would seem to be a movement with which Christ would have identified himself rather than consistently criticised. What went wrong was that, by the time of Christ, the Pharisees had become so pleased with what they had accomplished, and so disdainful of anyone who was not as noble and effective as were they, that they had really lost sight of their own basic values.

At the heart of it is the phrase in the gospel – “self-righteous, self-justified”. It refers to those who presume to define their own worth, who believe they make themselves valuable and good, literally, those who save themselves by what they accomplish. So, in Scripture, the “self-righteous” is the person who is not broken, who really has no need for the help of any other human being, ultimately not even of God.

Of course, Christ condemns that attitude. It is claiming to be able to do for oneself what only God can do for any of us: justify us, give us value, give purpose to what we are and what we do. It is, in a way, the original sin all over again, human beings claiming for themselves the role of God in creation.

What happened to the Pharisees was really the same thing that happens to so many noble efforts, good intentions. They forgot what they were, a broken people, very much in need of healing grace. They began to measure the world and those around them by their own standards rather than those of the Father. That is a deadly thing to do, for us every bit as much as for them.