Why all the Pharisee hatin'?

What's so bad about Pharisaism in the first place? These men stood for a strict interpretation of the Hebrew Law. They considered themselves the moral conscience of an ethnic group of people who dealt with unimaginable religious and social pressure from the Roman Empire at its height. They thought of themselves as the prime exemplars of how to live a holy lifestyle which would please the God of their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Yet, the Gospels are unequivocal in their treatment of this group of the socio-religious elite. Along with the even more starch-robed scribes and other religious authorities, the Pharisees are presented as self-important, condescending snobs with no real spiritual connection to the Lord they talked about so often. The Bible doesn't just present these guys as overall well-meaning men who thought the Messiah would be 1 part Plato and 2 parts George Patton--as David 2.0--but they are shown to be a group of power-hungry and egotistical elitists who wouldn't know the Messiah if he were born with a big tattoo on his chest of the first line of Psalm 110.

Think about it: Jesus never hinted at crushing Rome's hegemony in Palestine, but he was always making the devil his punching bag in both word and deed. Consider the following dialogue from my imagination:

"OK, Pharisees, so Jesus didn't raise up a revolt against Rome, but he did raise up Lazarus from the dead in front of your very eyes. He defeated death; that's still not enough for you? Is defeating death, disease--the devil!--not a bit more significant than a coup in Jerusalem?"

"Of course," a Pharisee would undoubtedly agree. "But..."

Interestingly, John places that Bethany incident directly before the passion week experiences of Jesus, because the raising of Lazarus wasn't the last sign that the Pharisees needed to truly believe, but rather the last straw in their tolerance of this blasphemous son of a carpenter from that Podunk, meaningless town in Galilee.

And yet, even with all the negativity about the Pharisees in our Bibles, we Christians actually tend to live just like them. While we love Jesus with our words, I wonder whether or not we also love our church structures which put those with some secret knowledge of God's Word on a pedestal while the rest are simply the dull sheep. Furthermore, in this politically-obsessed culture we live in, doesn't it seem that our most influential church leaders can't keep their noses out of the muck and mire of politics? A current issue in Alabama: Christians should be against electronic bingo because it is a socially unjust vice which preys upon those who can least afford it in the name of better schools (what an incredible justification!). Pharisees are against this form of gambling because the law's protection of it signals further deterioration of our Bible Belt "Christian culture" as more of the church's dwindling authority is lost.

Many of our church leaders and congregants, like Paul, have worn the Pharisee badge with pride for far too many years without even recognizing it. In this Holy Week, I am drawn to my own need to lay aside my biblical elitism and cultural Christianity and embrace anew the radical call of our radical Messiah: take up your own cross and follow me down the Via Dolorosa.