A Pfarisee invited Jesus to lunch… Lk 11,37-41

A Pharisee invited Jesus to lunch. He went and sat down at the table… So today’s Gospel presents Jesus meeting a Pharisee. For us, the word “Pharisee” has a certain derogatory undertone. But who were and are the Pharisees really? The Pharisees formed a kind of religious elite of Israel; they were the most zealous and pious people in the Jewish environment of Jesus’ time. We must not imagine them as scum. They lived their piety as best they could. Many important people were among them.

In this sense, we can define a Pharisee as a person who tries to lead a spiritual life purely from his own strength. He lives piously according to himself, according to his own possibilities. He does not count on the power that Jesus brings. Because he looks at everything through himself, he is self-satisfied and does not accept criticism from God or man.

The Lord Jesus says in the Gospel of John: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sinned. But now they have no excuse for their sin” (John 15:22-24). Their sin was their disbelief in Jesus and their rejection of him, even in hatred. The invitation to dinner was also an invitation to a conversation and a debate. The Pharisee invited Jesus as someone who was dependent on his “good deed”—kindness from above. He did not accept him as his Lord; instead, he judged and criticized him. “The Pharisee was surprised when he saw that he had not first washed before dinner.”

There are many ways to be surprised. Surprise can result in a question and it is possible to start a dialogue. Probably, his surprise was more contempt and condemnation, as we can judge from the Lord Jesus’ reaction. It didn’t matter at all to the Pharisees whether Jesus had clean hands. For him, it was important to keep the rule at all costs, not the meaning of the law, but to carry out the ceremony and observe the ritual. The reaction of the Lord Jesus to this “good deed” may seem unduly strict to us. Instead of the poor and perhaps hungry Jesus silently enjoying his food from his grace, Jesus calls him “a fool who cleanses time from the outside.”

Never do God a favor; he wants love from you. The one who stands before you in poverty is your Christ, and you are only returning to him what you owe. True good deeds are the fruit of a person’s inner transformation. St. Paul says, “Bring forth the fruits of good deeds!” And in another place: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for excellent works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:8-10). God is so good that he has even prepared good works for us to do.