The Pharisees ask a fair question as they come upon the dinner party Jesus attends. Jesus claims to be a rabbi whose own righteousness outshines even that of the Pharisees, yet he seems to be an extraordinarily bad judge of character. He has joined with a bunch of hooligans and no-accounts. The Pharisees want to know what Jesus is thinking. They have every right to do so.

Most all of us grew up with a fairly basic understanding of good and bad people. Good people are those who do not break the law, treat others with respect and kindness, avoid bad habits that hurt themselves or others, and otherwise find their place in acceptable society. Bad people are the opposite--the criminals, the bullies, the bigots, and so on, who otherwise place themselves outside acceptable society.

The Psalm for this morning offers a seeming praise of finding oneself where one belongs. If we attempt to be faithful in our lives and follow the basic rules of God, then God will bless us with his presence and ensure that we are cared for through his providence and grace. God will never let us fall. God will make sure that even if we do get into trouble, we will not be destroyed or crushed by the experience (v 20). The wicked will suffer for their crimes. God will withdraw his presence from them and they will slowly wither away.

There is an inferred statement within these verses that being with God connects us to God’s life-giving power and that power’s ability to heal whatever affliction we find ourselves broken by. The psalm affirms that life is never easy, and that holding onto faith is really not a guarantee of endless bliss or riches. Human life is frail. Human life is prone to struggles, both with the world at large and within our own being. As a sign outside a church read this work--

God does not promise a calm passage, but a safe landing.

The scriptures tenaciously proclaim that God will bless those who try to do the right thing and live the right way. God is active and present, with grace and redemption for all who try to live by the love revealed in Jesus Christ. It is one of the great dogmas of Presbyterian theology that we will be redeemed by our faith in God; that there is nothing in the world around us that can touch us in any ultimate sense. We will be with God, and we will be well.

Perhaps the issue is not with the truth of the statement, but with how we perceive its fulfillment. Maybe we need to change the way we look at things.

The Pharisees were some of the most religious people of their time and place. They took quite seriously--almost to the point of the ridiculous--the need to obey the rules of God for human existence. Their practice was fairly simple. They took the codes found in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy and sought to live by every single commandment found there. Starting in Exodus 20, God dictated the code by which the people of God were to live to Moses. Moses, in turn, brought this code to the Hebrews and set up a nation based on these rules. Of course, they faltered and flailed around in their ability to actually keep these codes in practice, but the Pharisees dedicated their entire existence to doing so. They would be obedient to God, no matter what else happened.

Well, something fairly strange did happen, and it wasn’t the discovery of a new path to enlightenment. Rather, the rule of God became something else altogether. It became stifling in its rigor and imprisoning in its practice. Keeping the rules became all important rather than maintaining an understanding for why the rules existed or from whom the rules originated. Simply practicing them became the bottom line.

The end result was that these faithful folk wind up lost. Ironically, they wind up exactly where God intended them to wind up, if we follow Paul’s interpretation of the situation, remembering that he was himself a Pharisee--

The Law’s purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by…

(Gal. 3:21-22a, The Message)

In other words, the righteous are not always apparent simply by watching who proceeds in and out of the church doors. We have to develop another way of seeing, one that begins to perceive human existence as God does.

Now, at last, we are ready to join Jesus at the dinner table where the Pharisees find him.

The Pharisees see only people who have failed miserably in following the precepts found in the Law of Moses. These people are beneath contempt, for they have nothing to do with the presumed life of the righteous. How could this rabbi, a man who professes to be consumed by the holiness of God, sit at table with this crowd?

The answer is plain--they need him there.

These people gathered at the table know they are not living lives that result in the fulfillment of their potential as God’s own children. They do not need any of the Pharisees to wag their fingers at them. They know they are hungry, lost, and out of options. That is why they are so delighted to have Jesus sharing a meal with them. They see hope for a change in his presence. They see grace right there in his being at the table.

That is all that matters.

The Pharisees no longer see their own need. They see only their adherence to the rulebook. But it has not gotten them anywhere. The rules have cancelled out all else. They do not see a gathering of broken human beings who desperately need words of comfort and acts of kindness to lead them back from the wilderness. They do not see fellow children of God in the faces looking at them from inside the room. They see only objects of scorn to be rejected. In so doing, they reveal only too well their own state of being lost.

A physician can only work to cure those illnesses that are actually presented for treatment. That is so obvious it hardly need be said. But that exact same truth resides in our relationship to God’s grace. Some folks do not like the words of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” especially that crack there in the first verse about being a wretch. Yet, the hymn sings truly about our status before Almighty God. John Newton, the hymn’s author, knew all too well that he was a wretch--he piloted a slave ship. But he sings for all who know they have fallen short of God’s expectations in any way. This is the grace Paul finds in the Law--it does nothing more and nothing less than to leave all of us with no option but to seek the grace of God because no one can ever hope to perfectly keep every commandment. We simply cannot do it. That leaves us with no alternative but to turn to God and accept what God freely offers--himself in Jesus Christ.

This is grace upon grace, hope upon hope, and the only way in which the verses from Psalm 15 can ever hope to be true. God will preserve those who cling to him. God will stand by all who cry for him in the midst of the storms we wade through daily. God will redeem us.

So, in answer to the Pharisees’ question--does Jesus know what he is doing? Well, yes; yes, he does.