When Faith Becomes Performance
The quiet drift from love to appearance we rarely notice
Welcome to today’s reflection.
Lent has always been a season of returning.
Not adding more, but noticing what has taken its place.
Not striving harder, but coming back to what matters most.
This reflection sits in that space.
If there’s one group we tend to feel safely superior to, it’s the Pharisees.
They have become the villains of countless sermons: religious caricatures, professional hypocrites, the people forever getting in the way when Jesus is trying to love someone.
But the truth is far more uncomfortable.
The Pharisees weren’t villains at all. They were the spiritually serious. The committed. The ones who cared deeply about Scripture, holiness, obedience, and doing things properly. St Paul was a Pharisee, which probably tells you all you need to know about how sincere and well-trained they were.
In other words, they were the seriously religious.
If I’m honest, I’ve known a few people like that.
And, if I’m even more honest, I used to be one of them.
Maybe I still am sometimes.
