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The Sixth Lesson: The Work of Organization.1013
again ask themselves and each other whether this man were not a dangerous
person and an enemy to established custom and order.
In one of His journeys Jesus found Himself invited to the house of a leading
citizen of the town in which He was preaching. This citizen was one of the
class known as Pharisees, whose characteristics were an extreme devotion
and adherence to forms and ceremonies and a bigoted insistence upon the
observance of the letter of the law. The Pharisees were the ultra-orthodox
center of an orthodox people. They were the straight-laced brethren
who walked so erect that they leaned backward. They were the people
who thanked God that they were not like unto other men. They were the
“uncommonly good” members of church and society. The very name stands
even unto this day as a synonym for “pious sham.”
Just why this Pharisee had invited the Master to dine with him is not easily
understood. It is likely that it was a combination of curiosity and a desire to
entrap his guest into statements and admissions that might be used against
him. At any rate, the invitation was given and accepted.
The Master noted that certain little ceremonies usually extended by the
Hebrews to a guest of equal standing were omitted by His host. His head
was not anointed with the ceremonial oil, as was the custom in houses of this
character when the guest was honored as an equal or desirable addition to
the family gathering. Clearly He was regarded as a curiosity or “freak” rather
than as a friend, and had been invited in such a spirit. But He said nothing,
and passed over the slight. And the meal passed along smoothly up to a
certain point.
The host and his guests were reclining easily, after the Oriental fashion,
discussing various topics, when a woman pressed her way into the banquet
hall. Her dress proclaimed her to be one of the women of easy virtue
abounding in all Oriental towns. She was clad in showy apparel and her
hair fell loosely over her shoulders after the custom of the women of her
kind in that land. She fixed her eyes upon the Master and moved slowly
toward him, much to the annoyance of the host, who feared a scene, for the