This is surely a snipe at the Pharisees, the righteous ones,
those who wash their hands at every opportunity,
who follow the intimate detail of the Torah,
and despise those who do not;
see them as condemned!
Or maybe at those righteous ones who maintain every twist of doctrine,
who make much of every church festival, celebration or event,
who are certain of every detail of their faith
and look down at the less committed.
Who Judge!
Many churches are infested with such a spiral of purity,
an ever increasing thrust for a more extreme position of holiness
generated by mutual competition between those in the affected group.
The whole group may share a particular viewpoint until one carries
that viewpoint a step further from the unenlightened view
and so causes others in that enlightened group to follow
rather than be thought outside the membership.
It is a pernicious group relationship
built on mutual competition, rather than on love.
A relationship firmly addressed by this parable,
but rife in the evangelical church today.