Readings for today: Deuteronomy 29-30, Luke 11:37-12:7, Psalms 78:1-31, Proverbs 12:19-20
“Beware the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy.” - Jesus
No one wants to be a hypocrite. No one but a truly evil person enjoys saying one thing and then doing another. Believing one thing and then saying another. We are sticklers for moral consistency. We demand it from our political leaders. We demand it from our employers. We demand it from our pastors. And we especially demand it from God. This is why so many people struggle when they read the Bible because they cannot fathom the kind of consistency it would take to be all the Bible reveals God to be. Just and merciful. Righteous and forgiving. Holy and gracious. All at the same time. No wonder so many believe the Old Testament God and the New Testament God are not the same!
Jesus hates hypocrisy as well. He confronts the religious leaders on their sin. They used ritual purity laws to line their own pockets. They tithed down to the smallest of spices but neglected the more important matters of justice and love. They loved to be seen in public and leading worship but it was all a sham. The way of self-promotion. The experts in the law were no better. They created more and more laws to govern and regulate the smallest of behaviors with the result being a burden no person could ever bear. They did all this in the name of honoring the prophets and the spiritual leaders from Israel’s past but failed to see how it was their attitudes and actions that got these men and women killed as martyrs in the first place. They guarded the key to saving faith and only gave it out to those they deemed worthy thus depriving the Kingdom of Heaven of the very people God was trying to save. One can easily see why this would anger Jesus.
Nothing is hidden in God’s Kingdom. That which we try to keep secret. Our private sin. Our selfish ambition and vain conceit. Our corrupt motivations. All of it will be revealed in the end as Jesus puts an end to hypocrisy once and for all. The reality is we are all hypocrites on some level. We claim to love God but hate our neighbor. We withhold forgiveness and refuse to reconcile. We rush to judgment and assume the worst. We are so negative and critical. We expect - even demand - that everyone around us extend us grace but refuse to do the same in return. We expect - even demand - that everyone put up with our failings but we are so quick to jump others when they let us down. We expect - even demand - that everyone meets our needs but refuse to help out when others are in need. We are a mess of logical inconsistencies and moral relativism. We ignore the tension this creates in our lives because it serves our narcissistic tendencies. The result is a rising tide of anxiety, depression, and despair.
Why else do you think Jesus would warn us about hypocrisy? It is poison to our souls. It leads us to all kinds of addictive and compulsive behavior as we seek to medicate the gap between the person we are and the person we know God has called us to be. Rather than accept hypocrisy as some kind of permanent condition, we must rebuke it in the name of Christ. As believers filled with the Holy Spirit, we actually do have the power to live fully integrated lives of honesty and transparency before God and one another. Because we acknowledge and confess our sin, we receive forgiveness and grace. There is no pressure to perform. Pressure to appear to be something we are not. Pressure to live dis-integrated from self. We are free. Free to be who God created and called and redeemed us to be.
Readings for tomorrow: Deuteronomy 31-32:27, Luke 12:8-34, Psalms 78:32-55, Proverbs 12:21-23