Hypocrite?

What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites!

                      Matthew 23: 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29


     This has been a long couple of weeks. God had something for me to learn, and I’m afraid I’ve been rather slow on the uptake. It began when I read Matthew 23. Does this passage make anyone else want to stand up and cheer? I mean, you tell ‘em, Jesus! After all the grief these guys gave everybody, it felt good to see them getting theirs for a change!
     The basic theme of their little “come to Jesus meeting” was, “What makes you so great?” Jesus enumerated all the reasons they thought they were great and shot them down one by one. This felt like a pretty safe passage for me sitting here in the 21st century. After all, I’ve never been a Pharisee and don’t see myself ever becoming one so what could we possibly have in common? I know. I know. You’re asking yourself, “How could she have lived so long and be so naïve?” ALL scripture is given for teaching and reproof, right? Well, it didn’t take long for God to educate me on the error of my ways and correct my thinking. The phrase, “What makes you so great?” haunted me for days.
    The Pharisees thought their status and position exalted them to the pinnacle of greatness, but Jesus called them hypocrites. I was ready to just skim over this. I certainly don’t have any status, and I’m not a hypocrite, but God kept bringing me back to it. Ok, wife - check, mother - check, mother-in-law - check, daughter, sister, aunt, teacher, friend….check, check, check, check, check….I’m good God. No hypocrisy here.
     But it seems the theme of my little “come to Jesus” meetin’ was to be “What makes you great?”
     “Uh, nothing, Lord. Seriously. Absolutely nothing. I am not great.”
     “Hypocrite. What makes you great?”
     What? Wait just a minute. I don’t like being called a hypocrite. Over the last two weeks, however, I have become increasingly aware just how easy it is to fall into that trap. Our entire society is made up of different man-made hierarchies of status according to our race, economic background, educational experience, family tree, gender, political affiliation….the list goes on and on. To make things worse my hierarchy may not be the same as yours, and yours may not be the same as the next person’s. But Jesus has the plumb line we can all use – we are ALL EQUAL. No one greater. No one lesser. He says the color of our skin, the way we dress, the amount of money in our pocket, the degrees we do or do not have on our wall, the place where we live or work do not make us great. They frame WHO we are, but they don’t automatically entitle us to preferential treatment or respect. On the surface I accept this and thus began a painful, eye-opening journey that hasn’t quite ended even yet. I stand before you today and confess that, yes, I am sometimes a hypocrite. Oh, don’t gasp and draw away just yet, my friend, until you read what I have to say. (That is if you are brave enough to handle it!)
     I’ve come to the realization that hypocrisy is a slimy little attitude – one that sometimes worms its way into your heart without you realizing it is even there until the damage has already been done. Any time I find myself feeling superior to someone else, I am being a hypocrite. For someone with an inferiority complex, this is quite a fete, but I think that might make me even more vulnerable. You see, if I am doing anything to make someone else feel or seem inferior in an effort to make myself feel or seem superior, I am being a hypocrite! Sounds sinister doesn’t it? Actually, I think we may do it more than we think. Anytime we join in a conversation about someone that tears them down, we are being a hypocrite. There is just something about being a part of a group – any group – that gives us a sense of power. Right? But we don’t actually gain any power from this type of behavior. In fact, it actually tears us down and brings us grief! But wait…

     What does make you great? Humility.

     What does make you great? Love.

     What does make you great? Service.

     It is not enough to just accept someone who is different from me; I have to consider their needs above my own. If I consider myself smarter than someone else, am I not a hypocrite? If I consider myself prettier because I have nicer clothes, am I not a hypocrite? If I consider myself more worthy of time or resources because of my race or economic background, am I not acting the same as these men who stood before Jesus in this passage? I think if we all take a little time to talk to God and meditate on it for awhile, we’ll discover we sometimes walk that hypocritical walk and talk that hypocritical talk whether we are conscience of it or not. It has become so politically and socially correct to exalt ourselves that we do so without even thinking about it, but I don’t want to live to please the world. I want to live to please God. One day I want to hear Him say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. When you served the least of these, you served me.” I don’t want to hear, “Depart from me, you hypocrite. You had a chance to serve me when I asked you to serve these people, and you turned me away.” Perhaps the more I learn to focus on loving and serving others for His glory, the more I’ll become like Him.

     Lord, I don’t want to be a hypocrite. I want to be the person you desire me to be. I want to be a reflection of You. I don’t care what the world thinks. I don’t care what the world accepts. I don’t care what is socially acceptable as normal. I want to humbly love and serve you by loving and serving the people around me. Help me keep my focus on them – on You – and off myself, resting confident in the knowledge that you will meet all my needs much better than I ever could. Show me day by day, minute by minute how I need to change. Open my eyes to see the people you put in my path. Open my ears that I may hear You telling me what I need to do and say. Open my heart that I may love them with Your love.