“Hypocrites: Every One Of Us!”

“Hypocrites: Every One Of Us!”            Matthew 23:1-12                                                  Dana Douglass

I want to give you a little character test to set the stage for this morning’s message.  The test is set in a parable I have adapted.  Let’s imagine you have a dream for your life that has been with you since you were a child.  Finally, late in life, you have the opportunity to realize your life-long dream.  In order to make this work, you have to hurry — the window of opportunity is very small — you have to get to Bangor by tomorrow, walking.  Let’s imagine, for the sake of the story, that the Deer Isle bridge is a footbridge over a deep gorge.  When you get to the top of the bridge you encounter another person.  This person has a length of rope coiled over his shoulder.  The person hands one end of the rope to you, ties the other end around his waist, and leaps over the side of the bridge!

You are caught off guard; but able to brace yourself to stop the fall and hold on.  Now you are standing on the bridge holding another person’s life in your hands, while the opportunity to fulfill your dreams begins to slip away.  The parable goes on and on; let me skip directly to the point.  The dangling man refuses to pull himself up, there is no one around to help, there is no place to tie the rope so you can go for help.  You have to decide — hold on and miss the opportunity of a lifetime; or let go and let another person die.

What do you do?  Our faith demands that we stretch love and compassion further than would seem prudent — to be our brother’s keeper, to love the stranger as we would want to be loved, to go the extra mile, give the shirt off our back, on and on and on goes the list of high expectations.  What do you do?

Some of us might hold onto the “rope” for a long while.  But many of us would find a way to justify letting go; after all, doesn’t the Bible say, “God helps those who help themselves!”  No, it doesn’t!  The Bible says that “brother’s keeper” thing?  Our faith demands love.  We try to be faithful.  We can be pretty hard-hearted.  Hypocrites, every one of us, at one time or other.

The worst time in my work week is the ride home from church, when it hits me that I don’t always practice the things I preached about.  What a hypocrite!  Fancy robe, colorful stole, fringes; “Reverend”, on the cover of the bulletin — all these things to create a aura — but, despite my high aspirations, the follow-through can be on the low end.

You are no better than me!  You think of yourselves as Christian, or as people of faith, or as people who are trying to be good human beings — but, you do not always act that way!  The bar for your behavior is set pretty high, and you don’t always clear it.

Some of my non-church friends have said to me, “How can you stand to be associated with church people?  They are such hypocrites!”   What they mean is that in church you are all cleaned up, and nice, and polite, and all the rest.  But, out in the world, you can be anything but.  Not you, literally, of course, but you, generically.  They’re right!  So, my response when I am asked how I can stand being around church people: “I go to church hoping there’s room for one more hypocrite!”

We are hypocrites only because the standards set by our faith are impossibly high!  We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves — come on — Loring and Claudette are easy; but the further down the road we go, the harder it gets!  We are called to feed the hungry — how am I supposed to do that?  Heal the sick — I’m no doctor!  Set the prisoners free — I feel better with most of ‘em locked up, thank you very much!  Forgive seventy times seven times — once, maybe, if I’m in a generous mood!  Be a peacemaker!  Turn the other cheek!  Love my enemy!  The word hypocrite comes from a root that means play-acting.  Sometimes it must appear to others that we are just playing a role; after church we play ourselves.  Hypocrites.

The secular world, on the other hand, doesn’t always pretend to subscribe to the same high standards.  Greed, selfishness, envy, lust, violence, cynicism are, not just acceptable, but actually of some value in the relentless climb to the top of the pile.  You can’t be a hypocrite, if you don’t claim to be living by a high principle.

Jesus was sitting outside the temple teaching his disciples about faithful living.  He called attention to the religious leaders and said that the positions they held deserved respect, so do what they say; but don’t do what they do.  They tell people, glibly, all the things they have to do in order to live by the law, but they don’t help the people figure out how, in fact, to do it.

Contrast that to what Jesus did.  Jesus said: “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle, and you will find rest for your souls.”  Jesus said, I’ll teach you how to carry the burdens of faithful living.  More than that, you can get into the yoke beside me, and I’ll help you carry that load!  More than that even, I’ll be humble enough to admit that we won’t always be able to carry the load; I’ll be gentle and we can rest!

Jesus ended his lesson with a nod toward humility.  Apparently, the only way out from under the burden of hypocrisy is to be humble.  We are not better than anyone else.  All people — churched and unchurched, faithful and unfaithful, good and bad — are in this together.  We all fall short, we all need help!

Do you remember when you were a child, and you were doing something really difficult — climbing a mountain, perhaps, that was beyond the strength of your little legs to master?  Often there was someone there to make fun of you, and let you know you were scrawny and weak and would never get to the top.  Remember how that felt?  Usually there was someone else there to boldly tell you, “Oh, you can do it!  You’re strong!  You’re a tough little kid!  Suck it up; keep climbing!”  The encouragement was well intentioned; but not helpful, because you knew it was a lie.  If you were lucky, and you had to be really lucky,  because this person is not always around — if you were lucky, there was someone else there who came back, and took your hand, and walked with you, and rested from time to time, and offered you a snack and a drink of water.  And it was the most wonderful feeling in the world!  And sometimes you made it to the top because of the company.  And sometimes you didn’t, but it didn’t matter because you weren’t alone.

Not one of us could hold on to the rope alone forever.  All of would need help eventually.  Each of us needs help in order to be our best self.

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