"...you hypocrites..."
Oh yes, Jesus today uses that old familiar phrase that sends tingles up our spine, makes us blush and shiver in disguise...Hypocrites. Who is a hypocrite?
Hypocrites are everywhere: here, there, near, far, up, below where ever the eyes may go.
Hypocrite: impostor, charlatan, swindler, sham, actor, deceiver, pretender, fraud, phony, just to name few other ways of describing the dreaded beast of the hypocritical genre.
When we think about hypocrites, many people instantly say that the church is full of them. They will point out that christians are notorious for being hypocritical, that is, saying one thing and doing another.
What they live in the public is not what they do behind close doors. In their profession, on their lips, they are faithful and true, but in their life their faith runs blue.
People often complain about the hypocrisy of christians, and they use it as a reason not to believe or follow. Unfortunately this in itself is hypocritical.
Christianity does not rise or fall on what Christians do or not do.
The heart of Christianity is centered not on christians and their ability or inability to be faithful and true; No, Christianity is not rooted in the lives of christians, fortunately it is rooted in the life of Christ.
Christianity is centered on the person of Jesus. It is Jesus we must contend with not christians. The church is made up of sinners, men and women who have risen to the challenge but also have fallen; but the Church is founded by Jesus, the sinless one. This is what we must face.
G.K. Chesterton says its best I do believe, "To all this plausible argument for oppression, the only adequate answer is, that there is a permanent human ideal that must not be either confused or destroyed. The most important man on earth is the perfect man who is not there. The Christian religion has specially uttered the ultimate sanity of Man, says scripture, who shall judge the incarnate and human truth. Our lives and laws are not judged by divine superiority, but simply by human perfection. It is man, says Aristotle, who is the measure. It is the Son of Man, says scripture, who shall judge the quick and the dead." (What's wrong with the world)
Jesus says today in the gospel, "...you nullify the word of God..."
But Jesus is the Word of God. He is the Word Incarnate, made flesh. It is his word that guides us, directs us, gives us hope, even when we encounter the hypocrite inside all of us as we peer at the mirror.
1 comment:
One of themain differences between the struggling Christian and the hypocrite is deception. A true hypocrite wants to deceive others into thinking he is something that in actuality he is not.
The Christian should have a humbleness that sees that he is far from perfect, struggles, often fails, but gets up when knocked down. I was taught in my Catholic education that humility is seeing oneself as he really is, not more than and not less.
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