Facing Hypocrisy—Isaiah 43: 16-21; John 12: 1-8
I was talking with a new, young pastor a year or so ago. Apparently, I’ve been doing this long enough to reach the “old enough to go to for wisdom” stage. He asked me my best advice on pastoring. I VERY jokingly said, “Don’t preach against sins you frequently like to commit.” I thought it was a joke, but there was silence. I glanced at him, and with a perplexed look he said, “Then what am I supposed to preach about?” I guess there’s something to be said about honesty. Today, in our Lenten series, we look at how to face hypocrisy.
It’s a word that’s really overused these days. Anytime someone tells a white lie, we yell, “Hypocrite!” It is so bad that if you even forget what you said or forget to do something, you’re in danger of being labelled a hypocrite. But in its truest sense, hypocrisy is the practice of claiming to have, or imposing on others, moral standards or beliefs which you do not actually follow. Perhaps a clearer definition is a person who preaches loudly and angry about sins and behaviors they secretly love to do. Here's an example: a person who preaches with gusto against the evils of gluttony, then goes and utterly wipes out the Sunday brunch buffet. I joke. Somewhat.
Many have alleged that Judas’s great sin was betrayal, greed, or something else, but the truth is, hypocrisy was his undoing. At the dinner setting of today’s Gospel, we see Martha serving Jesus and the disciples while Mary anoints Jesus with an expensive perfume, and if ever you are asked in trivia, the perfume is called spikenard. Judas then takes Mary to task on the pouring out of the perfume telling her the money it brought in could be used for the poor.
Judas, though, is a hypocrite. He cares nothing for the poor. He cares nothing for Jesus, for Mary, or for any of these people. The man literally saw Jesus call Lazarus back from the dead shortly before this, and it has not softened the frosty callousness of his heart, not even one tiny bit. A thief and a cheat, he still talked the right disciple talk for following Jesus, even though his life and his actions spoke otherwise.
Hall of Fame football coach, Wes Fesler, said, “Hypocrisy is the audacity to preach integrity from a den of corruption.” This was Judas. He had heard all the right words of Jesus and learned all the right things. He knew exactly what he needed to say in the right situation. But his life never reflected the holiness and faith found in the empty words he spoke. Likely Judas wanted the perfume sold and the money added to the change purse for the disciples, so that he could steal it. It was this conniving, cunning, and hypocritic spirit which would be his undoing.
Hypocrites are often found near to the brokenhearted and the vulnerable because hypocrisy loves to take advantage of brokenness and vulnerability. Look where you find hypocrisy the most: religion and/or politics—both places where one tends to find brokenness and vulnerability.
In 2006 an Evangelical megachurch pastor, who had viciously preached against LGBT community and against drugs, was outed by the man whom he was paying for sex and drugs, specifically meth. The man who exposed him said he had to stop the hypocrisy. I need not give you the dozens, if not hundreds, of examples of hypocrisy that exist in the world of politics. It reminds me of the old saying, “If you talk the talk, then walk the walk.” We will all do wrong and behave badly from time to time, but we can be honest, open, and repentant and not live our lives like a confederacy of Judases.
We also see Jesus’s pointed response. He tells Judas to leave Mary alone. She was vulnerable in this moment. She had just experienced the death of her brother Lazarus only to be astounded by the miracle of Jesus raising him from the dead. I am sure both she and Martha were still delirious from all the events. Then here comes Judas trying to manipulate and take advantage of the situation by getting money out of Mary instead of seeing her faithful and holy intent. Jesus says, “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” Don’t try too hard to figure this out. He’s talking to Judas. Soon Judas would betray Jesus, and he would no longer have Jesus with him, at all.
Hypocrisy demands that we give up pieces of faith and our relationship with Jesus until it is gone. It chips away at the foundation of faith we have built. Hypocrisy is one of the most difficult sins to overcome because any note of repentance rings hollow. No matter what one does, those watching will lack the trust to believe that a true change has happened. It is exactly this exploitation of vulnerability and trust which makes hypocrisy so dangerous.
What can we do? Isaiah 43 is a wise response. God has to completely make something new and different. Verse 19 says, “I am about to do something new,” pathways through the wilderness, rivers in the dry wasteland, something to refresh the people completely and fully. Unlike other struggles, which can be overcome, hypocrisy lacks in trust, in truth, and in hope. Too often the hypocrite will minimize or justify bad behavior over and over even after saying he or she is spiritually healed. Hypocrisy and betrayal brought Judas to his death, which was lonely, painful, and filled with suffering.
But we must also remember that hypocrisy killed Jesus. Not Jesus’s of course, but the hypocrisy of the people who praised him then called for his crucifixion shortly thereafter. Unlike Judas, whose hypocrisy led to a miserable death, the hypocrisy which killed Jesus on a cross was followed with resurrection and new life. God has done something new, as Isaiah says, in this resurrection.
Hypocrisy is alive and well these days in our churches, in families, and in always in our politics. It’s a road that leads to pain, suffering, and death, for hypocrisy of some kind killed both Judas and Jesus. The question the is this: will we let our own hypocrisy or the hypocrites in our lives be the death of us, or will we find hope and resurrection despite the struggles? The answer is found in Christ and the hope of new life: as the hymn says, “My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art thou. If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now.”
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