Today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 23 (Matthew 23:1-12) brings to mind an earlier reading from Matthew 7. In Matthew 7, Jesus admonishes us to not judge; and to not be concerned about the splinter in our brother’s eye when we have a wooden beam in our own. Today’s teaching on hypocrisy is in the same vein – don’t fall into the trap of telling others what to do and then not do it ourselves. Put another way, don’t be so enamored with yourself that you fail to see your own flaws. Don’t do things just to be seen, but because they need to be done.
Having a hypocritical leaning is part of our human condition. One can certainly see countless examples of hypocrisy in our daily lives, from politicians, to entertainers, to business leaders and even to religious leaders. For me though, when I synthesize Chapters 7 and 23, a key teaching is not just to notice the hypocrisy in others, but more importantly to recognize it in ourselves. I think it is easy for us to get caught up in finding hypocrisy in public figures or work colleagues or neighbors and forget that in our own private lives we, too, are many times also guilty of hypocrisy. Like the splinter and beam analogy, when we look at someone else it is easy to see their flaws but when we look at ourselves, we cannot come to terms with our own shortcomings.
It seems like our personal hypocrisy can be more insidious precisely because it is hard for us to see. When we don’t acknowledge it, we create patterns and habits of hypocritical behavior that become so entwined in our lives that it takes significant effort and reflection for us to even recognize that we have been hypocritical, that we have failed to live up to our own best purposes, and to change our lives accordingly. We adapt and customize and sanitize our beliefs to meet our behavior, rather than change our actions because they fail to meet our core beliefs. We don’t just act hypocritically but actually change into someone other than who we started out to be.
It also struck me that we might more easily see our possible hypocrisy in little things (“Gee, I should have been nicer to that grocery checkout clerk – it wasn’t his fault the product was mis-priced or that I was having a bad day.”) but fail to see it in big things (what types of public response should we have to societal evils; to marginalized people both within and outside our communities). I suppose that being aware of our own hypocrisy is the first step to not acting hypocritically. But that awareness takes effort and, if we have, over time, built up habits of acting inconsistently with our values, it is difficult to make changes.
I think we have to deal with this on two levels – what have we done in the past that is inconsistent with our core beliefs and what are we doing currently (or what might we be doing in the future) that would likewise be inconsistent. Recognizing our failure to be faithful in the past is the first step and resolving to not be inconsistent in the present and future is the next step. With God’s help, we can change. Recognizing that we have been hypocrites in the past does not condemn us to be hypocrites in the future.
Ultimately, we can reduce our potential for hypocrisy by being mindful to make our actions match our words. So my prayer today is for the grace to be more aware of my own tendency to be a hypocrite and for the grace to change so that I act consistently with my beliefs.
May God Bless You and Grant You His Peace!