Confession of a Hypocrite: Ash Wednesday

Year B, Ash Wednesday     
Matthew 6                                                                                           February 14, 2018

 

            One of the biggest criticisms of Christians is that we are hypocrites.  We say one thing and we do another.  We act one way in church and then an entirely different way when we are out of church.  We claim to love everyone, but we don’t treat everyone the same way.  These are just some of the accusations that I have heard lobbed at Christians as a whole.  I am always tempted to defend Christians or claim that we Episcopalians are different, but I know that won’t help.  That’s what hypocrites do…deny their hypocrisy.

            In the Gospel for today, Jesus tells us how not to be like the hypocrites.  There were three things that Jews were expected to do: give alms to the poor, pray, and fast.  The problem wasn’t that people were not doing those things.  They were, but some were doing them for the wrong reasons.  When they gave alms, they would make sure that everyone knew they were giving money to the poor.  Giving lots of money provided a certain status because not only did it mean that you had a lot of money to give, but that you were exceptionally good and generous.  When people prayed, they would not only do it in a public place, but they would make their prayers as long as possible, so as to appear more pious.  Finally, while the Jews only have one day (the Day of Atonement) where fasting is necessary, many of the Pharisee and scribes fasted on Mondays and Thursdays.  They flaunted their piety by parading around in public looking dismal and hungry.  Sometimes they would even whiten their face to make themselves look more pale and underfed.  They wanted everyone to know that they were the holy ones, they were the ones who were closest to God.  While these actions should have made them closer to God, they were too focused on impressing their peers.

As much as I may want to judge these Pharisees and pretend that I am not at all like them, I am not sure I can.  How many of us wait to make sure the cashier or waiter is looking before putting money in the tip jar? How many of us get annoyed when we do not get a thank you note after giving a gift or making a donation?  I am always mortified when I am in church or some assembly where they are taking an offering and I realize I have no cash to give, nor do I have a checkbook.  I am not mortified because I cannot give to the cause or the charity.  I am mortified because I am worried about what people around me will think.  Sometimes I will even be extra thorough as I search through my purse so the person next to me will understand my predicament.  I understand what it is to want people to know that you are doing good.   

Ash Wednesday is a little confusing.  We read a Gospel reading that specifically says that we should not try to look dismal like the people who disfigure their face when they are fasting. Do you know one of the ways they disfigured their face?  They put ash on their face.  After we proclaim these words of Jesus about not disfiguring our face, we put ash on everyone’s face.  While it’s not a written rule, the unspoken rule is that you leave the ash on your forehead the rest of the day. It’s quite a juxtaposition.            

Before we get too critical of the practice of putting ash on our heads, it’s important to know that there is biblical precedent.  In the Old Testament, when people were repenting before God, one way to prove their humility was to put ash on their face.  Most times this pleased God.  This was seen as an appropriate gesture.

 It also reminds us of our mortality.  After Adam and Eve disobeyed God, God told them their punishment.  He listed many things and ended with, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  By putting ash on our face, we are reminded that we were created from the earth, and one day we will return to the earth.  It kind of puts things in perspective.

Yet I think there is something else going on.  It’s about more than repentance or our mortality.  It’s about being honest about who we are.   As Christians, we occasionally are hypocritical.  It’s almost impossible not to be.  We are trying to follow the teachings of Jesus, a man who was perfect.  We know we should be emulating him, but we don’t always act like Jesus.  There is a lot of time we don’t act like Jesus.  We aren’t perfect, but we still call ourselves Christian. 

One of my favorite quotes about church is that “we are not a museum for the saints, we are a hospital for sinners.”  We do not come to church because we are perfect Christians. We come to church because we know that we need help being Christian and that hearing God’s word and participating in the sacraments helps remind us of what it is to be a Christian.  We might mess up as soon as we walk out, but it’s usually unintentional.  By walking out of this church with ash on our foreheads, we are saying, “Yup, sometimes I am a hypocrite---but I am trying really hard not to be.”

The ashes that we put on our face expose the world to who we truly are.  It’s the one time when we can freely admit that we are sinners and are in need of repentance.  Everyone is covered with the same ash.  We all share the same desolation, in that we are all sinners.  If you feel like you always have to pretend that you are happier, smarter, more pious than you are…this is your day to expose the real you.  So maybe this is hypocritical. But you know what, at least we can admit that.  That is what Lent is about—a time to reflect on who we are and find ways to be closer to God.

 

Idea of admitting our own hypocrisy was from a sermon by Dr. Elizabeth Huwiler given on February 9, 2005 at Lutheran  Theological Seminary Chapel.
http://www.ltsp.edu/reflections/2004-2005/050209huwiler.html

 

 

Who are you calling a hypocrite? 8/21/2016

Year C, Pentecost 14                                                          
Luke 13:10-17                                                            

            If you were here last week and recall the Gospel reading, you will know that this is our 2^nd week in a row of Jesus calling the religious leaders hypocrites.  It is easy to villainize the Jewish religious leaders---the Pharisees.  That has been done for millennia and unfortunately has led to considerable anti-Jewish sentiment.  I am not sure that it is fair to beat up on the Pharisees.  I will admit that as a religious leader, I take it a tad personally.  I cringe a little every time I hear Jesus call someone out for being a hypocrite.  That is what he is doing…he is calling them out—in front of everyone. 

            This was the Jewish Sabbath at the local synagogue.  Everyone in the town was present.  While Jesus had no official standing in the community that we know of, he must have been fairly well respected as he was allowed to teach in the synagogue on the Sabbath.  While he had a certain amount of authority, he was still expected to follow the laws of the Jewish faith. These laws were essential to the faith. No matter how great a teacher, preacher or healer he was…he still had to follow the laws.  One of the really important laws was that you did not work on the Sabbath.  That wasn’t just any rule or law--that was a commandment.

            When we hear the word Sabbath, we think of going to church, relaxing a little, maybe having a lazy day at home. That does not mean that we do any of those things, but we assume that is the goal.  When God told us to rest on the 7^th day, surely that is what he had in mind…binge watching Netflix all day.  Not quite.

One of the reasons that the fourth commandment mandated that people keep the Sabbath was to recognize that the Hebrew people were no longer slaves and thus no longer forced to work every day.  Moses delivered the 10 Commandments after the exodus.  The Hebrew people were released from bondage and free to rest.  God was demanding not only that the people who were listening rest from their labor, but that they make sure that their servants don’t work.  It’s a justice issue.  The nice thing about the Blue laws (where businesses were closed on Sundays) was not just that church attendance was higher but that these forced closures allowed everyone to have a day off…everyone.  

That might explain why the Pharisee was a little upset.  He was not against someone being healed.  There were 6 other days that Jesus could have healed this woman.  Why did Jesus have to do it on the one day he was not supposed to?  Now you might think there should be some wiggle room in the commandments, especially given this particular situation. 

There was. That was why Jesus called the leader a hypocrite.  He was reminding the Pharisee that they already did work on the Sabbath when they untied their oxen and led them to the manger for water.  You would not deny your animal water just because that would cause some work.  Why then would you withhold healing from someone who so desperately needed it? The Pharisee was a hypocrite because he was making an exception for a purpose that made his life easier, but refusing to make an exception for another person whose life was exceptionally hard.

The Pharisee seems unreasonable, but I bet we all have little rules in our life that we don’t break.  Some of them are really important rules that have important reasons.  Some of them were important once, but are no longer relevant.  Yet we follow them because it is habit.  Think about your rules.  It might be that you always make your bed, or you always wear a jacket and a tie to church, or you always wash your face at night.  You could skip a day and it would not kill you.  But what I always worry about is the slippery slope.  Once you break the rule once, there is a good chance you will break it again.  Then it is no longer a rule, it’s a recommendation and recommendations are very easy to ignore.

I believe this is what the Pharisee was worried about.  He was worried that we would start making so many exceptions that the commandment would no longer be relevant.  People would forget what the purpose of it was---that it was not just about rest, it was about justice.  That is exactly what happened. The Sabbath is now a quaint memory. 

That’s why I feel for the Pharisee.  I can see that slippery slope all over the place and it scares me.  I see Jesus’ point as well.  We have tons of rules in the church.  Most of them have really good reasons behind them. Some of them were originally based on practical needs but those needs changed and we kept the rules because they became tradition.  Do you know why some churches have rails around the altar?  Hundreds of years ago, there would be dogs that would wander through the church.  The rail kept out the dogs.  Now the rail gives us a place to kneel so that we can be in community around the altar. Having this rail has become a rule for us.  People would be in an uproar if we took it out.  The rail is one of our unwritten rules.

But we also have lots of written rules in the church.  We call them canon law.  We have rules in the Book of Common Prayer.  They are called rubrics.  Do you know why we finish the wine at the end of the service instead of pouring the dregs in the bushes? Page 409 of the prayer book tells us that the sacrament must be reverently consumed by the clergy and communicants.  That makes sense to me because it’s a sacrament.  It’s the body and blood of Christ. Yet there are some rules that do not make sense to me and sometimes I wonder why we keep doing them…why it all matters.  On the one hand I see that slippery slope that the Pharisee was worried about.  On the other I hear Jesus calling me a hypocrite.

Why does all this matter? Often times, rules (whether they are written or not) cause us to exclude people and things.  They give us excuses not to change, not to take risks.  They keep us isolated.  There was once a church rule that African Americans could not sit in the same pews as a white person.  That’s not in the Bible.  It was a rule created by people.  You might think, ok, well that seems like a good way to judge, we’ll follow the rules in the Bible.  There was a long standing church law that women could not be ordained.  That rule came from a Bible passage.  It’s tricky isn’t it?

However, I do believe that there are guides to help us interpret the laws of our church.  Holy Scripture provides an awesome guide.  If we read it literally, we will find a lot of rules.  If we read it in community with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we will find the same rules but we will discover ways to determine what is and what is not truly critical to our faith. 

The most important guide is Jesus.  Some people like to portray Jesus as this big rule breaker who thumbed his nose at authority.  He didn’t break the rules; he reinterpreted them.  Thankfully he provided some divine guidance while he was still on earth.  When someone asked him what the most important commandment was, he responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” He interpreted everything through a lens of love.  He healed the woman because he had compassion for her.  He could not let her go one more day in agony…not one more day.  That was what the Pharisee failed to see.  For him, the laws became more important than the people they were created for.

It is vital that we as a church look at our written and unwritten rules and traditions.  We look at them through a lens of love for God and our neighbor.  If we open ourselves up to that exercise of seeing things through a lens of love,  our church will become more open, loving, and authentic.  Because when Jesus calls out the hypocrites.  I don’t want to be the one he is looking at.      

What God Sees: Ash Wednesday

Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21                      February 10, 2016

            Every year when I come to this service, I wonder what people must think when we read this text from Matthew and then do the exact opposite.  Over the years I have come up with several theories which I have shared and sometimes I have just avoided the topic all together because I am sick of talking about it.  But this year I decided to come back to the drawing board and look at it with fresh eyes.  I was trained in seminary to look at texts critically always considering the context not only within the Bible, but the time and place it was written.  I was also trained to look at my own innate biases in regards to the text.  For instance, I will almost always look for strength in women of the Bible. 

 I also realized at one point in seminary that I was extra sensitive about hypocrisy in the Bible…anytime the Bible seemed to contradict itself or anytime we as Christians flagrantly contradicted our core beliefs.  This year, it occurred to me that I was overly preoccupied with our practice of putting ashes on our forehead after reading a Gospel which clearly states that you should not disfigure your face and to be sure to wash your face.  I was worried about how it looked, how people might judge Christians as hypocrites. 

            Then I read a commentary that opened my eyes.  The commentator reminded me that this was not meant to be taken literally.  Jesus was using a tool that he often employed- that of hyperbole. He was talking about extremes.  When talking about giving alms he used two examples.  One was the person who blew a horn before giving money to charity.  The other was the person who was so sneaky about giving, one hand did not know what the other was doing.  We all know that would be impossible.  Jesus was simply trying to illustrate the point that we are not to do things just for the sake of being seen by other people.

            However these examples that he used (like putting oil on your head while fasting) were not meant to be new commandments or rules; they were simply examples.  What Jesus was trying to emphasize was the motivation behind these actions, not the actions themselves.  There is one word that comes up over and over again in these 12 verses: See or be seen. Each time Jesus uses the word, he juxtaposes two ways of being seen.  The first is doing things in such a way that will ensure you are seen and recognized by other people.  The other is that your Father in heaven will see you in secret.  In saying that God will see you in secret, Jesus isn’t just talking about you praying in your closet to make sure no one can see you.  He is pointing out that God can see your intentions.

            It makes you wonder why being seen matters so much.  Today it seems as though people are constantly aware of what other people are doing.  You don’t need a street corner or a horn anymore if you have youtube, twitter and facebook.  The point of social media is being seen.  You can look at your video or post and the statistics will tell you how many people saw your post or video.  And for some reason, that matters.  It matters because it gives us affirmation.  The more people who are seeing us, the more people who like us, the more we matter as individuals. 

            Why is it that we need this kind of validation and affirmation from other people when we already have that from God?  Why do we seek from other people what God already gives us unconditionally and selflessly?

            It goes back to the word see.  We can see other people’s reactions and affirmations.  We can see if they approve or disapprove and if we are so inclined, we can change our actions to get the right response.  Many years ago I said something in a sermon and I got a gasp of horror in response.  I made it through while maintaining my point, but I never made that point again.  In not making that point again, I knew I would please the people in my congregation.  I have no idea what God thought of the point because there was no audible or visual reaction from God.  And that’s why it is so difficult to depend on God’s perception alone.  I can tell you a million times that God loves you the way you are but it would be a lot more effective if God told you himself.

            That is why we have the Bible and this community of believers (the church).  We help one another understand what God wants from us.  We try to emulate God’s loving kindness and we try to avoid the kind of judgment that we see so frequently in the world around us.  I am going to stop worrying if the act of putting ashes on our head makes us look like hypocrites.  I know why I do it, partly because of what our liturgy says.  In putting on ashes, we are reminding ourselves of our mortality and our vulnerability.  We are remembering that Jesus died and was resurrected for us so that we too could one day defeat death.  We wear these ashes not to show everyone how holy we are, but to show people that we know that death is not the end.  These ashes are temporary.

When I put the ash on your forehead, I will tell you: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” But we know in our hearts that we are far more than dust.  Remember, it is what is in your heart that counts, not what you wear on your face.  You are dust and to dust you shall return.  But that is not the end of our story because God has promised us eternal life. The ash will one day come off and we will be reborn.