Hypocrisy: A Thought on the Internal Screenplay

I hear statistics floating around the Bible college I attend. Recently I heard, "one of the number reasons that people don't want to go to church is because the church is full of hypocrites."

It's really easy to look at those other Christians down the street, or the Church throughout history and point the finger, but reality is that we all are apart of the problem. Whether it be our attitudes or actions, when our condemnation of sin gets louder than our dispersion of love and grace, hypocrisy creeps in

A hypocrite, simply is an actor. An actor is someone who plays a role, who tries to embody a character that is not them. A faker. In Matthew 23, Jesus condemns the Pharisees for being white-washed tombs, for denying justice, mercy, and faith, and for being exterior-cleaned dish-ware. But interestingly, their only sin is hypocrisy. He wasn't angry because they swore sometimes, he wasn't mad because they had selfish tendencies, instead his only accusation to them is, "What you say and do, it doesn't really line up with who you are. You guys are just acting, the exterior you control, it doesn't line up with what is on the inside."

The Pharisee's weren't "real."

I'm not sure how many times Jesus called specific people out about sexual sin, their language, smoking tobacco, drinking too much wine. Jesus definitely didn't like actors. I think he preferred people with sin problems that acknowledged their depravity than religious figures that denied an unescapable problem.

I think it's safe to say that Jesus came so that we can stop being actors. He made a way for our brokenness, guilt and sin to matter no more; that is by dying on that cross. Ironically, you can't act your way to the cross. You can pretend, act holy, and act justified but in the end if your heart isn't one of depravity and humility, you end not at the cross but in the white washed tombs of those hypocrites.

We as Christians become actors too. We take firm stances on sin and sinners and develop harsh and demanding views but in the end we always contradict what we say and therefore we are labeled "hypocrites."

The way to escape the enthralls of hypocrisy, begin to see yourself for what you really are. A selfish, enslaved, battered, broken sinner. Stop preaching removal of sin, and start preaching institution of grace.

But you see the road of mercy is not the easier, in fact it's much harder. We as humans seek to place ourselves above others and we have a blood thirst for justice; damning the atrocities of others allows us to be above them. Grace levels the playing field. The day Christians remove the label of hypocrite is the day our grace screams louder than our condemnation.