HYPOCRICY

Homily for August 30^th, 2017: Matthew 23:27-32.

          The gospel reading we have just heard is part of a longer indictment by Jesus of perhaps the greatest temptation of religious people, and our greatest failing: hypocrisy. I say “our failing” quite deliberately, because the “woe” that Jesus speaks is directed not to other people, but to us.

          Webster’s Dictionary defines hypocrisy as follows: “the act or practice of feigning to be what one is not, or to feel what one does not feel; esp. the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion.” And it says that the opposite of hypocrisy is sincerity.

The late William F. Buckley, Jr., a great wit on many subjects, was clearly referring to hypocrisy when he said to someone he was interviewing on TV: “I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.”

          The Letter of James is speaking about hypocrisy when it says: “If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror. He sees himself, then goes off and promptly forgets what he looked like.” [1:23f] The nineteenth century American author Nathaniel Hawthorne says something remarkably similar when he writes: “No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”

There are people who have hidden behind a mask for so long that they have forgotten what their true face looks like. Our masks may fool others. They cannot fool God. God looks behind our masks. God looks at the heart. God reads even our secret thoughts and desires. Yet no matter how great the darkness within us, God never rejects us. God loves us deeply, tenderly, passionately. That is the gospel. That is the good news.

It was his deep conviction of this truth which enabled Pope Francis, shortly after his election as Bishop of Rome, to respond to a Jesuit interviewer who asked, “Who is Jorge Bergoglio?” with the simple and direct words: “I am a sinner.”  

Happy are we, if we can say the same – and appeal, when we come to stand before the Lord God, not to our good conduct record, but simply to the mercy of the One about whom Francis said in the same interview: “God never gets tired of forgiving us. It is we who get tired of asking for forgiveness.”