Am I A Hypocrite?
Last year I had the opportunity to undergo one of the most transformative and vital processes in my adult life. We were assigned the book, What's Best Next by author Matt Perman in my doctoral programme.
I do not wholesale recommend the book for varying reasons, but within the book is a chapter dedicated to helping the reader discover their Vision, Mission, and Motives statements and descriptors.
The process was prayer heavy for me and mentally and emotionally taxing, but I had more clarity on why I am in this world and what my unique purpose is than I have ever had before. If you indulged me for a moment, I would like to share my discoveries with you all.
Personal Vision: to use every gift I have, skill I acquire and resource at my disposal to promote the maximum flourishing of as many people as possible.
Personal Motives: Love. Loyalty. Abundant Life. Creativity. Joy. Innovation. Execution. Risk. Adventure.
Personal Mandate: Walk in humility with God. Seek the good of all, and fight for justice for those on the margins. Multiply kindness, and honour God in every effort. [Micah 6:8]
Now, you may notice some themes here, but what surfaces pretty clearly is that God has given me a very distinct call to see people flourish, particularly those disadvantaged by birth, context, circumstance, or society. It is why the Creator put on this earth and what I will give my life.
I believe all of us should go through this exercise if I may suggest it. Every person on the planet has a unique calling to make a difference in the world, and it will be specific to you. It is what the Scriptures teach us.
And yet, the Scriptures are clear too that though your unique calling may not be as specific as mine concerning the least and the lacking, or those who have been pushed to the margins of society, or those within our global village who are among the 689 million living on less than $1.90 a day—but each of us is still responsible for doing for the least as we would for Jesus.
You are still responsible for fighting for justice and seeking mercy for those who often cannot fend for themselves.
We all have a call to see and serve the disadvantaged in our world faithfully.
It may not be with the specificity, tenacity, and full-throated-ness of my unique calling, but it is still the command to every Christian.
Note, I said every Christian. If you are not yet a follower of Jesus, this is not your call, but engaging in the brokenness of this world will undoubtedly reveal the breadth of your humanity.
For the Christian, Jesus invites you to join him in doing the weighty things in the world, even when it comes at a cost to you. We cannot simply talk about what we believe or say that we follow the way and will of Jesus—our words and our ways must match.
If we are indeed followers of God, there must be continuity between what we say and how we behave.
Interestingly, it was inconsistency among the religious leaders of His day, addressed in Matthew's gospel record, chapter twenty-three, with which Jesus took issue. I imagine it is His issue with His Church now—hypocrisy. Inconsistency. Misalignment between word and deed.
In Jesus' day, the Pharisees and Scribes were supposed to be God's people, the representatives of God's word and way, but Jesus saw through their charade and publically called them out. Jesus' address to the people about them is typically referred to as the eight woes, woe being an exclamation of grief, denunciation, or distress.
Of course, if you read your bible, you know that this was not the first time Jesus had some scathing words for the religious leaders of His day. Still, the woes specifically criticise the Pharisees for hypocrisy and perjury, as they illustrate the differences between inner and outer morality before God.
Woe to you, Jesus says, for teaching about God but failing to love Him!
Woe to you, Jesus says, for consuming widows' homes and the pretence of long public prayers.
Woe to you, Jesus says, for preaching about God, but converting people to dead religion and heartlessness.
Woe to you, Jesus says, for teaching that an oath sworn by the temple or altar was not binding.
Woe to you, Jesus says, for presenting a clean appearance while being filled with hidden sin, desires, worldliness, greed, and self-indulgence.
Woe to you, Jesus says, for presenting yourselves as righteous on account of "keeping of the law."
Woe to you, Jesus says, for professing high regard for the dead prophets of old, while being filled with the same murderous rage as those who killed them.
These seven woes, publicly declared by Jesus to the people, some of whom would have been close followers of the Pharisees and Scribes, were scathing. But there is one that stands out. Jesus says woe to you. Why? Because they taught and obeyed the minutiae of the law, such as tithing from their spices, but ignored in whole the weightier matters of the law—justice, mercy, faithfulness to God.
In other words, they diligently counted their mint leaves to give every tenth one to the temple, but they "neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness." Their words do not match their ways. Their lives were incongruent with their "theology."
So much of what is wrong with the Church today is that our words and ways are incongruent. This incongruence is at the core of every complaint I have ever absorbed from my friends who are far from Jesus.
Our words and ways must match,
…meaning if we say that we are God's people, then our being His people should be evident in our behaviour.
If we neglect those on the margins, we—like them—have words that do not match our ways.
If we have the righteousness of Christ. If we are in union with Him. If we have been born again to a living hope. If our accounts are settled and our hearts clean, we should want nothing more than our words and ways to match.
We do not want to be like the religious leaders of Jesus' day or even some leaders of our own
We want to look like Jesus, live like Jesus, love like Jesus. I believe this of every one of us. We do not want to be on the other end of Jesus' woes; we want to be just the opposite in every way, which means we must care about what He cares about and invest in what He says is worthy of our investment.
Am I a hypocrite? I will ask myself daily, in light of Jesus' words, and I hope you would too.