Fake It Until Christ Makes It

 

February 22, 2021 – Ash Wednesday

Isaiah 58:1-12; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video of the entire service can be seen here with the sermon beginning at 17:50.

No one likes a hypocrite. And the bigger the fake the more hated they are. Maybe that’s why we can’t help but smile when a politician who runs for office on a family-values platform is exposed as an adulterer. The only hypocrites we would rather see fall from grace are the religious leaders who make a living pointing their fingers at sinners and dishing out heavy doses of judgement. Is there anything more satisfying than seeing the holier-than-thou preacher’s mugshot on the front page of the paper?

I learned only a few months ago that the term “hypocrite” didn’t have a negative connotation until it was taken over by Christian culture. A word that literally means “interpreter from underneath,” its origins are from the ancient Greek stage, on which actors would interpret their characters’ roles from underneath the masks they wore. The word hypocrite didn’t make an appearance in English until the 13th century, when it was used to describe someone who was pretending to be pious in order to deceive others, and it didn’t come to mean a person who was acting contrary to their stated beliefs until the 18th century. 

In the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the word that is sometimes translated for us as “hypocrite” actually means “godless” or “profane.” In other words, it referred not to someone who was faking religiosity but was used as a criticism for God’s people when they forgot what it meant to belong to God. Although the concept of a play-actor isn’t found in the Old Testament, we understand that, when prophets exposed the predatory lending practices or exploitation of widows and orphans by so-called religious leaders, they were highlighting the incongruity of a projected religious identity and a faithless way of life. 

But, when it comes to religious practice and acts of piety, aren’t we all hypocrites to some degree? Aren’t we all here because we know that there’s at least a slight disconnect between our public lives and our private thoughts? We pretend to be nice. We hide our real feelings. We bite our tongues, and instead we say, “Bless your heart.” But don’t we want the inside to match what’s on the outside? Don’t we want loving-kindness to be our way of life not because it's how we’re supposed to act but because it’s what we really feel deep within us?

In some ways, I think that’s why we come to church—because we want to reconcile that difference and because we know that this is the place and that this is the community that can help us find that unity of identity we seek. We are here because we believe that the love and forgiveness and reconciliation that Jesus offers us can shape us from the inside out. Only then—only when what is within us has been renewed by God’s love—can what shows up on the outside reflect the truth that is within us. But that process of renewal doesn’t start by avoiding hypocrisy. It starts by embracing it. Here's what I mean. 

Jesus doesn’t care if you’re a hypocrite. In fact, in a sense he encourages it. That’s why he tells the rich young man to sell all of his possessions and give the money away to the poor—not because the man has already figured out how to love God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength and his neighbor as himself but because Jesus knows that a radical outward action like that has the power to shape a person deep within. In the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee, Jesus praises the tax collector who lowers his head and beats his breast not because he has reformed his life but simply because his prayer is earnest and humble. Sometimes we say we’re sorry not because we mean it but because we want to mean it. Sometimes we say our prayers not because we want to but because we want to want to. The journey of faith must start somewhere. It starts even with a small step.

Of course, hypocrisy does have a dark side. The warning Jesus gives us every year on Ash Wednesday is an important one for us to hear: “Beware of practicing your piety in front of others in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” Using the example of the hypocrites, who like to make a big show about giving alms, saying their prayers, and fasting, Jesus tells us to hide our generosity, to pray only behind closed doors, and to wipe the ashen crosses off our foreheads before walking out the church door. Why? It’s not because Jesus is worried that our Lenten practices will mask our heart’s true intentions but because our piety will have no power to shape our hearts if it is only for show.

The spiritual problem with hypocrisy isn’t that we pretend to be something we’re not. It’s thinking that pretending is all that matters. Jesus calls us to go deeper than that. When a spiritual discipline is outwardly focused and the only thing we care about is what other people see, the only benefit we get is the esteem of our peers. But, when the practice starts on the surface and then turns within, causing us to examine our own hearts, then we have the opportunity to be shaped by the one whose example we seek to imitate. Then our piety draws our hearts closer to God, and our whole lives begin to follow suit.

When Jesus tells us that only those who practice their piety in secret will be rewarded by their Father in heaven, it’s because the only reward worth seeking is the one that is found in here—deep within our hearts, where no one but God can see. This Lent, may that be the spiritual journey we take. Even if we are only going through the motions of faithfulness, may they be for us an invitation to encounter God within our hearts. May our Lenten devotions be a personal journey back to God—the one whose love transforms us from the inside out.

How Will We Ever Be Worthy?

 

February 19, 2023 – The Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A

Exodus 24:12-18; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon is available here. Video of the entire service can be seen here with the sermon beginning around 18:45.

Everything was starting to come together. Things were really moving now. Six days earlier, Jesus had asked his disciples if they knew who he really was, and, even though the crowds still didn’t understand it, Peter had put his finger right on the pulse of Jesus’ identity: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Ever since that moment, Jesus had begun to speak more freely with his disciples about his plans and how God would use him to accomplish God’s saving work in the world.

These last six days had been a whirlwind, and now Jesus had invited Peter, James, and John—his very closest followers—to accompany him up to the top of a holy mountain where they could pray together. They had prayed with each other plenty of times, but this invitation was different. Jesus now seemed interested in allowing these three to join him in his most intimate, most holy spiritual practices. And the disciples were not disappointed.

Suddenly, as he was praying, Jesus’ skin began to give off its own radiant light. As if the sun itself had begun to shine from within him, his face was transfigured from its normal countenance into the very source of light itself. Basked in the stunning brightness emanating from Jesus, Peter and James and John looked up and saw Moses and Elijah standing there on the mountain top beside their teacher. “Can you believe it?” they said to themselves. “Is this really happening to us? How is it that we were chosen to see his glory?”

Peter knew better than to let this moment pass by. Having been given this astounding insight into Jesus’ true nature and glowing with the warmth of this privileged moment, Peter inched closer to Jesus and whispered, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. Only say the word, and I will build three booths—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah—so that you can dwell here forever.” But, before Jesus could answer, the bright cloud of the Divine Presence descended upon the mountaintop, and the voice of the Almighty thundered at them: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 

In an instant, the disciples’ excitement evaporated, and an overwhelming fear gripped them. They fell down to the ground and hid their faces in the dirt, praying that this moment would pass without costing them their lives. They had underestimated the significance of this encounter and their own worthiness to receive it. But, after only a moment, Jesus came and knelt down and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And, when the disciples dared to look around, everything had vanished. It was just they and Jesus and the empty summit. They had come that close to God and had lived to tell about it—but not until after Jesus had been raised from the dead.

Have you ever been given a gift that you did not deserve—an honor of which you were unworthy—only to discover that the gift itself was so magnificent as to require a response from you which you were utterly unable to give? Imagine being picked out of a crowd and told to hold in your hands something so precious that, if you were to drop it or squeeze it too tightly and crush it, the very light of the world would go out. How long before the privilege and honor of being chosen would give way to the doubt and fear of failure? At what point would the significance of what was being asked of you become so burdensome as to guarantee your inability to fulfill your responsibility?

Jesus Christ is God Incarnate. In him, God became flesh in order that our flesh might contain even the light of the world. Jesus has come to invite you to go up on the mountain with him and to pray beside him until not only his face begins to shine like the sun but until yours begins to shine with that same light as well. When the voice of God Almighty thunders in the cloud and declares, “This is my child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased,” God is speaking those words to you, declaring that you, too, are God’s beloved child. Because you belong to Christ—to the one who beckons you up that mountain with him—God is handing you the very light of the world so that it might shine from within you and give light to others. But how will you ever stand there and receive it and embrace it and let it shine—all without dropping it and dashing it to pieces?

The truth is that it is easier to fall down into the dirt and hide our face until the light has passed us by. Following Jesus seems like a good idea until it is our turn to bear that light to others for Jesus’ sake. What happens if we’re not good enough or strong enough or holy enough to carry it? And there’s no hiding on that mountain top because Jesus is more than a wise teacher or a holy example worth following. He is the very Son of Man—the divine judge who comes in the glory of God to judge both the living and the dead. We cannot encounter the glory of Jesus Christ without hearing that thunderous voice that goes right through us, shaking us to our core. And yet it is Christ himself who makes us worthy to bear that light with a worthiness we can only behold in his resurrection.

“Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead,” Jesus says to them on their way back down the mountain. Why? Why wait until then? Because none of us is prepared to accept the glory that we have been given or the awesome responsibility that comes with it until we have seen God’s victory in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is our very weakness, our failings, our incapacity, our sin that God has defeated in the empty tomb. Because he is risen, we are worthy to receive that light. Because he is risen, we are able to bear that light to the world. Only because of the resurrection of Jesus are we prepared to journey up the mountain with him and let his light shine from within us.

Contemporary Christians tend to emphasize our role in the story of salvation—what are we supposed to believe and what works are we supposed to do? We hear this story, and we focus on Peter and ask ourselves what we would have done in his place. But the invitation God gives us in Jesus Christ is to allow Christ’s work and Christ’s faith to stand in the place of our own. If our sin is what took him to the cross, then it is God’s victory over that sin that shines forth from the empty tomb. Without the resurrection, we could never be worthy of the gift we have been given, but standing in the light of our own redemption, we know that there is nothing that could ever take it away.