Masks & Bananas

Why does hypocrisy drive Jesus bananas?

I mean, throughout the gospels we see so many instances of Jesus being caring and compassionate in the face of human sin and weakness. When the woman caught in adultery is brought to him, he is kind and gentle, and he refuses to condemn her. When Peter denies him, Jesus reaches out and forgives him.  Even when the soldiers nail him to a cross, Jesus prays that they may be forgiven, for they don’t know what they’re doing.

But when the Pharisees criticize his disciples for not washing their hands properly before they eat, Jesus goes bananas.

“Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honours me with their lips but their hearts are far from me, in vain do they worship me.”

Why does Jesus feel such a need to call out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees?

These last few Sundays we have been reflecting on how Jesus is trying to draw us into relationship. All that language of believing, that’s what it was about. It’s what Jesus is means when he says that he will abide in us and we are to abide in him, it’s why he refers to himself as the bread of life that nourishes us and gives us eternal life. And you remember what Jesus means by eternal life: it is to know the one true God, and Jesus, the one whom God has sent. God, through Jesus, wants to draw us into a relationship of knowing and being known, an authentic relationship, full of the very things that Jesus shows and teaches us that make life worth living, now and forever.

But hypocrisy is the exact opposite of knowing and being known. To be a hypocrite is to wear a mask. In fact, that’s the original meaning of the Greek word. The word comes from ancient Greek theatre, where the actors on stage wore masks to hide their true identity. Hypocrisy then is to create a dissonance between who you are and what you reveal to others, a discrepancy between what you say and what you do, a divergence, as Isaiah puts it, between your heart and your lips. It gets in the way of authentic relationship, it prevents us from being the people that God created us to be. It tends to negate all the things that Jesus would tell us make life truly worth living. And so it needs to be called out.

And what really needs to be called out in this text is the hypocrisy which is used to judge and condemn others. The Pharisees invoke a Jewish religious tradition which is not found in the Torah, called the tradition of the elders, to judge and criticize Jesus’ disciples for eating with defiled hands. But Jesus calls them out, because these same Pharisees also use this same tradition to avoid the commandment that God has given them to care for their parents.  Not only is it hypocrisy, but it is a hypocrisy which is both self-serving and which is used to judge and exert power over others. You remember the vivid words that Jesus uses to describe this failing in his sermon on the mount:

“Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”

You see, God wants us to love one another, to forgive one another, to care for each other, to extend grace and compassion – but when we judge and criticize each other, we do the opposite, especially when we do it to exert power over someone, especially when we do it to lift ourselves up by putting others down, and especially when we put down those who are hungry, or poor, or marginalized or vulnerable in any way.

And when if this is done in the name of religion, well, James doesn’t mince any words in his epistle. If that’s what we do, our religion is worthless.

Hypocrisy and judgmentalism drive Jesus bananas because they prevent us from being the people we were created to be, they prevent us from loving others in the way that God calls us to.

So you go Jesus. Let ‘em have it. Tear a strip off those Pharisees for their hypocritical, judgmental, self-serving ways.

And if that’s where we get to with this passage, we too have fallen into a trap.

Because this isn’t really about the Pharisees. This is about you and me.

Because we all wear masks. We wear masks in our relationships with each other, in our relationship with God, even in our relationship with ourselves. It’s hard to be authentic, hard to reveal your true self, especially those parts of ourselves that we’re ashamed of or that we think are weak. To give what might be an obvious example, the carefully curated image of ourselves that we give the world on Instagram or TikTok is not our true self.

But our masks can also be more subtle. I remember during my ordination process, during one of my internships, my supervisor pointed out that I tend to be too restrained, not giving enough of myself away. “You don’t give people any hooks where they can connect with you,” he told me. And he was right. It is hard to be vulnerable, it’s sometimes easier to keep stuff under wraps. Because when we allow ourselves to be known, to be really known, we open ourselves up to the possibility of judgement and criticism. And it hurts to be judged and criticized. I know what it means to wear a mask. I think most of us do.

Because while one of our deepest needs is to be loved for who we are, one of our greatest fears is that if we reveal certain aspects of ourselves, we may expose ourselves to criticism and judgement, and put at risk the very love and belonging that we crave. And so, we’re careful about what we put out there.

Jesus understands this dynamic too, which is perhaps one of the reasons that he calls out judgementalism so strongly. Back to Jesus words in his sermon on the mount:

““Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye.”

I get it. Jesus may be talking to the Pharisees in today’s gospel, but he’s talking to me too. I am way too judgemental, even if usually I have the good sense to keep my judgments to myself. But judgement creates an unhealthy dynamic. When we are judgemental, when we criticize and condemn, we reinforce the masks that are worn by those around us.

Jesus wants us to live lives that are overflowing not with judgment, but with grace, compassion, forgiveness, and care for each other. These are the postures that create authentic relationship, with each other, with God, even with ourselves. This is what will allow us to grow into the people that God created us to be, will allow us to know and be known, to experience love and belonging that is authentic, based on our true selves, and not our masks.

So resist the urge to judge, and loosen that mask. Know, and be known.

This, Jesus says, is what makes life worth living, now and forever.

“I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.”

Amen.

Yr B Proper 22 September 1 2024, Trinity

Readings: Song of Songs 2.8-13; Psalm 15; James 1.17-27, Mark 7.1-23

Image by Victor Santos, pexels.com