He Knows My Hypocrisy
Scripture Reading: Luke 11:37—12:3
Meditation
As Jesus finishes talking to the crowd about the mood of the current age—proof appetites, curiosity cravings, and miracle meals—a religious leader pushes his way from the center of the pack of people to the front. When he’s within earshot of Jesus, the religious leader shouts over the buzz of the crowd, inviting him to come to his home for dinner.
Jesus hears the request, makes eye contact with the man, and honors it by nodding his head. Then the man stands on his tiptoes and points the way over the heads of the crowd.
Jesus follows him home.
Jesus’ host prides himself on being one of the Pharisees. This influential religious ruling party is known as “the set apart ones”. They are spiritual separatists who have pledged themselves to obeying not only all the facets of the Mosaic Law but also the accompanying oral tradition of the elders.
For the Pharisee, Torah and the oral tradition of the elders are laid side-by-side, equal in authority, coequal as sources of truth. This oral tradition holds a high place in the Pharisee’s life because it not only interprets the Law, it prescribes, in exacting detail, acceptable and forbidden daily behavior.
According to the interpretation of the elders, God’s grace extends only to those who keep the Law of Moses. Salvation comes through doing that which is good and not doing that which is evil.
The Pharisee who invites Jesus to share his table holds tight to these rules and regulations. Day by day, he’s driven to attain a righteousness that comes through the Law. He shuns anything and anyone that would make him unclean. Because he believes that salvation is at stake, he’s a stickler for ceremonial purity.
For the Pharisee, cleanliness is not next to godliness.
It is godliness.
As the host opens his house to Jesus, he stays true to his beliefs. He performs the required religious rituals. Ceremonial cleanliness is his obsession, especially before dinner.
The Pharisees—Jews in general, in fact—would never eat a meal without going through the motions of a ritual hand-washing, with an especially vigorous scrubbing if they had just come from the market (to say nothing of the scourings they’d give jugs and pots and pans).1
As everyone moves toward the dinner table, the Pharisee, as is his custom, takes some water from one of the ceremonial jars standing in the corner and pours it over his hands. Since he’s just fought his way through a throng of people, he gives his hands an especially vigorous scrubbing.
Any number of things in the crowd might have defiled him: the carcass of a creeping thing in the middle of the road, the stain of blood on someone’s cloak, a brush with the immoral, a bump up against someone with an infectious disease.
He lives by the belief that salvation comes through constant and clean works. And so, before he sits down to eat, he washes. He rinses. He washes again. The squeaky-clean of his pruned hands is only matched by the sparkle of the plates on the table.
While the Pharisee scrubs his hands, Jesus bypasses the ceremonial washing jars and goes directly to the table. When the Pharisee turns around, he’s shocked to see Jesus seated, hands folded, dry and dirty. He’s offended that Jesus would so blatantly disregard the tradition of the elders. After all, if he is a Teacher, he should wash. Failure to wash is tantamount to sin and sin is separation from God.
But when it comes to sin, Jesus looks beyond the water that washes the dirt of the hands. He looks deep into the heart.
True, the Pharisee has gone to great lengths to keep his religious hands clean. But upon inspection, Jesus notices that, though the outside of the Pharisee’s sanctimonious house has curb appeal, the foundations it sits on are rotting away.
Jesus looks past the outward show of the Pharisee’s piety and burrows deep to the inward reality—heartless religiosity. In seeing the Pharisee, he remembers the revelation of Isaiah and the prophet’s pointed words hit the mark.
“These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their heart isn’t in it.
They act like they are worshiping me, but they don’t mean it.”2
The Pharisee’s house may have religion but it’s a religion without the heart of God. There is no beat of grace in the Pharisee’s piety. No flow of mercy. Instead there is only play-acting worship: hollow words for hallowed things; spiritual masks that display counterfeit sincerity.
When it comes to the daily expectations of the common man, the Pharisee is a religious taskmaster. He walks around with a puffed out chest and puffed up ego. The Pharisee might look religious, but it’s all a sham. He’s a fraud, a phony. And Jesus calls him on it.
“I know you Pharisees burnish the surface of your cups and plates so they sparkle in the sun, but I also know your insides are maggoty with greed and secret evil. Stupid Pharisees! Didn’t the One who made the outside also make the inside? Turn both your pockets and your hearts inside out and give generously to the poor; then your lives will be clean, not just your dishes and your hands.”3
Such hypocrisy is devil’s yeast, invading and pervading all that is good and godly. As Jesus leaves the man’s house, he warns his disciples to stay away from the leaven of Pharisee phoniness.
“Watch yourselves carefully so you don’t get contaminated with Pharisee yeast, Pharisee phoniness. You can’t keep your true self hidden forever; before long you’ll be exposed. You can’t hide behind a religious mask forever; sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known. You can’t whisper one thing in private and preach the opposite in public; the day’s coming when those whispers will be repeated all over town.”4
True religion wears no mask; it only reflects the face of Christ.
Reflection
When was the last time you put on a good religious show but your heart wasn’t in it?
What yeast of hypocrisy is subtly pervading your life? In what ways do you look good on the outside—while on the inside—you’re filled with evil desires?
How has Christ exposed your true self to his grace and mercy? What does it feel like to live a consistent life, inside and out?
In what ways does your spiritual life reflect the face of Christ?
Prayer
Father,
The yeast of hypocrisy has subtly pervaded my life. My worship is hollow. My faith is heartless. The beat of grace has slowed and the flow of mercy has been reduced to a trickle. When the lights are on, I put on a good religious show but, behind the scenes, my heart isn’t in it. I wear a mask and hide behind the covering of the law.
But my mask is slipping and my sin is beginning to show.
During this day, cleanse from me the inside out so that what is in my heart might be reflective of what I do with my hands. Remove whatever yeast of hypocrisy might be in my life and replace it with the leaven of your Son’s grace. May his forgiveness pervade my life so that I might rise up and become a new creation, shining and sparkling from the inside out.
It’s in Christ’s name that I pray. Amen.
1Mark 7:3-4 2Mark 7:6-7 3Luke 11:39-41 4Luke 12:1-3
All Scripture references in the meditation are marked by italics and are taken from the Gospel reading for the day. Those verses quoted outside of the chosen reading for the day are noted. All Scripture quoted in this post is taken from THE MESSAGE: Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 2000, 2001 & 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.