Hypocrisy in the Church

Jesus talked an awful lot about hypocrisy. There’s something deeply unhealthy about saying one thing and doing another. And, according to Jesus, it’s downright demonic to weaponize the rules of your religion to control and shame others. On more than one occasion (Matthew 15:8, Mark 7:6) the Gospels record Jesus quoting this passage from Isaiah:

The Lord says:
“These people come near to me with their mouth
    and honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
    is based on merely human rules they have been taught.
Therefore once more I will astound these people
    with wonder upon wonder…”
- Isaiah 29:13-14

One of the interesting things that Brenna pointed out about this passage in her sermon yesterday is that the alternative to building a religious life on rules is not mere freedom… it’s wonder. Did you catch that in the text?

Read through that passage again and see if you can feel God’s heart. It’s not to punish the hypocrites - it’s to invite us (yes, you and I struggle with hypocrisy all the time!) back into a life of wonder. God invites us back into a worshipful connection that’s characterized by awe and that generates an openness to goodness and beauty…. which, of course, translates directly into NOT controlling or shaming others. (It’s hard to shame others when you’re so busy being amazed by the image of God in them!).

Take some time today and think about where you still experience wonder in your life. Could God be in that? And what might it look like for your spiritual life to be characterized more by wonder than control, more by authentic surprise than predictable answers, and more by reveling in goodness rather than regulating yourself and others?