The Democracy of Hypocrisy
Scripture Reading: Matt. 23:1-12
One of my favorite documentaries is Eyes on the Prize, which tells the story of the civil rights movement from 1954-1965. It originally aired in six installments on PBS in 1987 when I was in high school. One of the directors of Eyes on the Prize made his own related documentary a few years ago. MLK/FBI, as the documentary is called, tells the story of the extralegal, and at times outright illegal efforts, undertaken by the FBI’s longtime director, J. Edgar Hoover, to harass, discredit, and bring down King, whom Hoover regarded as the most dangerous black man in America. Hoover came to this conclusion after the March on Washington in August 1963, at which King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
Initially believing that King might seek to align himself with the American Communist Party, the FBI pursued all investigative avenues to find evidence of King’s supposed communist sympathies. Whenever he traveled to a city, they bugged his hotel room. They also paid informants for inside information and tapped his phone line. While the FBI did not uncover any evidence that connected King to communist activity, they did learn that King, a married man and a minister, was having extramarital affairs.
That was good enough for Hoover. He leaked the FBI’s knowledge of King’s affairs to the press, but in those days the media tended to look the other way at the indiscretions of powerful men. The press didn’t take the bait, so the FBI sent proof of the affairs under the cover of anonymity to King’s wife. They also penned an anonymous letter to King, supposedly written in the voice of a black man, urging him to kill himself.
If King’s affairs had become public knowledge, would it have led to charges of hypocrisy? Almost certainly. Would it have tarnished all that King had done to champion the cause of civil rights for black Americans? I would argue no, but I think there’s room for debate.
And what about J. Edgar Hoover, this icon of law and order who led the FBI for forty-eight years spanning eight presidencies? Isn’t he also guilty of hypocrisy for employing vile, reprehensible, not to mention illegal tactics in an effort to….bring down a man who was working for racial justice? Without question, Hoover is guilty as charged.
Public leaders engaged in outrageously hypocritical behavior is a story that’s even older than the Bible, but the topic certainly features prominently throughout the Old and New Testaments, including in today’s Gospel reading. After three straight weeks in Matthew 22 we’ve now moved all the way into…chapter 23, verse 1. Jesus has dispatched all of the various groups who had come to the temple to confront him, including the chief priests, elders, scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians. His opponents having shuffled off in silence, Jesus now addresses the crowds and his disciples.
Hypocrisy is a major theme in the Gospel of Matthew. A quick word search of all four Gospels reveals that the word “hypocrites” appears twelve times in Matthew but just twice in Luke, once in Mark, and not at all in John. From as far back as the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 6, Jesus has been warning about the hypocrisy of the religious leaders. Here’s a sampling of his greatest hits:
“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others” (Matt. 6:2).
“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others” (Matt. 6:5).
“And whenever you fast, do not look somber, like the hypocrites, for they mark their faces to show others that they are fasting” (Matt. 6:15).
Now Jesus sharpens his critique by drawing a distinction between what the religious leaders teach versus what they actually do. “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach” (Matt. 6:2). Interestingly, Jesus acknowledges that the scribes and the Pharisees do have authority. But their authority isn’t a birthright that they inherited, like a prince who is in line to become king. As John the Baptist told them earlier, “do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Matt. 3:9).
Their authority isn’t inherent but rather given. Their authority comes from the fact that they stand in Moses’s seat. As God used Moses to bring the Law the people, so God has entrusted the scribes and Pharisees with interpreting the Law on behalf of the people. That’s what the scribes and Pharisees did. They weren’t priests. They were laypeople who were trained in the Law and whose job it was to help people apply the Law to their daily lives.
So the issue isn’t one of having authority but rather what these leaders do with their authority. Have they set an example for the people to follow? Have they, in the words of the prophet Micah, done justice, loved kindness, and walked humbly with their God?
The answer, according to Jesus, is an emphatic “no.” “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them” (Matt. 23:4). The religious leaders call the people to adhere to the strictest letter of the Law, but as for themselves, then they find the Law to be much more flexible.
Whereas the intent of the Law was to draw all the people closer to God and to one another, the religious leaders use the Law to create a class system, a hierarchy with themselves at the top. They foist one legal burden after another on to the shoulders of the people. More, more, more! When the message of the Law becomes you must work harder, pray harder, be more faithful, do more, give more, be more—whatever you’re doing is not enough—then the Law is no longer a gift but rather a curse.
We can do much the same in the church today whenever we adopt a “more is better” mindset. With all kinds of church numbers in decline—membership, baptisms, and budgets—it’s natural to want to see more of all of the above. But more is not necessarily better when the message it carries is an accusatory “you are not doing enough,” or a self-accusatory “I am not doing enough,” or in the case of the whole church, “we are not doing enough.”
I interviewed with a church where one member of the search committee had that mindset, which was a red flag for me. She used the word “success” with regard to the church, and so I asked her how she would define success. Her answer was simply “more.” More of everything. More worshipers, more worship services, more ministries, more service projects. More, more, more! I was exhausted just listening to her.
If the message we hear—in church or out in the world—is that we are not enough and we need to do more, then we are running on the treadmill of the law.
If the message we hear—in church or out in the world—is that we are not enough and we need to do more, then we are running on the treadmill of the law. Only when we step off that treadmill, which never stops, do we feel God’s grace beneath our feet supporting us and giving us rest.
There’s another facet of the religious leaders for which Jesus takes them to task. It’s not just that they lay undue burdens upon others while exempting themselves. Jesus says that they also “do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long” (Matt. 23:5). Phylacteries were little leather boxes that contained passages of scripture that Jews wore around their head while praying. Fringes were attached to the ends of prayer shawls, which as the name suggests, were also worn while praying. Having broad phylacteries and long fringes would suggest that the wearer was super pious.
In other words, the religious leaders were engaging in performative piety. Their prayers may have been directed to God, but they were hoping to draw all attention to themselves. Had social media existed back then, their walls would have been filled with photos of themselves praying and reading Scripture.
I want to pull back for a second here. It’s all too easy to render the scribes and Pharisees as cartoonish villains. I’m particularly sensitive to doing so in the wake of the rising tide of anti-Semitism that has once again reared its ugly face in this nation. The scribes and Pharisees simply had the misfortune of having their hypocrisy forever enshrined in the Bible. We can point to it and shake our heads and tsk tsk. But the truth is that hypocrisy, whether found in the pages of Scripture, taken from today’s headlines, or hidden within our own hearts, is a universal human tendency.
But the truth is that hypocrisy, whether found in the pages of Scripture, taken from today’s headlines, or hidden within our own hearts, is a universal human tendency.
When I was an English major, in one of my classes I was assigned this anthology of 20th-century American poetry. The back of the anthology had a brief biographical sketch of each poet whose work appeared in the anthology. One of the poets described a theme that she was drawn to with a wonderful turn of phrase: “the democracy of universal vulnerability.”
Borrowing from that, a theme with which I am concerned, at least with regard to this sermon, is the democracy of universal hypocrisy. Allow me to engage in a bit of psychological analysis with these hypocritical religious leaders (after all, it takes one to know one). The scribes and Pharisees were not born hypocrites. What compelled them to want to be seen as pious and holy was their need for the approval of others.
I’m not a gambling man, but I’d be willing to wager that the insatiable need for the approval of others is one that we all feel. I mean, it’s practically the business model of Facebook! With the “like” button, Facebook found a way to actually quantify approval. Then we compare our posts with those of our “friends” and agonize or become angry when a post is not as liked as we would like, which we then internalize. “If they don’t care for my post, they must not care for me.”
We’re naturally restless, impatient, and insecure. We don’t want to wait for, or trust in, the quiet approval of God, and so we seek the more immediate and obvious approval and praise of people. Uncertain of God’s love and concern for us, we seek a poor replacement in the admiration and approval of those around us. We look for a way to elevate ourselves above our neighbor, even if ever so slightly. “I’m just a little bit better.” Or the reverse: “I may be a sinner, but I’m not as much of a sinner as him! Or her!”
But God’s grace is the great leveler. If sin makes hypocrites of us all, God’s grace covers us all equally. As much as we try to create hierarchies of importance or worth, Jesus tells us that we have one teacher and we are all students. We have one Father and we are all children. And we have one instructor, the Messiah, who demonstrates for us that the measure of greatness in the kingdom of God is not how high you climb but how willing you are to serve.