Michael Seiler

Tag: Hypocrisy

  • Teddy Bears and Wildflowers

    As I was preparing for the service today, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a sermon that was the equivalent of Teddy Bears skipping through alpine meadows picking wildflowers and making bouquets to give to people?”

    “I wonder what the Gospel for this week says…”

    Hypocrites! You honor me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me!

    “Well gee…. That’s not terribly uplifting. Let’s see what the Epistle reading has to say today…”

    Do not be hearers of the word only, and not doers. Don’t be like people who look in the mirror and forget what they look like. Act according to what you claim to believe.

    “Okay. Guess it’s time for another sermon on introspection and self-examination.”

    Now, you might be wondering why the summer months have such an abundance of lectionary items that speak to wrestling with our faith. You see, the season of the Church year starts in Advent, with the anticipation of the Messiah. We hear the story of the bouncing baby Jesus at Christmas, his naming on January 1st, the epiphany to wise men from the East, his baptism, his ministry, his suffering, his death, and ultimately his resurrection on Easter. Then we see how the disciples and the early church responded to this dramatic event at Pentecost, and how their response to what had happened helped to shape the future of the world.

    And then…?

    Then we get into the season after Pentecost, often called “Ordinary Time.” In agricultural communities in the northern hemisphere, this season often coincides with the growing season, and especially with the harvest. And so you will find all sorts of references to spiritual growth, to planning for the future, to dealing with difficult situations, you name it. 

    If the first half of the church year is all about Jesus and his identity, his mission, his sacrifice, and ultimately our redemption, then the second half of the year is all about our response to the knowledge of who Jesus is and what he accomplished. And also how that knowledge should inform every aspect of our lives, from how to respond to someone who wrongs us, to how to understand our finances in the light of God’s provision and grace, to planting seeds for a harvest – both physical seeds, as well as spiritual seeds.

    That’s the church year, in a nutshell.

    Those of you who grew up in small towns may remember that one kid – or maybe a few more than one – that everyone referred to as a “bad seed.” That is to say, everyone knew that there was something terrible inside this kid that made him a terror around town, and someone people wanted to avoid at all costs. Let’s call him Timmy.

    And then this kid grows up, and the young man Tim becomes what law enforcement like to call a “repeat offender.” When something bad happens in town, his house is the first place they go. They figure that if anything bad happened, it had to come from this one, because, “There’s something wrong with him on the inside. Ain’t nothing good going to come out of that one.”

    We all probably know of someone who fits that description, and we all know how to spot people who come close to that description. Because we are generally halfway decent judges of character, and can see when people have merely made an error in judgment or had a momentary lapse in their moral compass versus those who seem to be filled with scum and villainy at their core. We recognize that it was what was inside of them that defiled them and the world around them. They may use pretty words, and make promises to be better, but ultimately, their words and actions are always on opposite ends of the spectrum.

    That’s what the Gospel and the Epistle are getting at today

    Only the central figure in the passages today is not Timmy or people like him.

    It’s me. It’s you. It’s all of us.

    We are all halfway decent judges of character, and can see when people like Timmy have just made an honest mistake, or if they are rotten deep within their core. But we are much less capable of judging ourselves with such clarity and focus.

    We say one thing, but do another. We know the truth of the Gospel, but ignore it when we’d rather do something else. We look in the mirror and we see the beautiful image of Christ within us. We see that we are Children of God and made in God’s image.

    And then we turn away from the mirror, and instantly forget who we are. And we act according to our own desires and wishes.

    In the book of Galatians, we hear that the Fruits of the Spirit are Love, joy, Peace, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. These fruits grow from seeds, and those seeds come from the truth of the Gospel message about the identity, mission, death and resurrection of Christ. 

    And they will only grow if the soil gets tilled and aerated, if the weeds get pulled, and if the soil gets watered. 

    This part of the church year fits into the real world cycle of agricultural harvest, but the lectionary focuses us on the spiritual harvest. It asks us to till the soil of our souls and minds, pulling up the weeds of our own self-interest, tossing out the rocks that stand in the way of growth, so that the Fruit of the Spirit can take root and grow within us. We don’t want people to see dry and rocky soil full of weeds. What we want is a garden of abundance so that people are blessed by the sweet fragrance of Christ that grows out of us.

    Or, to put it another way.

    When people see our lives in action, do they see a “bad seed,” a “repeat offender,” a person who says one thing and does another? 

    Or do they see us like a teddy bear, frolicking in an alpine field, filled with the fruits of the spirit, gathering wildflowers to give to them as a gift?

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on September 1, 2024.]

  • Great was the ruin

    Daily Office Readings – Gospel ( Luke 6:39-49 )

    In the late 80’s, there was an anti-drug public service announcement that shows a father confronting his son about the son’s drug use. He asks his son where he learned this sort of behavior and the son responds angrily, “You, alright?! I learned it by watching you!” Then the narrator comes in and says, “Parents who use drugs have kids who use drugs,” and the screen fades to black. The irony is not lost on those who watched it. Here you had someone demanding that their son lives a life that they cannot, or will not, try to live themselves.

    Today, in the Gospel reading, Jesus is teaching in parable form, though rather than a single narrative, it seems more like a collection of sayings pulled together to make a point. Jesus condemns those who would lead others, though they themselves can not see. Then he chastises others for calling out the faults and failures of others, while not seeing their own, even greater failures, and rounds out the saying by calling these people hypocrites.

    And then, Jesus gets into the discussion of how various trees are known for the type of fruit they produce, and that one does not gather grapes from a bramble bush, or pick figs from thorns. Jesus tells us that, just like trees, we can only produce what our hearts hold dear – and what we hold dear is made evident by our actions.

    Because we are human, every one of us is well versed in pointing out the failings of others, or reminding them when they are not living up to the ideals they hold. But we are always less adept at examining our own lives and determining if we are living up to the ideals that we hold ourselves. Again, just human nature.

    Jesus’ parable extends a bit further than just examining our own lives for our own failings. When he progresses into the analogy of the two houses built on solid rock or on sand, he is making a statement about our witness to the world.

    I know this parable of the two houses is often brought up as a lesson in being grounded in scripture so that the arguments of those that don’t believe in God will not shake our faith when they confront our beliefs. It is meant as an encouragement, to remind us to read the scripture and to study it so that those around us cannot deter us from our faith.

    But I think that this parable is less about withstanding the attacks against our faith, and more about withstanding attacks against our character. Jesus compares the house built on rock to the one who “hears my words, and acts on them.” The house built on sand is like the “one who hears and does not act.” We are the house, and if we fail to act on what we claim to believe, then when the attacks of others rise against us like a flooding river, people will quickly make a judgment on whether all of our fine and fancy words were worth our effort.

    We have seen it time and again, in the lives of politicians professing the faith, to televangelists, or even our own clergy. Their campaigns and ministries can be destroyed with a simple revelation that they have been living contrary to their professed beliefs. In a matter of moments, the house of perceptions that they have built is destroyed as the lies in their lives are laid bare.

    We may not be politicians, televangelists, or even ordained clergy, but we interact with people every day, people with whom we hope to share our faith. Thankfully, for most people, a single misstep is not enough to destroy the relationship we may have built with them. But if they continue to see that our lives are lived contrary to our words, then there will be nothing to stop the flood of anger that will wash away the house we have tried to build.

    “But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house.”

    Luke 6:49

  • Just Can’t Get Much Worse…

    Daily Office Readings – Gospel ( Matthew 7:1-12 )

    The other day, I ran across a Twitter stream ripping on everyone and anyone who had caused the Tweeter even a most minor offense. On and on the rant went, with name calling, spreading of lies and misinformation, and just plain meanness. So much hate and judgment directed at those that dared to suggest that the Tweeter was at fault in any small way.

    Seriously, after reading it I felt I needed to wash myself clean somehow, because it was just such a display of awfulness. I figured Twitter would have blocked or deleted some of these tweets because they violated Twitter’s terms of service and code of conduct. But, of course, Twitter did nothing, and instead considers the Tweeter’s comments to be “in the public interest.”

    What a bunch of spineless, no good, do-nothings. Obviously too scared to take a stand against moral depravity and vile behavior. They must have grown up in a —

    Wait. I’m doing it too, aren’t I?

    Jesus tells us not to pass judgment on others, because whatever standard we hold others to will be applied to us, and then he also tells us that we really, really like to find faults with others while ignoring the same faults within ourselves. He calls us out for being a bunch of hypocrites when it comes to judging others.

    Are you judging me?

    Not a day goes by without us judging others. We make judgments on whether someone’s pants are too tight, if they’re wearing white after Labor Day, and whether they type in complete words and sentences in text messages. We decided whether we should pay attention to them based on their looks, and we decide if we can trust them by the shape of their eyes. And even now “in these uncertain times,” we judge others by whether they wear a mask in public or not.

    We judge others. A lot.

    None of this is new. Jesus knew it.

    But he wanted us to become more aware of it.

    I’ve recently run across a book titled “Why everyone ^(else) is a hypocrite – Evolution and the modular mind.” The book makes the argument that hypocrisy is the natural state of the mind. We all deceive ourselves, and we all understand that for us and our behavior, there are exceptions, there are extenuating circumstances that caused us to break our own rule.

    This is also not a novel concept, but it brings together a bunch of science to help us understand basically this: we’re so focused on the speck in our neighbor’s eye that we don’t even notice the log in our own.

    So what are all of us judgmental jerks supposed to do if we’re hard-wired to make snap judgments and expect people to live up to a higher standard than that which we hold up for ourselves?

    Like so many of Jesus’ teachings, there’s some hyperbole involved. Jesus tells us to remove all our own faults before we judge our neighbor.

    Which, of course, we cannot do. Trying to eradicate sin in our lives is like playing moral whack-a-mole.

    We will never stop judging. We will never stop making snap judgments, or waxing eloquent about the immorality of others. Never.

    But if we are willing to allow grace in our own lives for all of those extenuating circumstances that caused us to step outside of our own neatly colored lines, then we can certainly find ways to offer others that same grace and understanding and learn about their extenuating circumstances.

    All of this is just another way of Jesus saying what he said earlier in the sermon on the mount: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This comment about the speck and the log is just another concrete example of how that plays out in our daily life.

  • Everyone Is a Hypocrite

    Daily Office Readings – Gospel ( Matthew 23:27-39 )

    Jesus has been going on a tear, ripping into the Jewish leadership in this chapter of Matthew, using multiple “Woe to you!” statements when calling out the Scribes and the Pharisees for their behavior. Jesus is giving them a warning that if they continue in their behavior, terrible things will happen to them.

    He tells them that “on the outside [you] look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” Previously, he had told them that he knew that they were only doing good deeds when they were being watched, and that the “good works” were just a manner of trying to boost their own power among the people.

    Jesus could just as easily be describing the politicians of our day. How often do we see a press junket where a candidate is holding a baby, or helping to serve homeless people dinner, or cleaning up trash? As soon as the reporters disappear, so does the candidate.

    Or, perhaps more apropos to the current political climate, you see people vehemently denouncing behavior of others that only months ago they themselves took part in. Behavior for which there is proof on Twitter, Facebook, and the news, but which they hope people have forgotten about in the intervening few months.

    But just as much as Jesus could have been talking to our current leadership like he did to the Jewish leadership of his time, he could very well be speaking to each of us.

    At some point, we all do things contrary to what we say we believe. And we very easily justify our behavior or our lapse in our convictions by saying that the circumstances drove our behavior, or that we got caught up in the moment. And this may very well be true. Sometimes we get caught up in the situation and our rational mind is not able to overcome the emotions swirling within us and we do the things we claim to stand against.

    Or, as is also often the case, we are blissfully unaware that the things that we claim to denounce are actually things we repeatedly and consistently do ourselves. And so when we say that we stand with conviction against something, people just roll their eyes and snicker.

    I think one of the takeaways from the evaluation of our own potential for hypocrisy is that Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Loving our neighbor means giving them the same benefit of the doubt, the same examination of the situation, and the same ability to rationalize the behavior away as we do ourselves. More importantly, we need to provide them the same forgiveness as we give to ourselves.

    Of course, this type of hypocrisy is not what Jesus is talking about. Jesus has been calling out the scribes and pharisees for the type of behavior that goes beyond rationalization and ignorance of our own actions.

    Instead, Jesus is pointing out that these men were willfully engaging in behavior that contradicted what they had told the people. The scribes and pharisees are knowingly and intentionally manipulating perceptions in order to retain and strengthen their own power. That sort of behavior goes beyond the unintentional slip-ups or moments of weakness. That behavior signifies a depth of deception that has has crept into someone’s very soul.

    So, “do not be like the scribes and pharisees.”