St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen, Jersey City NJ
October 1, 2017
Year A, Proper 21:
The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32
Psalm 25:1-8
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32
Hypocrisy and Humility
Like
many other young adults before me and after, when I graduated from college I
had no idea what I wanted to do.
I
applied for, and was accepted into, a graduate program in History but after
giving it some thought, I decided I wasn’t ready to put in so much time and money
into something I wasn’t really sure about – and that would leave me with a ton
of student loan debt.
So,
finally, I decided I would teach for a year or two until I figured out what I
wanted to be when I grew up.
That
was the start of my fifteen year teaching career.
Of
course, aside from having been in classrooms nearly my whole life, I had absolutely
no preparation or qualifications to teach, but when you’re young you don’t let
pesky little details like that get in your way!
It
took a while to find a job, but near the end of that summer, just before the
start of the school year, I interviewed for a position teaching eighth grade at
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School in Bayonne.
By
then, I was getting a little desperate and I think they were getting desperate,
too, so they hired me despite my total lack of credentials. I think I seemed
presentable enough – and I was willing to work really cheap!
As
it happens, Mt. Carmel turned out to be a great place to learn how to teach,
although the fact that I taught math (among other subjects) was one of the
all-time great malpractices in the history of education!
Mt.
Carmel was a way more old-fashioned school than what I had attended.
It
was a very strict and conservative school, where whenever a teacher or the principal
would walk into the classroom, all the kids would shoot up out of their seats
and proclaim,
“Praised
be Jesus Christ! Good Morning (or Good Afternoon) Sister So-and-So or Miss
So-and-So!”
I
remember the first time they did that for me I froze, certain there was
something I was supposed to say in return but having no idea what that might
be.
Their
religion classes were a throwback to another era since they spent much of the time
poring over what was called the Baltimore
Catechism which had long before been discarded by most Catholic schools and
they learned and prayed the Rosary – nothing at all wrong with that, but not
something done in most Catholic schools in the year 1989.
And,
of course, we prayed before every class, with the kids looking like angels,
their hands folded, heads bowed, as they repeated words they had long since
memorized.
At
the end of every day, we prayed a prayer that will be familiar to those of you
who come from the Roman Catholic side of the family: the Act of Contrition.
“O
my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins
because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my
God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the
help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin.
Amen.”
Kind
of heavy for little kids, but a powerful prayer, right?
So,
each afternoon at the end of the school day, we all prayed these serious words
and the kids would head off onto the streets of Bayonne.
In
my class that first year there was a boy, who I’ll call David, who was a little
strange, maybe a little overprotected by his mom, and often the other kids
would steer clear of him or would sometimes make fun of him.
Well,
one day after school, not long after we had all had very piously and seemingly
sincerely asked God to help us avoid sin and near occasions of sin, some of
these same kids who had just had their hands folded in prayer, cornered “David”
in the park, mocked him and beat him up.
Needless
to say, word got back to us and there was a lot of upset in the school about
this behavior.
When I tried to
think of how to address this in my class, I thought back to the serious prayer
we said each afternoon. And so, the next day in class I used the occasion to
teach my students a new word:
“Hypocrisy.”
I
really let them have it, pointing out the hypocrisy of standing like little
angels with their hands folded as they prayed these serious words to God and
then going out and attacking one of their own classmates, one who was obviously
weak, and who deserved love and certainly not violence.
Hypocrisy.
Of
course, although the violence was a little shocking, there was nothing
surprising about those kids being hypocrites – saying one thing and doing something
quite different, right?
It’s
an old story.
And
speaking of old stories, there’s a lot going on in today’s Gospel lesson, this
tense encounter that takes place in the Jerusalem Temple between Jesus and the
chief priests and elders.
These
official religious authorities feel threatened by the “unofficial” Jesus, this
charismatic and mysterious rabbi from Nazareth - just as they had earlier felt
threatened by the “unofficial” John the Baptist.
Jesus
slyly questions the official authorities about the source of John the Baptist’s
unofficial authority and they wisely punt the question, recognizing that they
couldn’t criticize the popular John, but they couldn’t admit that he was the
real deal, either.
And,
Jesus uses this tense little exchange as an opportunity to tell a parable – a
parable about two sons.
One son says all the right things but doesn’t do the right thing.
He’s a hypocrite – his words and actions don’t
match.
And the other son
doesn’t say the right thing, but
eventually comes around and does the
father’s will.
Pretty clear
message, right?
Now, here’s the
problem:
If I were
preaching in front of Royal Liquors right now or to the group of addicts
hanging out at the corner of Fairmount and Bergen, this would be an easy
sermon.
But, I’m preaching
in church filled with people who for the most part come to church all the time.
We profess to be Christians, followers of Jesus Christ - Jesus, who holds us to
such a very high standard, who calls us to love the unlovable, to give even
when we think we have no more to give, and to forgive infinitely no matter how
much we really don’t want to.
Which, I’m sorry
to say, means we’re all hypocrites.
How could we not
be?
The Church has a
long history of hypocrisy, of course, gathering great wealth, burning heretics
at the stake, holding some people to very high moral standards while
conveniently overlooking the failings of others…I could go on.
But, it’s not just
“the Church.”
I’m a hypocrite
every time I walk down Bergen Avenue and pass the man begging in front of
Wonder Bagels or Dunkin Donuts and don’t even give him one of the quarters
that’s rattling around in my pocket.
I’m a hypocrite
every time I pass the group of homeless people camped out on the steps of Old
Bergen Church and hurry up, hoping no one will spot me and try to engage me in
conversation or ask for help that I don’t think I can, or just don’t want to,
give.
We usually do
pretty well here in church, but let’s admit it, our hypocrisy kicks in pretty
quickly after we leave here, sometimes as soon as coffee hour, which is often
like a school cafeteria where we sit with our cliques and some are welcome at
our tables but others not so much.
It’s all very
human, right?
No, there’s
nothing terribly unusual about any of that, except that each week we come here
and we say and pray and sing these beautiful words but then our actions fall
far short of Jesus’ very high standards.
So, what exactly should
we hypocrites do?
Well, I think the
answer is found in today’s reading from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians:
“Do nothing from
selfish ambition or conceit, but in
humility regard others as better than yourselves.
The cure for
hypocrisy is humility.
By making our own
act of contrition, we need to admit to God and to one another that, yes,
we fall short of the high standards of Jesus all the time, that too often our
actions don’t match our words, and that, really, we are no better than anyone
else.
The good news is
that God is the best and the easiest teacher in the universe, always offering
us the extra help we need, always willing to give us hypocrites yet another
chance, and always grading us on a very generous curve.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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