As you may know, Louisiana recently passed a law mandating that the ten commandments be posted in schoolrooms throughout the state. Critics argued that this violates the doctrine of separation of church and state, but the proponents say that the commandments are not part of a religion, but part of the common heritage of our country. In fact the Ten Commandments are posted on the Supreme Court building and several other government buildings in Washington DC. Louisianans have one of the highest levels of church attendance in the country, but at the same time, the state leads the nation in murders. Do you think posting the ten commandments in school rooms around the state will change this fact? I don’t either. I don’t object to posting the ten commandments, only to making the assumption that this will do anything about what really counts, the murder rate, the rape rate, the violent crime rate.
One of the great things about election season is that we get to learn all about hypocrites. It seems as though you can’t get far in politics unless you are one. It doesn’t matter whether you are democrat or republican or something else, you need to create an image of yourself that will get votes. That means suppressing bad things and accenting good things -- and as we know, sometimes just making things up. I was thinking about this when George Santos, a former member of the house of representatives from New York, pleaded guilty for federal fraud. Shortly after he was elected, it was obvious that he was a pathological liar.
In the Gospel of Mark Jesus is especially hard on Pharisees. And today he again calls them hypocrites. And down through the ages those two words, Pharisee and hypocrite, have taken on meanings that they did not have in the time of Jesus. Originally the word pharisee meant “set apart” and referred to several Jewish movements characterized by withdrawing from all but the most necessary contact with people who weren’t Jewish. They wanted to pursue holiness, and knew that this could be done better if they weren’t contaminated by people who believed in other gods, or even Jews who took a relaxed approach to their religion. The Pharisees were acting from the same impulse that led to monasteries or religious orders -- if you really want to pursue holiness, isolate yourself from the world and hang out with people like yourself. The word that is translated from the Greek as “hypocrite” actually meant “actor”. Eventually it came to mean someone whose actions are not in line with his or her beliefs. So if I call someone a hypocrite, it probably stings more than it did in Jesus’ time.
Some people think that if Jesus came back today, he’d be over at the synagogue trying once again to convince our Jewish neighbors that they needed to convert. And maybe we Catholics think he’d at least be telling those episcopalians or united church people that they were going to the wrong church. Or maybe he would be calling up members of our own church who seldom get to Mass on Sundays, or who have dropped out altogether. But if the gospel of Mark is any clue, Jesus would probably be bugging faithful Catholics, especially the ones who go to daily Mass. Because in Jesus' time everyone knew that the holiest Jews were the pharisees.
There are two kinds of hypocrites --there are those who adopt behaviors that reflect beliefs that they don’t have. In England in the days of the puritans, they passed laws that you couldn’t hold office unless you were a card carrying member of the state church -- the Anglican church. Methodists and quakers and members of other sects were out. But there were plenty of people around who made sure that they received communion in an Anglican church at least yearly, which was the minimum definition of being an Anglican. The other kind are those who have certain beliefs but don’t act on them, or if they do, it’s partial and incomplete. I’m one of those hypocrites. And I think that’s why Jesus is so concerned about the Pharisees -- they are almost there but not quite. They want to be holy; they want to follow the laws of Moses as perfectly as they can. But for many, following the laws was a substitute for what the laws were intended for. As Moses says in the first reading, they are there to build up a great and godly nation, so much so that it will be apparent to everyone who isn’t Jewish. And that meant that you had to follow the laws, but you needed to know why they were there. And as Jesus remarked on another occasion, if your donkey fell into a pit on the Sabbath you wouldn’t wait till the next day to rescue it.
Are you a hypocrite? I am. And today I think we should pray that the Holy Spirit show us where we need to improve. Because God wants to show the world his love, and that has to be through us pharisees.
