Readings: Malachi 1:14-2:2, 8-10; Psalm 131; 1 Thessalonians 2:7-9, 13; Matthew 23:1-12
Grace and peace to you dear brothers and sisters in the Lord.
I want to begin this reflection by identifying five powerful ways that the evil one has been trying to bring down the Church of Christ:
I. Worldliness
II. Persecution
III. False teaching
IV. Disunity
V. Hypocrisy amongst believers.
Today, I shall focus on the malice of hypocrisy.
I am sure many of us would feel unthreatened and perhaps happy as God undressed the priests in the First Reading and the scribes and Pharisees in the Gospel.
Jesus, the just and omniscient judge accused the religious leaders of the Jews of many offences which included: not practising what they preached, tying heavy burdens on others, doing all they did to attract attraction, using their titles and privileges to suppress others, being ruled by pride. Jesus warns us not to be like them. We are warned not to misuse titles and privileges or be deceived by titles.
I will divide my homily today into two parts.
Part 1. Lessons from Christ’s warning;
Part 2. We must avoid hypocrisy.
Part 1: Lessons from Christ’s warning.
Dear friends, let us apply this warning against the religious leaders to ourselves. Are some of these things that Jesus said true of us?
Let’s identify three allegations and reflect on them.
I. As priests, teachers, leaders, parents etc.,
What kind of examples of faith and morality do we give to others?
In today’s Second Reading, St. Paul was certainly a good example to the Christians in Thessalonika. Do we show good examples to others by what we say and how we behave and live?
II. What kind of leaders are we?
The priests, scribes and Pharisees in today’s readings were leaders who had lost focus and had become proud, self-centred and irresponsible.
Are we responsible, humble, caring, selfless and sacrificial or are we proud, self-centered, driven by power, and the desire to be feared, served and praised?
Do we make lives better or miserable for others, especially those under us?
III. What motivates our actions?
Is it love of God and the desire to honour Him or we are driven by self-interest – the desire for praise or to be loved and preferred to others?
Part 2: We must avoid hypocrisy
Finally, Jesus accused the religious leaders of hypocrisy. Let us consciously battle against the hypocritical tendencies in all of us. I shall identify five examples of spiritual hypocrisy.
I. When our conduct doesn’t match with our piety. When our prayer life doesn’t reflect in our attitude in the car park, in the market, when we are on the phone or when dealing with our neighbours.
II. When our practices do not correspond with our profession of faith. For instance, when we claim that our God is everything and yet we cannot trust Him in difficult situations, when we believe Jesus is present in the Holy Eucharist and yet do not worship Him or receive Him with reverence, when Mass is the highest worship and yet our attitude doesn’t show this, when we believe that sin can cause us to spend eternity in hell and that we can receive forgiveness through Sacrament of reconciliation and yet we do not go for confession, etc. The greatest testimony to faith is practice.
III. Hypocrisy is when we pretend to be who we are not. For instance when we pretend to love, to care, to be kind and pious but we know we are not/we do not and we are not making an effort to be. Instead, we are putting more effort into acting like we are.
IV. When we ourselves do what we condemn in others or do to others what we would hate done to us (Read Romans 2:1; Matthew 7:2).
V. When our motivation for doing something seemingly good is not pure and godly, but for the sake of the self.
Dear friends, God cannot be deceived (Galatians 6:7-8; Hebrews 4:13). He searches our heart not just our actions. He despises hypocrisy. He wants us to be authentic, sincere and humble and to genuinely hunger for righteousness.
Sermon preached by Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Baraka-Gukena Okami on November 5, 2023