Empty Words...or a Heart Full of Love?

“This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” Isaiah 29: 13; Mark 7:6

The word “hypocrite” is an ugly word. It is quite a charge to call someone a hypocrite. It’s a word that, unfortunately, you often hear in connection with Christian people. The tabloids gleefully report the alleged hypocrisy whenever a high-profile Christian doesn’t walk the walk. I’d be willing to guess that there are many people whose faith has been damaged by the hypocrisy of fellow Christians, to the point that they have left the church altogether. And it’s absolutely no fun to talk about, because even as we point fingers at others who exemplify hypocrisy, we’re hoping that nobody recognizes our own.
The word “hypocrite” is an ugly word, because of what it has come to mean. The word itself is virtually unchanged from its Greek roots, where the term hypocrite was used to describe someone who was play-acting like an actor playing a role, wearing a mask. In the context of a stage play, being a hypocrite was fine; it was the expected behavior. But off of the stage and in real life, play-acting is not a good idea. Especially if you are playing a role of Mr. or Mrs. Super Christian, while harboring a terrible secret: your heart really has wandered far away from God.
A man once sat through a church service and then on the way home he fussed about the sermon, he fussed about the traffic, he fussed about the heat, and he fussed about the lateness of the meal being served. Then he bowed his head and prayed. His son was watching him all the way through this post-church experience. Just as they were beginning to pass the food, he said, “Daddy, did God hear you when we left church and you started fussin’ about the sermon and the traffic and the heat?” The father blushed a little as he said “Yes, son, he heard me.” “Well Daddy, did God hear you when you just thanked him for this food right now?” “Well, yes, son, he heard me.” “So, Daddy, which one did God believe: the fussin’ or the prayin’?”
Jesus spent quite a bit of time seeking out and confronting hypocrisy in his religious culture. In the passage from Mark’s gospel today he zeroes in on those who had gone so far as to replace God’s commandments with man-made traditions. He quotes from the writings of the prophet Isaiah, saying “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”(By quoting a prophet who at that time was centuries in the past, Jesus shows that hypocrisy is not exactly a new human problem.) And he shines a spotlight on a scandal in the making: people were denying material help to their families by invoking something called Corban, which meant that they were donating everything to God—and if they were donating everything to God, that meant there was nothing left over to help, let’s say, an elderly parent. “Sorry, Dad, I know you can’t make it on your own, but I called “Corban”—everything’s going to God and there’s nothing left for you. Isn’t that religious?” Jesus deflates this man-made practice and exposes it for the violation of the 4th commandment that it is. You cannot honor your father and mother while refusing to help take care of them. This was but one example of what had been done to God’s straightforward directives; his commands to love Him more than anything, and to love and serve one’s neighbor. Layer upon layer of human tradition had made it possible to excuse yourself from serving your neighbor in the name of the One True God! Talk about play-acting!
When Jesus confronts hypocrites in the Bible, it always makes me squirm, because I’ve come to learn just how good I am at play-acting. Not only that, portions of Scripture like this one force us to look inwardly as a people; as a congregation; as a church body, and ask some painful questions. Are there things that we do that really have no basis in God’s Word at all? Could we be using nice, religious-sounding language to actually justify doing things that are contrary to the truth of God’s Word? Can we paint eloquent word pictures using a Christian vocabulary, yet hide the fact that our heart is far from God? In a word, yes—we can do all these things and more due to the corrupting nature of sin. If we’re going to have any integrity at all, we’re going to admit that our hearts are often far distant from God; that He’s often the last thing on our minds. There’s only one good move to make—and that’s to repent; to change directions, by God’s power, to tear off the hypocrite’s mask crying, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
When we are candid about our “heart problems,” the Lord Jesus Christ can begin to heal us by revealing what is in His heart. Like sheep we have gone astray, yet we have a shepherd who will stop everything to search for us until he finds us. The Almighty God opens His heart to us in Holy Scripture, telling us that He takes no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but would rather that the sinner turn from His ways and really live. The heart of Almighty God is revealed to you and me in Jesus’ mission of salvation, where the Father’s heart is broken—because His Son’s body was broken on the cross. He gave up his one and only Son—He sent Him to be hated and to suffer terribly. He sent him to Earth, to the city of Jerusalem, knowing and planning that Jesus would be crucified, to pay the once-and-for-all blood sacrifice to cancel the debt of sin. Your sin. My sin. The sins of all people. Our sins of hypocrisy and hatred. All of them wiped out, because the Father loves you so much that He gave up His own Son; because the Son loves you so much that he went through with it; because the Holy Spirit, in that same love, pulls you in to see the love of God displayed at the cross. As the famous hymn asks, “What wondrous love is this, O my soul?”
Instead of an empty shell of a religion, God wants your heart. He desires your love in return. The good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection is itself what will change your heart; the gospel itself inspires you and me to respond to God in love and praise and gratitude. And because we love God, we will want to do what pleases Him; because we love God, and He loves us, we will want to orient our lives according to His commands. Since God loved us first, we will love Him and other people, knowing that we all equally need what only God has provided through Jesus. We are all sinners who were headed for punishment until Jesus rescued us by His cross and tomb. May this knowledge strip us of all hypocrisy and inspire us with authentic love for our Savior, and authentic lives lived to glorify God. Amen.