Hypocrisy

In Tamil, a proverb says that one cannot pass gas (fart) underwater and expect not to be caught. When I worked as a pool cleaner, we always joked someone should invent a chemical that shows if someone is peeing in the pool. To my knowledge, such a chemical hasn’t been introduced to pools, plus it would embarrass a person unnecessarily.

Hypocrisy is knowing and enforcing a law but not doing it yourself. In such a case, one’s undermining of the law would be caught and be faced with the consequence of breaking that law (The Greek word for hypocrisy is a combination of upo“under” krisis “judgment”). In 1993, newly elected President Clinton nominated Zoë Baird, a judge, for the position of Attorney General, one of the highest legal posts in the government. The senate couldn’t approve her appointment because she had employed undocumented or illegal residents in her house and hadn’t paid for their social security – all violations of the laws. Hypocrisy!

The Lord Jesus said,

“Keep yourselves from the yeast of the Pharisees = hypocrisy. Nothing hidden will not be revealed, and nothing suppressed wouldn’t be declared openly. Whatever one does in the darkness will be heard in the light. What one has declared in the inner chamber of his/her house will be proclaimed from the rooftop.” (Luke 12:1–3)

Once, a comedian said that people live three lives: a public life, a private life, and a secret life. That would have been true even in Jesus’s time. People would have secretly done things contrary to the Law. A Pharisee, for example, might have grabbed a piece of bread with unwashed hands, and a Sadducee (who didn’t believe in the afterlife) might have been afraid to walk alone at night, fearing ghosts. Even an ordinary permission might have stolen a bunch of grapes from a neighbor’s vineyard or plucked a few figs off one’s boss’s grove. Whatever one did secretly and pretended that s/he had never broken the law would be proclaimed loudly. The Lord warned the disciples that hypocrisy – acting contrary to what they knew to be right – would be exposed much louder than they expected like Zoë Baird’s hypocrisy was exposed on national television for every American to see (or religious leaders’ moral and financial failure exposed publicly!).

This is one reason we should be honest and transparent with all our deals. Yes, we are all tempted to sin and will sin. But hiding our sins and pretending that we are sinless is hypocrisy, and it will be exposed someday! As a Christian leader, I fear that greatly. We live in glass houses with spectators looking at us constantly. We can’t be hypocrites – we must practice what we preach and be slow to judge others.

“If anyone is caught off-guard by a sin, those with the Spirit’s gift of gentleness restore that person while examining oneself so as not to be caught off-guard by that very sin.” (Gal 6:1)