Luke 12: 1-3 Into the Light

Luke 12: 1-3 Into the Light

Meanwhile, so many people were crowding together that they were trampling one another underfoot. He began to speak, first to his disciples, "Beware of the leaven--that is, the hypocrisy--of the Pharisees. "There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops.

Maybe it’s just me but I hear Jesus speaking against hypocrisy a lot. How do I define hypocrisy? My off the cuff definition would be – saying one thing in public and doing another thing in private. At its most basic it is lying, but even more foolishly, it is not just lying to others but to yourself. The first is bad enough – it could involve abuse, manipulation, fraud, cheating, etc. But the second – lying to yourself – is even worse. If you lie to yourself you are really lost – in false pride, in delusions, in ignorance. If you cannot even admit to yourself your true motives and situation, how will you ever straighten your life out? In this scripture, Jesus sounds a warning saying that everything hidden will be made known and everything we say and do in the “dark” will be brought out into the daylight. That should give all of us “pause”. It’s not easy to look at our lives in “full daylight” and then seek God’s mercy. In spreading the good news about the Kingdom, Jesus always asked his listeners to start with themselves, to look at themselves, and repent. This seemed to be a necessary first step to moving forward. We are all going to arrive at that moment of facing up to ourselves, to our actions and intentions sooner or later. Unfortunately, such a moment is not a once in a lifetime event but the first of many. Struggling is part of the human condition. And it’s an ongoing condition. I think Jesus knows this and doesn’t give up on us. It’s the hypocrisy that he has no patience for.