The ego can put on a spectacular show! It loves to talk about itself and others. The bravado it portrays very often masks the insecurity that it has, should it be found out to be lacking, inadequate and quite vulnerable. It is terrified that it will lose something if others find out that there is a chink in its armor. Very often, it runs its mouth to distract – to distract itself away from looking interiorly at the soul’s inner world and it attempts to distract others, by either talking itself up or talking others down. We all have egos. They are not ‘bad,’ they are just fearful and this can cause a lot of inner turmoil and outer violence.
Hypocrisy is one of the more colorful plumages that the ego dons. And this is precisely what Jesus is pointing to in today’s Gospel (Mt 23:1-12). And, as many times it is the case, the Pharisees seem to characterize so clearly this sense of ego-oriented hypocrisy.
“The scribes and the Pharisees
have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.
Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,
but do not follow their example.
For they preach but they do not practice.
They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry
and lay them on people’s shoulders,
but they will not lift a finger to move them.
All their works are performed to be seen.
They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.
They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues,
greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’
This is tough love on Jesus’ part. He is not saying all of this to condemn the Pharisees, but rather to draw up before their eyes (as Psalm 50 tells us) what it is that they’re really doing. Sometimes we have to be told very clearly what our behavior appears to be. The uncomfortableness and even unwillingness to see this is where the bigger problem comes in. Depending upon our demeanor and openness to being challenged, we will respond or react in different ways. We may feel humiliated and become angry, indignant, defensive, or perhaps we may take pause and really consider it. This is what takes the hard work – the challenge to follow the instructions that we hear from the Prophet Isaiah (Is 1:10, 16-20):
Hear the word of the LORD….Listen to the instruction of our God
But how do we hear the word and instruction of our God? Certainly not from each other, right? Well…should we really exclude that as a possibility? There would have to be some sort of mutual ego truce beforehand it would seem, but if we start taking seriously that Christ dwells among us, then our closest access point to God is going to always be each other. So, how do we approach one another in responsible honesty and gentle kindness? How do we receive correction from one another with honest integrity, especially when it includes hypocritical behavior? This is the inner work that we must constantly challenge ourselves toward. When confronted with someone else’s critique of our behavior, especially when it sounds quite scathing, we will many times without hesitation simply be carried over the ferocious waterfall of our gut reactions.
I wonder if we are getting a hint from the scriptures about what this inner work may involve in the second half of the Gospel:
You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers.
Call no one on earth your father;
you have but one Father in heaven.
Do not be called ‘Master’;
you have but one master, the Christ.
The greatest among you must be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;
but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
We have only one teacher, one Father, one master, the Christ. And it is the Christ that makes us all brothers and sisters. So WHO is this One Christ? Well, it may be the One coming up from behind, the humble One approaching unseen and teaching us in quite unexpected ways. What is this oneness that we all have in the humility of Christ?
The 14th Century English mystic, Julian of Norwich, may throw some light on this for us. Julian tells us that the most grievous result of our sins is that they prevent us from seeing how God sees us![i] This is a radical sounding departure from our common sense of sin as a judgement requiring punishment. If we should avoid sin because it clouds our capacity to see or blinds us from seeing ourselves as beloved, this is putting a much more positive and humble approach to brokenness. In that God never stops seeing us as beloved, even in our indignant hypocrisy, could we then surmise that the humility of Christ is precisely this divine compassion?!
Think about a time that you felt true compassion for someone. I am not talking about feeling sorry or sympathetic, but real compassion – genuine and authentic empathy that led to solidarity with another. What was it like? What were the circumstances? Did it involve someone who you thought was lost or lonely, or confused? Did it include someone who may have been acting in a very destructive manner? Did you initially feel offended and/or angry with the person? How did this feel in your heart, not just your mind?
I ask these questions because I have found that the times that I have felt most compassionate are directly tied to experiences of having compassion toward myself. This may sound strange, but it can and does happen. When it does occur, it can be likened to a sudden and graceful switch from the mind into the heart. What at first I find myself judging in another, I can sometimes – given some degree of non-reactionary openness – find that very same ‘flaw’ in myself. I realize that this person whom I am judging is acting from their own understanding and perspective and is somehow not able to appreciate another’s perspective. And I am doing the very same thing! This is the movement from the mental judging to solidarity of the heart – the BIG heart.
In the heart, there is an initial humiliation that, first, the ‘sin’ is in me too, and, secondly, I judged the other person. Now, if I can stay present with this, without slipping back into my head and into useless guilt, the humiliation can be transformed into true humility. And this true humility is Compassion, because it is seeing with God’s eyes. It is seeing myself and others through God’s eyes.
Of course, many times I get stuck at the first position of simply judging and feeling quite justified in doing so, without letting it go deeper. But when it does happen, it is a true grace, because what is essentially happening is I am experiencing how God sees me, how God sees the other, how God sees you – and I can then participate in that compassion by flowing it out – letting it flow over and through me over and through others!
That oneness that we have in Christ is the compassionate approach that does not water down the destructiveness of our hypocritical behavior, but can bring it before our heart’s eyes in a way that, if we allow, can empower us to face our brokenness with compassion rather than wielding it as a weapon, which is so often the case. The difficulty is the whole idea that we really do have to rely on one another in this whole process. We have to mirror each other in ways that don’t just pass on ego-tripping, but honestly faces up to the unworkability of tit for tat, quid pro quo life (and death) patterns.
As long as we remain in hypocritical postures, we will continue to preach without practice, because preaching by itself can only tie up heavy burdens and place them on each other’s shoulders. There is no honest sharing or authentic accountability when we do this. Practice, on the other hand, demands an environment of interaction, where deep speaks to deep, soul to soul, heart to heart connected in the one Christ, Who is the servant of humility. We must become serious about deeply practicing seeing ourselves and each other as God sees us – only then can we all be exalted in humility!
[i] Fr. John Julian, The Complete Julian of Norwich (Paraclete Press: 2009), p. 235