The Pharisees Practiced Cover-up Rather Than Disclosure

“Hi, my name is Joe, and I’m an alcoholic.” That’s first base in the Alcoholics Anonymous path of recovery. Unfortunately, it’s also an element of humility that is all too often missing in religion. One of the most common feelings among churchgoers is the disconnected sense of being with people who aren’t being real. They feel shoulder-to-shoulder but far apart from people who put on Sunday clothes and Sunday faces to go through the motions of Sunday worship. Many like it that way. Others, however, are crying out on the inside. “Wait. This isn’t right. This isn’t real. We’ve all got problems. Why can’t we admit our struggles with worry, anger, fear, envy, bitterness, shame, and lust so we can encourage and comfort and hold each other accountable?”
Jesus would agree. He said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them” (Luke 11:44).
The following story from The People’s Almanac #2 illustrates a similar problem of dishonesty: Once when Prussian King Frederick the Great visited Potsdam Prison, every convict he spoke to claimed to be innocent. Finally, he came across one man under sentence of death for stealing who simply said, “Your Majesty, I am guilty and richly deserving of punishment.” Frederick turned to the prison warden and said, “Free this rascal and get him out of our prison, before he corrupts all the noble innocent people in here.”
From God’s point of view, religious people can be like that prison community. Religious beliefs, ritual, and association often give people a way of denying their shame, guilt, and need of a savior. Instead of encouraging people to declare their inability to save themselves, religion gives people a front and cover for their unresolved problems.
Efforts to gloss over our problems with religious activity is a self-protective reaction that goes back to the beginning of human history. After our first parents sinned, they were stunned by their loss of innocence. They used fig leaves to cover themselves and fled among the trees to hide themselves from the presence of the Lord. When the Lord came into the Garden, Adam admitted that he had hidden himself because he was afraid.
People have been hiding themselves behind the trees of religious activity and behind the fig leaves of human effort ever since. Rather than humbling ourselves and admitting our need of Christ’s saving death and saving life, we try to do enough religion to compensate for our sins. In the process, we hide ourselves from Christ, who offers His mercy only to those who humble themselves in needy and broken honesty.
Tomorrow, the fifth mistake of the Pharisees.