ILLUSION!

Late last year, I was in the Boston area for a theological conference and stayed with friends from my derm residency days in yon fair city. Being the frigid zone that that metropolis was (and is), I had on a jacket that I promptly divested when I got to my friends’ place. Equally promptly, their daughter, Katy donned it.

(Hard to believe that only yesterday—i.e., eleven+ paltry years ago—I was celebrating Katy's birth with her parents and extended family and friends! I am getting old. I think it was babysitting her that aged me. [Sorry, Miss Kates!])

Anyhow, there she is, almost twelve. Petite Katy, looking portly in a vastly oversized jacket. And she is, you know, a lot taller than she looks in the picture. The young lassie is actually kneeling on her Dad’s bedroom slippers. Such a ham! But quite a cool illusion.

Illusion.

Far too often, Christian life turns out to be a mask we put on. Looking like someone we are not. It’s easy to attach WWJD to my wrist, a cross to my neck, and a fish to my bumper. It’s easy for us church goers, evangelical stalwarts, theological aces, to look pious and sanctimonious. It’s particularly easy for seminary profs. Easy for the sacred to become profane in our hearts.

Jesus’ most scathing denunciations were directed at those of this ilk—the engineers of illusion, a.k.a. “hypocrites!”

“You hypocrites,
rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you:
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far away from me.’”
Matthew 15:7–8

Is our Christian life a façade? Is it like that in our heart of hearts? A veneer of spirituality, but rottenness inside? “Whitewashed tombs with bones inside,” Jesus called them.

Illusions are meant to deceive. “We are who we are not” is what it announces to God who sees our hearts. Adulterated spirituality. While we might even fool all the people all the time, one Person is not taken in.

And there is no creature
hidden from His sight,
but all things are open
and laid bare to the eyes of Him
with whom we have to do.
Hebrews 4:13

For those of us tempted to cast illusions, the discipline of secrecy, Jesus says, is healthy.

“So when you give to the poor,
do not sound a trumpet before you,
as the hypocrites do …,
so that they may be honored by men. …
But when you give to the poor,
do not let your left hand know
what your right hand is doing,
so that your giving will be in secret;
and your Father who sees
what is done in secret will reward you.”
“When you pray,
you are not to be like the hypocrites;
for they love to stand
and pray in the synagogues
and on the street corners
so that they may be seen by men. …
But you, when you pray,
go into your inner room,
close your door and
pray to your Father who is in secret,
and your Father who sees
what is done in secret will reward you.”
“Whenever you fast,
do not put on a gloomy face
as the hypocrites do, …
so that they will be noticed by men ….
But you, when you fast,
anoint your head and wash your face
so that your fasting
will not be noticed by men,
but by your Father who is in secret;
and your Father who sees
what is done in secret will reward you.
Matthew 6:2–4, 5–6, 16–18

No more illusions! We are going to be the real thing!