One Christmas during high school, I received a giant Hershey's Chocolate Kiss from a Secret-Santa gift exchange. Not wanting to eat the whole thing myself, I decided to share with my old man and told him where I was hiding the chocolate from my sisters in the closet. Every now and then when one of us was having a craving we would find the chocolate, take a bite, and return it to its hiding place.
A few months later after school, I pulled down the box and went to take a bite of the diminishing piece of chocolate...and I noticed a piece of grass.
Dear old dad had finished the last of our chocolate. But filled with one part guilt, nine parts dark-Heidtbrink-humor, he had decided to find a replacement: a clod of dirt from outside, in which he artfully pressed his fingernails to resemble teeth marks.
Funny, but no matter how hard we try to disguise something by placing it in a strategic location or with the appropriate wrapping...the nature of that thing does not change. A clod of mud wrapped in aluminum foil...is still a clod of mud.
Religious people have always tried to disguise themselves by being in the right locations, saying the right words, and doing the right actions. But location, words, and actions don't change what's inside.
One of my favorite 'Jesus moments' emphasizes this point. Jesus, sick of religious hypocrisy, tells a whole crowd of right-place, right-word, right-action people that their hearts are ugly...in fact he refers to them as "white-washed tombs" (flawless on the outside but filled with rot and death on the inside.) "Blind people," He says to them, "First make sure the inside of the cup is clean, then also the outside will be clean."
In reverse, a piece of chocolate lying on pavement does not magically turn into a clod of dirt. Being honest about our lives, often leaves us exposed and vulnerable. We may find ourselves open to the judgment or ridicule of others.
I love meeting the chocolate-on-pavement kind of people, because those people are real. They're the kind of people whose sweetness is not deceiving, but brave and pure.
Well said, Tiff! Non-Christians are put off by the hypocrisy of those of us who claim to be Christians...sadly, I fall into that category (of being a self-righteous hypocrite) more than I would like...and when His light does shine through me, it's the work of His Spirit working in me in spite of who I am.
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