The Whitewashed Tomb

 Some days, it feels like the world is imploding. 

Yet, here we sit, in our whitewashed tombs, thinking only of what the world outside is going to see and not concerned at all that death lies within. This morning, as I read through the Gospel of Matthew (Mat 23:27-32), these hard words struck me as particularly relevant to today's social and political climate:

"You are like whitewashed tombs....on the outside, you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing." Isn't that what Facebook is for? Grandstanding? Being right? Tearing down other human beings in an effort to gain superiority, while our brothers and sisters around us are suffering, hurting, and dying? Beautiful pictures and high ideals sweep the page while the comments ravage any contradiction in belief; and the real world outside the confines of that pretty page continues to break and despair. 

"You say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets' blood.' Thus, you bear witness against yourselves."

We are living to be right, not to spread light. We are living out of pride, which keeps us in one place, instead of humility, which allows us to be wrong and therefore, to grow. We are choosing to place our faith in political parties and factions, instead of placing our faith in God. Lack of charity, anger, and hate are spreading unchecked because instead of starting at the heart of the Gospel, with love, forgiveness, and compassion, we are the Pharisees, consumed with the law, not for the greater glory of God, but for the greater glory of ourselves. We are lying to ourselves and others. 

This isn't about non-Christians. We, who profess to be Christians, this is for US. Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians talks about those Christians who "walk in a disorderly way" (2 Thes 3:6). This disordered way turns others away from Christ.

The "nones" (those who don't believe in God) are a group that is steadily increasing in numbers in the United States, while the number who call themselves Christians steadily decrease. This isn't because society is worse now or the our current culture is somehow more evil than in the past. Society and culture have always fought with wickedness - there has always been injustice, poverty, immorality, racism, hate, slavery, etc. The truth is this: Almost every person I've encountered who rejects religion does so because of a negative experience with people of faith. They frequently cite that the Christians they know act "better than everyone else, but are just hypocrites". While I acknowledge that we all are hypocrites and that that's why we need salvation, it's also disheartening how flippant we are about such accusations. If someone is telling us that they've been turned away from God by an action of another Christian, that's a grave problem, one that we ought to try to remedy and which we can only remedy through humility.

Would I convert to Christianity or embrace it if my experience with it was like Christ's experience with the Pharisees? Let me be blunt. When I read Matthew's 23rd chapter, it stung. How many times have I professed a belief or posted a call to action and then sat silent and unmoved? How many times have I presented a false picture of my interior life so that the exterior looks like I am an exemplary (fill in the black)? It's no wonder people increasingly don't want anything to do with Christians. Human beings long for authenticity, for sincerity, for integrity, for consistency, for truth. If we are not striving for those things, then we are faith without works, dead, a rotting corpse beneath a shining stone.

The challenge, then, requires introspection.

To pray, often. (Especially this litany of humility.)

To be kind, always, in how I interact with others.

To put correction of others second always to compassion and understanding.

To earnestly seek and purify the motivation of my actions.

To recognize my own rationalizations and quell them.

To listen more than I respond.

To humbly address my own flaws and biases.

To not assume the worst of others but to engage the person first as a human being, valuable and worthy of love.

To tend towards inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness. 

To put others' feelings above my own desire to be right, and conversely, to put my own feelings second to what is objectively right for others. 

To seek healing.

To act in whatever capacity I have in corporal works of mercy. 

And to recognize that without Grace, I'm going to fail at every turn.