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Religious Hypocrisy...There May Be More Than Meets The Eye
Mark 12: 38-44
November 12, 2006
While reflecting on today's gospel lesson this past week, the name Ted Haggard popped into my mind, and I found myself wondering whether there was any connection between today's lesson and Haggard, the former President of the National Association of Evangelicals, who stepped down recently because of allegations that he visited a male prostitute.
After the news hit the airwaves just before the mid-term election, I detected a bit of gloating and glee among some liberals. Some web sites and commentators celebrated Haggard's downfall, hoping it would help the Democrats in the election by exposing a prominent leader of the Christian Right as a hypocrite.
At first, I too thought Haggard's behavior was a case of religious hypocrisy. But the more I thought about it, and the more I reflected on today's gospel lesson, the more I realized that religious hypocrisy may not be the best lens through which to look at Haggard's situation.
Haggard has admitted to "sexual immorality." In a written statement to his church he said, "there is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring about it for my entire life."
Some evangelicals responded by calling Haggard's behavior a "personal tragedy," the tragedy being that Haggard may be gay or have homosexual tendencies that he has not managed to overcome.
Haggard will receive intensive pastoral counseling at the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California, and the First Assembly of God in Phoenix, Arizona. More specifically, he will undergo "full, long-time, therapeutic restoration." "Therapeutic restoration" is an evangelical counseling process that attempts to turn gay and lesbian men and women into heterosexuals.
And herein may lay the possible tragedy of Ted Haggard's life.
This is all pure speculation on my part, but let's speculate for a second.
What if Ted Haggard is a gay man? It is certainly not out of the realm of possibility.
What if Ted Haggard was a gay child, a gay teenager, a gay young man raised in a religious environment that taught him that homosexuality was a sin--that homosexuality was an abomination to God, an abomination for which God would judge him and punish him if he did not repent and change. What if he came to believe that homosexuality was so repulsive and so dark, he ended up at war with himself his entire life.
What if this on-going war with himself--his never-ending efforts to deny his sexual orientation, to repress his true identity, to cover up who he was by trying to be someone else--what if these ceaseless efforts drove him to become a leader in the very religious movement that insisted his desire to share love with another man was sinful and repulsive?
And what if, when he could not rid his life of his natural sexual orientation, he expressed it secretly and illicitly?
And got caught.
Now, to atone for his "sin" of acting out his repressed nature, he must publicly denounce it as repulsive and dark, and submit to a so-called "therapy" that will press him even further to repress and bury who he is.
Like I said, I have no idea whatsoever whether Ted Haggard is gay or not. If he is gay, I think his situation is truly tragic.
Tragic because his religion cannot allow him to accept himself, and love himself as he is. Tragic because his religion cannot allow him to believe that God loves and accepts him as he is. Tragic because his condemnation of gay and lesbian men and women has brought so much pain into the lives of other people.
If he is gay, I can only hope that somehow he ends up in a church where people tell him loud and clear--its OK to be gay. God loves you. There is no sin in being gay. The only therapy you need to undergo is to learn to love and accept yourself for who you are, and to find a healthy, loving relationship where you can truly be yourself.
In a way, whether Ted Haggard is gay or not doesn't really matter. Whether he is or not, it is abundantly clear that he is suffering from some kind of profound turmoil in his life. There is some kind of emptiness or insecurity deep within him that has driven him to seek out a male prostitute and illegal drugs. There is some kind of spiritual malaise deep in his heart and soul.
Simply writing him off as a religious hypocrite is too simplistic and superficial, and it doesn't get to the root of what is really going in his life.
Reflecting on Ted Haggard this week helped me look at the scribes in today's gospel lesson in a new way--not just as hypocrites, but as people with something else going on their lives.
First off, notice that today's lesson follows last week's lesson, in which Jesus identified the greatest commandment in the Law as love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as your self.
Another key injunction of the Jewish Law, one that Jesus practiced continuously in his own ministry, is care for the most vulnerable. Specifically, the Law calls on people to care for the widow and the orphan.
In Jesus' day, scribes were the experts in Jewish Law. The true scholars. If anybody was expected to know the Law and practice it correctly, it was the scribes.
The author of Mark's Gospel sets the scribes up as a bunch of religious hypocrites. In Mark's portrayal of the scribes, they are thoroughly absorbed with themselves. Self-centered through and through. Engaged in the most crass forms of self-promotion--puffing themselves up, drawing attention to themselves, seeking recognition, craving flattery.
Worst of all, they devour widows.
What does this mean?
When a woman's husband died, she could not take possession of her husband's land. If the husband had no son or male relative to posses the land, it was entrusted to a scribe, who administered the land on the widow's behalf. Mark accuses the scribes of ripping the widows off--using the widow's land to make money for themselves.
Under the veil and protection of their religion, which holds as its highest values loving God, loving your neighbor, and protecting the widow, Mark's Jesus finds the scribes guilty of self-adoration and stealing from their neighbor, the vulnerable widow.
Instead of loving God and loving their neighbor as themselves, the scribes simply love themselves. Period.
With all their heart, mind, soul, and strength, the scribes love themselves.
Or do they?
That's the question I asked myself this week.
Do they really love themselves? In the truest, healthiest, most spiritual meaning of love--do they love themselves?
Is their super-egotistical brand of self-adoration, of putting themselves first, of promoting their interests and desires at the expense of others, of stealing from those who are the easiest to take advantage of--is this truly a manifestation of loving oneself, in the way Jesus or God desires us to love ourselves. Is there any evidence of self-love, or self-respect in these actions?
Or is this super-egotistical self-adoration--this need to puff oneself up, demand recognition, crave flattery, and prey on vulnerable people--a manifestation of a deep emptiness within? A deep insecurity? A deep and profound spiritual malaise?
The simple way of looking at the scribes as Mark portrays them is to see a bunch of religious hypocrites. They say one thing and do another. They give the appearance of upholding the Law while turning it on its head.
But I suspect there is more going on inside these men. I think there is a tragic element to them. I think they are spiritually empty and insecure. I think they are suffering from some kind of spiritual malaise.
They live under the false illusion that they are filled up with the good life and that they are really somebody--they have the choice seats, public adoration, religious legitimation, and some good money coming in on the side from the widow's land--but in reality they are spiritually empty. Everything they build their lives on is meaningless according to the life Jesus reveals. Everything they have, and everything they want, is everything Jesus says we must get rid of in our lives.
There is no authentic spiritual joy or love in what they do, in how they live their lives. Deep down, somewhere inside, whether they know it or not, they are hurting, and they are longing for a connection to that authentic source of joy and love. Their illusory fullness is in reality a manifestation of an inner emptiness.
Ted Haggard and the scribes are religious leaders accused of hypocrisy--of preaching one thing and doing another, of pretending to be one thing and being another. Hypocrisy is one of the easiest things to detect, judge, and condemn in other people, and I think we derive a certain satisfaction from exposing others as hypocrites.
This is especially the case with people whom we don't like. Exposing our adversaries as hypocrites can be especially satisfying. I must confess, there was a part of me that enjoyed, just for a second, hearing the news that Ted Haggard was caught with a male prostitute. Hypocrite!
But I would caution us to resist quick judgment and condemnation, and to resist that little twinge of glee we may feel when our adversaries are exposed and fall from grace. I would ask that instead, we show a little compassion, even to our adversaries, and reflect on the possibility that a great and painful tragedy may be unfolding in their lives.
We cannot underestimate the lengths people will go to hide, deny, or over-compensate for the emptiness, pain, and turmoil deep within their lives.
The lengths highly insecure people will go to create an identity for themselves and trumpet to the world how great they are, how deserving of recognition they are, and how entitled they are to the best of everything.
The lengths spiritually empty and starving people will go to appear holy, and righteous, and certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that their view of God is the one and only correct one.
We cannot underestimate the havoc people can wreak in other people's lives as they go about over-compensating, building themselves up, and acting holier than thou.
It really can feel good to expose them as hypocrites.
But, nor can we underestimate the degree to which we ourselves do all of this in our own lives, and the ways we ourselves may be open to the charge of hypocrisy as other people look at us.
We need to look deeper than the outer behavior, and try to be a bit more understanding of what is really going on, as we would hope people would look more deeply at us and try understand what is going on in our lives when our words and deeds don't quite match up.
We need to remember that the final word from the gospel is not the charge of hypocrisy, but the offering of forgiveness and the possibility of a new life, a life healed and reconciled deep within.
That is what I pray for Ted Haggard in his life, and for each and every one of us--true, authentic healing and reconciliation at the very depths of our lives.
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