O You Dissembler

Dissembler. Dissembler is from a Latin word which means to conceal, hide, cover a true meaning with falsity. Dissembler. From "dis-simulare", to make unsimilar. Dissembler went out of common usage nearly 200 years ago. After the Civil War no one used the word much. But if you look up "hypocrite" in the Oxford English Dictionary "dissembler" is its closest ally, synonym, interchangeable. 

We don't call people a dissembler today. What is more the definition of hypocrite has lost the sense of hiding or concealing, the attempt to deceive. Hypocrisy today is more about double standards, "do what I say, not what I do," laws that apply to you don't apply to me that is a hypocrisy today. Hypocrisy is also the idea of conflicting beliefs. If someone believes in the death penalty, how can they claim to be "pro-life?" The inconsistency is often called hypocrisy.

              Yet the classical meaning, the ancient meaning of hypocrisy, is to conceal, to hide.  Hence when Jesus warns of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees he says, what is hidden will be revealed, what is whispered will be shouted. 

              In some ways we have made hypocrisy too much, made it a kind of verdict, a judgement. Don't be tempted by hypocrisy, in the time of Jesus, is to say, don't be false, don't create a false image.  The real warning of Jesus, the yeast of the Pharisees, is a dire thing.  We will get there.  But first we need to tone down hypocrisy so it can be seen as a part of life and not as an enormous accusation.

              One way of seeing hypocrisy as a kind of hidden truth is how we struggle with our flaws.  Each of has a limit to our character, we have past mistakes.  We hope, even if people know our flaws, we all hope they would not see such flaws as our definition.  We hope people who know us, know our misdeeds, would see us as more.  And the opposite is true.  Most people worry that without love and charity, without the grace of friendship, our flaws, weaknesses, limitations could easily define us. 

              In some organizations, think big corporations, there is an evaluation tool used to assess future leaders in a company.  It's called a “360.”  If you are going to be considered for the c-suite, you agree to be evaluated by your superiors, your peers, and the people who work for you.  They are given a set of questions and rank-able skills and then they offer anonymous critique.  All this information is gathered and then shared with the potential candidate.

              At first I thought, wow, what a powerful way of finding places to improve, unfiltered feedback.  But then I paused and I thought, unfiltered feedback could also be merciless judgment, a kind of emotional gauntlet destroying any semblance of self-esteem. Speaking to Andy, someone who had just gone through a 360, my worst fears were realized.  Andy said, "Let's just say it was pretty rough."

              What was rough was the experience of having all your flaws, all your weaknesses, all the bad habits we try to mitigate and keep at bay, all the stuff we hope is hidden, the rough parts we all have thrown at us at once, a kind of moral court where it's not a question of guilt, but how much guilt.

              When I think of the 360, I shudder.  Not because I am such a terrible person.  I shudder because I am not a sociopath.  I do care what people think; I hope to be more than the sum of my brokenness.  I would worry about the people who do not worry at all.  Hypocrisy, in the ancient sense, is this concern.  We all have flaws, but there is no need to air dirty laundry.  We all have parts we wish were better.  Hypocrisy is how much energy you waste with worry, how far you go to conceal the faults.

              The idea of all being revealed, the idea of judgment, like our understanding of hypocrisy, is not consistent with the ancient understanding.  What is hidden will be revealed, what is whispered will be shouted, in ancient times, this is the moment of judgment, the judgment seat, what the medievals called the weight of the soul.

              At the end of life the soul is weighed on a scale.  The soul was on one plate and a feather was on the other.  If the soul weighed less than a feather you were invited into the bosom of Abraham, the bliss of paradise.  If your soul weighed more than a feather, you were shown the door to eternal judgment, hellfire, suffering.  You can see this scale and the two judgments carved into the front door of medieval cathedrals in France. 

              Cathedrals usually have three doors on their western facade.  These were massive doors framed with elaborate sculpture in what is called a tympanum.  You can see a tympanum in the photo on your bulletin cover.  Each of the doors has a theme.  One side door is often reserved for Mary.  Another side door is often dedicated to the suffering and death of Jesus.  But the middle door was the door of judgment.  At the top of the door was Jesus seated sometimes with a scepter or an orb, sometimes with open hands.  Jesus is there to judge the world.

              Beneath him are the scenes of weighing the souls.  Some are welcomed to rest; some are not.  Judgment wasn't a guarantee of mercy.  What is more.  The devil and his crew are depicted as happy.  This moment of judgment is working out well for them.  "Many will be called, few will be chosen" was embodied in the statues leading into the cathedral.  If you are keeping score, the devil was winning. This was the welcome mat of the church. 

              We too have three doors leading into our sanctuary.  Like the cathedral, the middle door, the main door has a statue above it.  We too have a symbol.  We have a pineapple.  Above our main door is a pineapple.  This is a traditional image of welcome, hospitality.  The pineapple is there to encourage the stranger: you are welcome here; welcome home; come on in.  A bit of a different image than the medieval scale of judgment with the image of paradise on one side and the suffering of hell on the other.  Pineapple says, so glad you are here; the scale of judgment suggests this might not go well for you.

              How we look at judgment today is very much like the pineapple.  This is not a place of judgment. The pineapple is the image of God's embrace.  This is God's house, you are most welcome here.  This is much nicer messaging than the tympanum of a medieval cathedral.  It's nicer, but it also makes what Jesus teaches to the disciples hard to understand, hard to hear.  What Jesus is teaching about hypocrisy and its revelation in judgment is not something we fear.  We don't fear the judgment of God. 

              I could be wrong about this, but it seems the less and less we fear the judgment of God, the more we have taken to judging one another.  Here, this is a place of forgiveness and mercy and acceptance.  Our mission statement as a church is just that: we seek to embrace all.  We proclaim God loves all.  Yet are we not living in a time where the harsh critique, scathing review, anonymous diatribe has become more and more our common talk.  It is as if, well, if God's not going to judge, then someone must.

              Last year a young author published her second novel.  The title of the book is Hypocrite. The story is about a daughter who writes a play about her father who was writing a book and the play is about how his novel is very sexist and cowardly. And not just this book, but all his novels are part of what makes life hard for women today.  The novel describes how this play was produced in London and she invites him to watch it.  The play depicts the month they spent together in Sicily when she was seventeen and he was at the peak of his career. 

              The novel is not so much a description of what it means to be a hypocrite or the classical definition of hypocrisy as what is concealed.  The novel is about exposing hypocrisy, being the one who pulls back the curtain and reveals the flaws of another.  The exposing of hypocrisy has two levels in the story.  One is the tension of generations.  Every new generation believes their parents' generation are the cause of their woes; each older generation believes the younger generation is the ruin of all they built.  This is true to life. 

              The second level is betrayal.  It is one thing to rail against a generation, it is quite another to expose a parent, a friend, someone with whom there should be trust.  On this second level, the author, Jo Hayma, casts a light into our shadows.  This need to expose, the need to reveal, the need to call out hypocrisy, to uncover what is hidden may be too much for us to handle.  It is one thing to speak to a generation, to history, to culture, where your critique, your diatribe may be seen as savvy or courage; but it is quite another thing when your judgment is leveled at a loved one. The result may be just as awful as the hypocrisy you meant to reveal.

              When Jesus speaks to the disciples, he doesn't warn them of hypocrisy, he warns them of the yeast of the Pharisees.  The yeast of the Pharisees is a place of ruin.  The Pharisees, be it by greed or vanity or power, the Pharisees have been completely corrupted as yeast leavens the whole loaf.  The hypocrisy of the Pharisees is complete because they cannot be wrong, and they must be certain.  In this they have lost the key to wisdom: the ability to learn from mistakes and the humility of living without certainty.  Jesus says, beware of this.

              In the classic sense, hypocrisy is simply a place of worry, a common struggle to be more than your misdeeds, to risk transparency with humility.  Here we lean on friends and loved ones who do not define us by our flaws.  This is a healthy part of self-esteem.  You do not need me to explain the balance of flaw and virtue. Nor do you need me to explain betrayal.  Yet, what I wonder is this: how about the yeast?

              In the absence of God's judgment, have we fallen to the temptation of certainty, belligerent judgment?  We are in a sea of clashing definitions each more shrill and absolute than the other.  Are we not in a battle seeking to out-expose the faults of others?  This works on the internet, in the paper, the short video clip.  We can and do drag people to the scales of judgment we have created. But no good has come of this.

              I like the pineapple.  The scale in the tympanum of the cathedral was not a comfort.  Yet, in the absence of God's judgment, are we not taking on this role, this place of decision for one another?  The voices of judgment today are so certain, so beyond humility.  The light that shines into the darkness, the light Jesus speaks of, this was reserved for God, for a judgment seat beyond this life.  He did not bid his disciples to cast such a light; nor to be such a scale.

              The yeast of the Pharisees is when you can no longer be wrong and what you believe must be absolute and certain.  We may feel the need to judge today.  We may be tempted to weigh souls.  But we must remember, we lack the depth of God's mercy.  We approach the mercy seat; we do not sit upon it.  Amen.