“The greatest among you must be your servant.

(Matthew 23;11-12)

When you have done all you have been commanded, say,
‘We are unprofitable servants;
we have done what we were obliged to do.’”

(Luke 17:10)

         Hypocrisy is an interesting phenomenon to talk about. It is an automatic trap or problem area for anyone who gives direction to others: priests, ministers, teachers, parents, legislators, anyone showing leadership of others. In our case, it is anyone who chooses to do something good that others see, and therefore anyone understands the importance of God in our lives. For whatever reason, we say to the world: “I believe in God through Jesus Christ.” We must listen to Jesus in the Gospel today. It is possible to say ‘I believe’, and not put it into practice.

         We should be very interested in what we say in Church. We say strong words during the service, words like, we believe, we will, we do. We must truly listen to what we say and do. We receive the Lord in the words of the Gospel and in the Eucharist. How can someone receive the Lord and with the same mouth tear down someone else or allow foul language to come out of it? How can someone receive the Lord and continue a life-style that makes a shambles of a marriage or parenting? How can we miss the sacredness of life itself by being bitter and angry most of the time? Or refusing to see the good in life?

         How?—according to Jesus, we have allowed religion to be nothing more than something to be seen or performed.

         What’s the antidote to hypocrisy, how do we stay away from it? The Gospel gives us that as well. Jesus says:

         The greatest among you must be your servant.

Service—we have heard that before from Jesus, in fact a number of times. The way to keep ourselves from the hypocrisy of saying one thing and doing another is to work on behalf of others. Serve people, give to them without expecting anything in return, make others feel important because they are—really.

         By the very fact that we say we believe in God, we are making a statement to the world outside. We must realize that we could be hypocrites… or if we carry through, we could be people who are helping this world.