I am a Hypocrite

"I am not offering you Christians, I am offering you Christ." -Dr Akbar Haqq 

I was talking with someone today and talk turned to religion, or rather, Christianity.  The person to whom I was speaking said that she and her husband avoided church because of the hypocrisy.  This charge, so often leveled against the church by non-believers, weighed heavily on me most of the day.  It weighed upon me because it seems so damning.  And because it is true. 

You see, the church is full of people who pretend to be virtuous, but really aren't.  I am one of them.  Though I cling to grace, I am too often impressed with my own "virtue."  Every day, I forget what a wretch I am, that I am utterly hopeless.  The natural consequence of my own arrogance is that I subsequently expect other people to measure up to me.  In other words, I am a hypocrite. 

My initial thought was to say to her "not all Christians are hypocrites!", but I suppose we are.  Christians have done terrible things in the name of Christ.  David did commit adultery.  Luther, one of the greatest theologians in history, did write caustically against Jews.  I have judged myself by a different standard than I have judged others.  I recently heard it put this way by radio host Bob Lepine, "when we look at the sins of others, we look through the small end of a spyglass, but when we look at our own sins, we turn it around and look through the big end." 

I am left in the same place that I always am when it comes to questions of faith--at the foot of the cross.  Rather than defending myself, or my actions, I humbly admit that we Christians are not always consistent with our faith but, praise be to God, it is Christ's finished work, not my behavior that saves me from my sin.  From now on, I pray that God allows me to use the charge of hypocrisy not as a road to defensiveness, but instead a doorway to talk about the grace of Christ. 

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. -1 Corinthians 2:1-5