The Authentic Person

Is everyone a hypocrite? Are we playing with life and religion? Are we wearing masks and going through the forms? What is vital Christianity? What about integrity and authenticity? Are we being honest? How much of the time are we pretending? Can we be genuine?...Can we "tell it like it is?"

Young people think the adult generation is hypocritical...two‑faced...shot full of holes. It undoubtedly is! But so will it be probably when they get older too.

It was so in Jesus' day. And Jesus was the young upstart who had the audacity to "tell it like it is"!

Jesus' followers didn't observe the rules. And they didn't I suppose, because Jesus didn't! But the rules they broke were the man‑made variety...not God's rules! When they ate, they didn't go through all the ceremonial rites, or the certain prescribed way of washing their hands. The Scribes and Pharisees asked, "Why? Why don't you go through the formula? Why don't you follow the rules? Why don't you play the game...like the rest of us?"

And Jesus caught them at it, and exposed the game they were playing. They were playing at religion. And Jesus attacked the hypocrites because they were so self‑righteously convinced of their goodness. Their blindness actually set them in opposition to God!

Everybody plays roles, and this is not necessarily bad, but as Christians, we are also subject to playing games. We make spectacular pronouncements for justice and equality and go on living as though it weren't so. We worship the Prince of Peace, and yet teach man‑made acceptance of bombing villages and people. We worship the Creator who made the earth with its abundance for all, and yet teach the doctrines of men, keeping this abundance for a few. We worship the Father of all races, and teach the commandments of mankind that tell us to keep other races in their place. The tragedy is that we are consciously sincere in these matters. but we are unconsciously insincere as well.

We are the "almost Christians" or as T.S. Eliot described it...We are the "Hollow Men"..."stuffed men...heads filled with straw, and dried voices". We live on the outside as Christians, but inside we are almost nothing at all.

The disciples followed Jesus, because he was real...genuine...authentic. The fact that he overlooked some of the man‑made traditions somehow didn't seem too important. In Jesus, they saw the kind of men they were meant to be. In his presence, they became aware of sham and hypocrisy and self‑centeredness in their own lives.

In the presence of Jesus, and the fellowship of the loving community of the Church, we can believe that we are accepted and forgiven. And with that assurance, we can be honest, drop the masks, and forget the pretend roles we feel obligated to play. And then, stripped of pretense, we become free enough to be ourselves as God made us...whole persons....no longer playing at religion, no longer counterfeits, but real, genuine, and authentic.