I do believe some of us, if not all, have run into someone who becomes a friend for a while, helps you out, but all of a sudden something happens, and you realize the person you thought you knew is not actually that person at all. The saying goes; “Not all that glitters is gold” People can seem one way on the outside but are completely different underneath. For those who have experienced betrayal, it speaks to the fact that people can mask cruel ambitions behind loyal faces.
In the gospel today, Jesus accuses the religious leaders of hypocrisy, comparing them to “whitewashed tombs” – outwardly beautiful, but inwardly full of decay, dead bones. How they appear to others does not correspond to reality in their lives. There is a disconnect between the outside and the inside. They care more about having presented a good image and reputation while having neglected the unclean inner life. They honor God with their pious life, yet they mask a hardened heart.
For Jesus, true beauty and goodness come from within not without. A clean heart that is set on God and his way of love and goodness is what matters most not deceptive, loyal external performances. Jesus is calling on the Pharisees and all of us to examine our hearts in the light of his teachings, his gospel values as we strive for holiness. We need to desist from being actors or imposters who say one thing but do the opposite, or who put on an outward appearance of doing good while inwardly clinging to wrong attitudes, selfish desires and ambitions or bad intentions. That is what the religious leaders, the Pharisees had mastered well, publicly putting on a good show of outward zeal and piety with the intention of winning greater honors, privileges, and favors among people.
We all have a “Pharisee” within us, because naturally none of us wants to look bad. We want to be esteemed, complimented positively, or appreciated, or appear competent in what we are doing. Be it in raising a good family, at place of work, or even within the church community. This is natural and normal; however, we also may try to hide the vulnerable and fearful side of ourselves. We may try to hide what we consider our “dead bones and filth”. Inherently creating a wall around us that keeps people from knowing who really, we are.
Jesus is addressing us as hypocrites too. We need and indeed must constantly take an inward journey to strive and be in touch with our real self.
Doing so will enable us to shade off wrong attitudes, selfish desires and ambitions, or bad intentions.
Jesus is inviting us to be genuine, authentic in the way we live our faith.
Jesus looks for openness and honesty, a harmony between who we are and how we appear to others.