“Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. “But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, “so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. (Matthew 06:16-18, NKJV).
Narcissists, self-lovers, are annoying beyond words. Narcissistic do-gooders are even worse, but the worst of the lot are self-dramatizing narcissistic do-gooders. These self-trumpeters do what they do to manufacture acclaim to feed their own insatiable need to think highly of themselves. It is a vicious, downward spiral into self-absorbed oblivion and cold isolation. It is tiresome and enervating to watch, read or listen to, and can drive those forced to witness the smelly display into forehead-banging exasperation.
I'm certain God feels the same way, and worse, but being holy and righteous and never guilty of the things which He condemns, it is probably much more heart-breaking for Him than for a blockheaded narcissist like myself. And that's an incidental point about human judgment. We tend to find distasteful in others that which is pervasive in ourselves. Prideful people have a special enmity against boasters; vain people for others obsessed with their own looks and fashion.
Matthew, more than any other New Testament writer, recorded Jesus' repeated use of this word to describe His enemies. Here are some of the characteristics ascribed to them in the Gospel of Matthew and elsewhere (Mt 6:2,5,16; 7:5; 15:7; 16:3; 22:18; 23:13-15,23,25,27,29; 24:51; Mr 7:6; Lu 6:42; 11:44; 12:56; 13:15; Ga 2:13). Hypocrites are self-seeking attention-junkies, blind, undiscerning, wicked, spewers of empty words, greedy, rapacious, legalists, underminers, unclean, impure, superficial, unfeeling, power hungry, full of extortion, self-indulgent, lazy, liars, and bound for an eternity of woe and teeth-gnashing in outer darkness. Certainly not the Lord's favorite people.
One of their most egregious offenses is their manipulative use of worship and service to God solely for their own purposes, motivated by self-love rather than love for God. They perform these showy outward rituals especially in the realm of giving, prayer, and sacrifice, but in other areas, as well. In the passage above, it is the making a sensation of the self-sacrifice of fasting, but that easily encompasses all forms of insincere sacrificial service. As mentioned in previous expositions, the best preventative and remedy for this affliction is the avoidance of attention from man, and the heartfelt trusting that God will notice. Do good in secret. Give, pray and fast without drawing attention to yourself. Perform your sacrificial service as an intimate private gift to your God, and don't even think about anyone else's reaction. The result: the good you do in secret will be rewarded by your Heavenly Father openly. That is how He operates, don't you know? He delights in surprising His children by grace and lavishly showering us with gifts.
It is more than a little ironic that our natural human tendency is to do the exact opposite of this prescription. We are generally quite boisterous about our magnanimity and quite secretive about our evil. Our fallen nature has been inverted by sin. We are turned inside out, and perversely twisted in and of ourselves, and the only force in the Universe able to alter that is God Himself when He regenerates us at the moment of belief. He takes our corruption and turns it into incorruption. He miraculously makes whats is vile, pure. And don't think for a second that the cost of the transformation is cheap. It was only the substitutionary death of Christ on the Cross that makes our regeneration possible and just. "Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe…" is not just a moving lyric it is a more substantial truth than any physical law you can mention.
A final point about hypocrites - they will go to extreme lengths to disguise their true motivations. They will take great pains to appear one way while being another. They are, unsurprisingly, like "wolves in sheep's clothing." A wolf is carnivorous and his desire is to devour. So, in addition to guarding against our own deeply embedded impulse to hide our sin and deceptively advertise our good, we need discernment to recognize and avoid hypocrites in the world. This is only possible through immersion in the teachings of Jesus. He lays it all out, particularly in this lengthy discourse we call The Sermon on the Mount.
The bottom line, beloved, if something in you or someone else stinks of self, it stinks. No amount of metaphysical deodorant can cover up the putrid odor of self-aggrandizing hypocrisy. If it had a tune it would be discordant, like two adjacent piano keys pounding loudly and arrhythmically. If it were a color, it would resemble the phosphorescent hue of a rotting corpse. If it could be touched, it would feel like the ghastly cold slime of some fatal parasitic worm, and if it could be seen, it would be the horrifying emptiness of a voracious Black Hole. If you think these word pictures are hyperbole, think again. They are gleaned from the Word of God Himself.
