Our Lord begins today with:
“Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”
Leaven is a very good image.
You put a tiny amount into the dough, leave it alone, and before long it has got everywhere.
Hypocrisy works rather like that. It begins very small.
You do not quite say what you really think.
You make yourself look slightly better than you are.
You tell the story in a way which, by a remarkable coincidence, leaves you looking extremely reasonable.
And after a while you can have two versions of yourself.
The actual one. And the public-relations department.
The difficulty is that God never deals with the public-relations department.
Jesus says: “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed.”
Which sounds terrifying.
Until you realise something rather obvious: God already knows.
He is not going to reach the Last Judgement and say:
“Good heavens. I had no idea.”
He knows the bits we hide.
He knows why we really said it.
He knows that sometimes what we call “prudence” was cowardice, and what we call “being honest” was simply enjoying telling somebody exactly what we thought of them.
God is not easily fooled.
This is excellent news, because it means we can stop trying.
And then Jesus says something extraordinarily tender.
Even the hairs of your head are numbered.
Some of us are making that task easier for Him every year.
But the point is serious.
The God who sees everything also knows us intimately.
He does not expose us because He enjoys catching us out.
He wants us free from pretending.
Saint Paul says that in Christ we have been “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.”
A seal tells you who something belongs to.
That answers a question we spend a ridiculous amount of life trying to answer in other ways.
Who am I?
Well, perhaps if enough people admire me, I will know.
Perhaps if I have the right job.
Perhaps if people think I am clever.
Perhaps if everybody approves.
This is exhausting, because everybody has different opinions and, inconveniently, some of them are wrong.
Baptism gives a much simpler answer: I belong to Christ.
Saint Hedwig had wealth, rank and position.
She was a duchess.
There must have been plenty of opportunities to be impressed with herself.
Yet she became known for her care of the poor and, after her husband’s death, entered the Cistercian monastery she had helped to found.
She discovered that being important and being holy are not the same thing.
History contains quite a lot of evidence for this.
Saint Margaret Mary lived a completely different life.
She entered the Visitation order and became closely associated with devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
She also knew misunderstanding and opposition.
Which proves something else useful:
entering a convent does not remove difficult people.
It merely puts them indoors.
But Margaret Mary kept returning to the Heart of Christ.
A duchess and a cloistered nun.
One surrounded by rank.
One enclosed in a monastery.
Both learnt the same thing: other people’s approval makes a very poor god.
And yet we worship it constantly.
What will they think?
Will I look foolish?
Will somebody think I am too religious?
Will I have to explain why I go to Mass?
Jesus says: “Do not fear those who kill the body.”
Most of us are not facing martyrdom this afternoon.
We are frightened somebody might raise an eyebrow.
And sometimes that is enough.
Christ offers something much better than living by raised eyebrows.
God knows you.
Christ has redeemed you.
The Holy Spirit has marked you as His own.
So there is no need to manufacture a respectable version of yourself for God.
He has already met the original.
Saint Hedwig could let go of status.
Saint Margaret Mary could live without everybody understanding her.
Because both knew where their worth came from.
Not from applause.
Not from reputation.
From God.
Once you know whose you are, the audience becomes much smaller.
In fact, ultimately, there is only One whose judgement matters.
