Our Hypocrisies

Nevertheless, we also have to be on guard against our natural and sometimes quite reasonable inclination turning into un-Christian behavior. Family may be a good example of how this might work: those in my family don't all look like me. Some, for example, are adopted. We aren't even all of the same race. Members of my family don't all act like me (to which some of them are going to respond "thank goodness!"). They don't all think like me or sound like me or dress like me. Some of us have tattoos and some don't. Some are LDS and some are not.

Yet when we come together for a family meal or a family reunion, we come together as family. We come together, not in spite of our differences, but with our differences. At least in principle, we come together because we love one another, and in honor of that love we ignore the distinctions that we could use to differentiate amongst ourselves.

I have inserted "at least in principle" to mark the fact that the ideal is difficult. This is a no place for Pollyanna. Yet neither is it a place for pessimism and giving up. The ideal ought to guide our relations as a family, and those familial relations ought to be the guide for our relations to one another in congregations and communities.

To the degree they are not, we remain hypocrites, saying what Jesus commanded us to say, believing what he commanded us to believe, but not doing what he has commanded us to do. As long as there are those who do not join with us in worship because they do not feel welcome, we have to suspect that we are guilty of hypocrisy. The same is true as long as there are those who cannot be our friends if they do not worship with us.

In the Book of Mormon, Nephi 1 us promises the Holy Ghost if we will live without hypocrisy:

If ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism—yea, by following your Lord and your Savior down into the water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost; yea, then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can ye speak with the tongue of angels, and shout praises unto the Holy One of Israel. (2 Ne 31:13) 

To the degree that we continue to live in hypocrisy, we continue to live without the full blessings of the Holy Spirit. We cannot worship fully until we give up our hypocrisies, even those of which we are unaware.