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Welcome
Prelude
Opening words and chalice lighting:  Russian proverb

Go --not knowing where.
Bring -- not knowing what.
The path is long, the way unknown.


Unison words
Song # 389  Gathered Here   (Philip Porter)
Not for Children Only
Meditation
Joys and Sorrows
Offering and Offertory

Has anyone ever called you a hypocrite? Stings, doesn't it? Kind of embarrassing, isn't it -- to be caught saying one thing and doing another? To be found to be a crow wearing peacock feathers? According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, hypocrisy is "a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess, and a pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude." Ralph Waldo Emerson said "Every man" (and I add every person) "alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins." The word comes from the Old French, by way of Latin, by way of Greek. (www.etymonline.com) It meant to play a part, to pretend, to act, stemming from the words krinein, to sift or separate, and the prefix upo, meaning under, underneath, sometimes connoting secretly Hypocrite, then, is one who separates him/herself with one part outward and the other underneath, hidden. Do as I say, not as I do. By that standard, are we not all hypocrites at one time or another?

To deem someone a hypocrite is to pass a moral judgement. We mean that such a person deliberately deceived us by espousing one morality publicly and acting according to a different morality privately. Examples of such people are not hard to find. Take John Edwards, for instance, the one time Democratic nominee for Vice President and most recently candidate for the presidential nomination. He certainly led us to admire his relationship with his family, his children, his cancer-stricken wife. We trusted him as a devoted family man. Only later did we learn about his affair and fathering of a child with another woman. Is he a hypocrite? Take Idaho Republican senator Larry Craig, arrested in an airport for solicitation in a men's room. Larry Craig campaigned on a family values platform, one which was decidedly anti-gay. At first Craig claimed his innocence, citing that he simply had what he called a "wide stance" in the stall. He did eventually plead guilty and similar past allegations about his conduct have come to light since. Craig led the public, and perhaps his party, to believe that he considered homosexuality a sin. Yet it seems that more than once he engaged, or sought to engage, in homosexual behavior. Is he a hypocrite?

Not all hypocrisy has to do with sex. Take my generation, baby boomers. Known for sex, drugs and rock'n roll. Known for LSD, marijuana, hashish, speed, mescaline, and other illegal drugs. I lived in Boulder, Colorado during those years and I remember how easy it was to get drugs and how just about every person I knew used them, including myself. I remember. At the same time, what do I tell my young adult son about the use of drugs? I remember, and I cringe at some of the memories. I would not want him to follow in my footsteps here. This is a do as I say, not as I did at your age. Am I a hypocrite? Why is it so difficult sometimes for we humans to walk our talk? Why do we want to be perceived as having a certain moral character that we cannot or do not live up to? I think many of us fall into this at one time or another. It's easy to pass judgement and say that someone is a hypocrite. It even makes us feel a bit morally superior. The deeper question is why does this happen, over and over again? And what can we do about it? And what harm ensues when we split off from ourselves, when we act one way and talk another?

A 2007 Time magazine article, "The Psychology of Hypocrisy," (www.time.com Thursday September 6, 2007), suggests that behavior we call hypocrisy might, at times, more properly be understood as moral weakness. It says, "Hypocrisy is among the most universal and well-studied of psychological phenomena, and the research suggests that (Larry) Craig, . . . and . . . others may be guilty not so much of moral hypocrisy as moral weakness. The distinction may sound trivial at first, but as a society, we tend to forgive the weak and shun the hypocritical. As psychologists . . . have shown, we often use a simple temporal cue to distinguish between the weak and the hypocritical: if you say one thing and then do another, you are much less likely to be forgiven than if you do one thing and then say another. . . . (A) radio host says on-air that he's joining a fitness organization but then eats pizza for a week and gains five pounds. Hypocrite! Now consider the reverse order: the host eats pizza for a week and then publicly joins a fitness group. (Jamie Barden of Howard University, Derek Rucker of Northwestern and Richard Petty of Ohio State) "In each case, the psychologists wrote. . .'the statements and behaviors are equally inconsistent.' But we see something almost noble about the second scenario." (2005 paper in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin) The person who exhibits what the researchers call moral weakness, who acts in a way that could be understood as morally questionable, or at the least unwise, and then proclaims a different ethic, is, by implication, acknowledging the inconsistencies between his/her actions and his/her words and attempting to take corrective measures to bring words and deeds back into congruence.

The difference here is that the hypocrite, the one who says one thing and does another, both benefits from and does not acknowledge the discrepancy between his/her words and his/her behaviors. Because he/she benefits, we assume that there is a conscious awareness and decision to deceive. Larry Craig pled guilty in 2007 and even after the plea he maintained his innocence. John Edwards vociferously denied fathering a child until January of 2010, when the child was almost two years old. Hypocrisy has moral problems due to its sifting, separating nature. As when we sift flour, something stays in the sifter, something falls into the bowl but the two remain separate. If we do not acknowledge that our words and our deeds contradict one another while we consciously allow ourselves to benefit from the contradiction, then perhaps the term hypocrite applies. At the same time, questions have been raised about the level of consciousness in hypocrisy. Many people cannot fully consciously betray and deceive one another, cannot fully consciously present themselves as one thing while behaving secretly as another. The Time article goes on to say, "In the 1950s, Stanford psychologist Leon Festinger famously used the term cognitive dissonance to describe the discomfort we feel when our behaviors don't align with our beliefs. Festinger found that people will go to great lengths to reduce dissonance. In one well-known experiment, those who had been asked to falsely claim that a boring task--placing spools on a tray, for instance--was fun were later found to have persuaded themselves that the task really was fun. They had crossed over from hypocrisy to something more pathetic: self-deception."

Is it so that few people remain in the hypocritical position of knowingly deceiving others, of knowingly claiming an ethic they do not apply in their lives? In an attempt to ease the cognitive dissonance, we rationalize all sorts of behaviors. For example, staying up at night to have emotionally intense connections with others online while our spouse remains unaware of our actions and telling ourselves that no harm is done, no danger exists to the relationship because we're not having physical contact. Or, to ease the cognitive dissonance we lie to ourselves about what we are doing; we split off from ourselves and we turn a blind eye. We are a trusted son or daughter with access to our parents' bank account and, without telling them, we take some cash from it, in a time of need, fully intending to write a check for it. But then we delay our repayment and we use the cash anyway. Eventually we do write the check. But we never admit to our parents or ourselves that we took money that did not belong to us and used it for a time before we repaid it. We never admit that. Or we attempt to resolve the cognitive dissonance by denying the consequences of our actions or hiding behind good intentions. I didn't mean it, so whatever harm I caused somehow does not count. Or we judge ourselves more leniently than we judge others. " . . . a recent study presented people with two tasks. One was described as tedious and time-consuming; the other, easy and brief. The subjects were asked to assign each task to either themselves or the next participant. They could do this independently or defer to a computer, which would assign the tasks randomly.Eighty-five percent of 42 subjects passed up the computer's objectivity and assigned themselves the short task – leaving the laborious one to someone else.. Furthermore, they thought their decision was fair. However, when 43 other subjects watched strangers make the same decision, they thought it unjust." (Robin Nixon, Special to LiveScience, 07 July 2008 www.livescience.com)

Daniel Statman writes, "Hypocrites are generally regarded as morally-corrupt, cynical egoists who consciously and deliberately deceive others in order to further their own interests. The purpose of my essay is to present a different view. I argue that hypocrisy typically involves or leads to self-deception and, therefore, that real hypocrites are hard to find. . . . If my thesis is sound, we ought to be more cautious in ascribing hypocrisy to people, and less harsh in our attitude toward hypocrites." (Philosophical Psychology, Volume 10, Issue 1 March 1997, pages 57 - 75)

How often has any of us failed to live up to our ethical ideals? We know what it is not to follow our own moral beliefs and how uncomfortable and full of shame that can feel. We know what it is to benefit from the good opinion of others, and we know how it feels when we do not think we deserve that good opinion. Many people go around thinking themselves some kind of fraud. "If you only knew. . . " To refer back to Emerson, whom I quoted earlier, every person alone is sincere, hypocrisy begins with the entrance of another. Yet the issue is not that our lives contain moral inconsistencies, because they can, and do. The issue is the degree to which we deceive ourselves about them, and whether or not we can acknowledge them and try once more to walk the talk.

Our religious heritages, our laws, our customs have passed along to us some basic ideas about good and evil, morality and immorality. They make it possible for people to live in relative security together. One of the most basic teachings is the Golden Rule, which exists in so many religions. Treat others the way we want and need to be treated; do not practice on others what is repugnant to ourselves. It appears obvious. Does anyone follow it all the time? To paraphrase even a devoted person like Paul, The evil I would not do, I find myself doing. I do not do that which I should do.

We have moral codes, we have consciences. At the same time we do not always follow our own conscience; we do not always follow the morality we preach. Out of thoughtlessness, out of selfishness, out of desire, out of impulse, out of mindlessness, peer pressure, out of a too narrow perspective, out of ignorance, out of conflicting needs and priorities, we violate our own ethics. And we don't want anybody to know. Why? Why is it that whenever someone accuses us of wrongdoing, our first action is likely to be denial? What are we afraid of?

What are we afraid of? Punishment. Spoiled reputation. Public embarrassment, humiliation. Exile from the people we love and depend upon. Losing what we have. So we engage in deception of self and other, and that only makes it all worse. Barbara Kingsolver wrote: "In the book-jacket photos I look like a decent girl, and decent girls don't lie. That social axiom runs deep, possibly deeper than any other. The first important moral value we teach our children, after'don't hit your sister,' is the difference between fantasy and truth. Trying to pass off one for the other is a punishable infraction, and a lesson that sticks for life. Whether or not we are perfectly honest in adulthood, we should be, and we know that on a visceral level. So visceral, in fact, a machine measuring heart rate and palm perspiration can fairly reliably detect a lie. We don't even have to think about it. Our hearts know." ("The Not-So-Deadly Sin," from High Tide in Tucson) Our hearts know this also. It doesn't help to demand that we, and everyone else, always live up to our highest ideals. It doesn't seem the human way. Maybe we would wish to, and maybe we need to, and certainly the ethical principals are essential guides and destinations always to be moving toward. But for complicated reasons we do not always heed them, and we never have. Are we hypocrites?

It doesn't help to judge each other harshly when we fall short. It doesn't help to punish with no attempt at understanding the larger picture, with no possibility of reconciliation or restoration. It promotes the sifting, separating of hypocrisy. The teaching, found in many religions, that focuses upon a judging, punishing god and an afterlife in torment reflects, in my opinion, less the reality of life and death than the struggle that exists within the human soul to accept both the good and the bad that lie within us.

It doesn't help to deceive ourselves and others when we espouse one set of moral beliefs and act the opposite. Our self-deception only makes it possible for us to condemn others for the very shortcomings we do not recognize in ourselves. Jesus said, Why do we see the specks in each other's eyes and not notice the logs in our own? We ought to take care of our logs so we can see more clearly how to help with each other's specks. (Matthew 7:3-5) Demanding perfect morality, judging mercilessly, punishing harshly, lying to cover up our imperfect morality -- they become a vicious circle and they enable hypocrisy. Unless we break the circle and learn other ways to deal with ourselves, we will keep on saying one thing and doing another.

What if we continued to set the moral bar high, continued to teach and pass along the values and ethics we know will make for peaceful, responsible, and secure living? But what if we acknowledged that we do not always reach that high standard? What if we admitted that we had logs in our eyes? All of us, not just you over there but me too. What if we could view our moral inconsistencies, not as fatal failures, but as part of the human condition? What if we understood ethical living, not as a goal to be attained once and for all, but a way of life to be reached for again and again, despite the setbacks? What if we accepted that sometimes it is Do what I say, not what I do? What if we applied compassion and understanding? What if we took up a wider perspective? What if we stopped believing that people need to be punished more than they, (we), need to be restored to community?

If we made these shifts, even slightly, perhaps we would find fewer instances of hypocrisy. May we not be blind to either the good or the bad within ourselves. May we hold each other and ourselves to high standards, and at the same time seek and offer forgiveness when we do not live them. May we create an atmosphere in which we can openly admit and learn from our mistakes rather than having to hide them. May there be no benefit in promoting one set of values and living by another. May there be no need for deception -- of self or of others.

Integrity means living a life of high ethical standards. It also means wholeness. Our lives will contain moral inconsistencies, but we will know a measure of wholeness if we can acknowledge the inconsistencies and manage not to live with a great gulf between what we say and what we do. May we not be separated from ourselves. As Howard Thurman says, "To love life is to be whole in all one's parts, and to be whole in all one's parts is to be free and unafraid." May it be so.

Song #291 Die Gedanken Sind Frei

Closing words:

Kung Yi-tsu was famous for his strength. The King went to visit him with much ceremony but found him a weakling. "How strong are you?" asked the KIng. Kung replied, "I can break the waist of a spring insect. I can bear the weight of a cicada wing." The King flushed and said, "I'm strong enough to tear apart rhinoceros hide and drag nine oxen by the tail, yet I still lament my weakness. How can it be that you are so famous for strength?" Kung replied, "My fame is not for having such strength, it is for being able to use such strength."