Sincerity and truthfulness are two words that have often been mangled and trivialised in our modern world. When we read in the Media about the numerous revelations of corruption that exists in different institutions and leading figures in our society, we can easily apply these words of Jesus in the gospel: Hypocrites. Hypocrisy is one of the harshest words in the language; in a more benign way we would say a two-faced person. When we study the etymology of the word we see how hypocrisy originates; a hypocrite is one whose life is a piece of acting without any sincerity behind it all. The funny thing about a hypocrite is that they are the last to recognise that they are hypocrites. Many of us on reading this passage here today would say that Jesus was perfectly right; this does not apply to me. If we are sincere we all can find a certain amount of hypocrisy in our lives.

• If we give more importance to our external observance of a certain ritual or of certain rules and regulations, than to the motivation behind these rules and regulations. We don’t give enough importance to the attitudes of love, service, and compassion. We give more importance to the package rather than the gift. We think that we are good followers if we carry out certain acts and practices, and we don’t give enough attention to the motivation behind them. How many of us are here today because we want to be with Christ, or is it just to fulfill, perform an empty practice.

• We are challenged to speak and live the truth with integrity, in charity and love. Be a doer rather than an armchair critic. We have so many armchair critics in our world today. Many people today love to get caught up in other people’s foibles, imperfections, weaknesses, when they have substantial problems of their own.
When you point the finger at anyone, you’ll find at least two more on you hand pointing back at you.