Zorro and Tarzan were my childhood heroes. Zorro could wear a mask in public and play with swords with no one ever telling him that he shouldn’t do so. Tarzan, counter-cultural “ape-man”, lived in a tree house and swung around on vines all day long. For me, at the time, both seemed like great ways to live. (I still think that living in a tree house might have its perks.)
It was always great to play “Zorro.” I would wear some cloth around my head (into which I had cut eyeholes) while I brandished a fencing sword made from a straightened coat hanger and a Dixie cup. I didn’t play Tarzan much, probably for a lack of vines in the immediate area around our house. But no matter how much I pretended, no matter how I thought my costume looked, no matter how well I could use my…coat hanger, it simply did not make me Zorro. I was pretending to be something else.
Children aren’t the only ones who pretend.
We don masks at times to hide who we really are and to present a better image. The reasons are varied. It may be because of shame, or fear, or pride that we attempt to disguise ourselves. We don’t want to let anyone know just what is going on inside, so we take great care to arrange the window-dressing in our storefronts. The mask may insulate us, but it isolates us as well. Sometimes, if you’ve been wearing that mask long enough, you might even begin to fool yourself and think yourself to be much better than you actually are; you might even begin to believe the front you’re showing everyone else. It takes some strong truth to get through the mask.
Jesus confronted some “mask-wearers” of His day with the strong truth:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to me, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matt. 23:25-28).
Jesus uses the word “hypocrite.” This is a term which literally means, “one who wears a mask.” According to Jesus, if the outside doesn’t match the inside, then it is hypocrisy.
Maybe it’s time to stop pretending.
Dustin C. George
Minister to Single Adults
www.sevierheights.org
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