The dominance of style found its zenith in the fashion industry as vaunted by Diana Vreeland, editor of Vogue. Her motto was “Fake it, fake it”. “Never mind about the facts”, she used to say, “project the image to the public”. The art of success, according to Vreeland, is to create a world “as you feel it to be, as you wish it to be, as you wish it into being”.

One person who has elevated style to the level of a new art form is Madonna. She lives out the cliché that the medium is the message. She has total control over her shows, she writes the songs, produces the music, choreographs the dances, designs the stage set and even does her own make-up and costumes. Richard Morrison of The Times says this about her: The likes of Madonna and Jackson aim to offer what can only be called the total egocentric experience: they control every aspect of their acts and are willing to dissolve the line where art ends and reality begins. In other words, for Madonna, image and reality coalesce so one is very difficult to distinguish from the other.

I want to suggest to you that Madonna is not alone. The surrender of reality to image; the sacrifice of personal integrity for the sake of public reputation, is a danger we all constantly face and to which we all in some measure succumb. Nowhere is this more prevalent than amongst religious people. In fact Jesus spoke of it. He didn't call it the dangers of style, he spoke of the danger of the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. But, as we shall see, it is the same thing but only transferred from the arena of fashion to the arena of religion.

In fact the very term “hypocrite” itself originated in the world of the theatre, referring to the various masks a performer would wear according to the role he was playing. The danger for religious people is that the mask can become fixed, the public image mistaken for the inner reality. The result? We live a lie, we sincerely think we are something other than we are.

First of all, let us look at the cause of hypocrisy: chapter 11 from verse 33 on.

The cause is suggested by these two parables of Jesus. By talking about the function of the lamp to illumine a house and the eyes being the lamp of the body, Jesus is stressing the importance of the inner person being open to the wholesome, illuminating effect of the truth. Deliberately switch off the light source, as when you put a lamp under a bowl or fail to keep the eyes open and in good order, and sooner or later your inner personality is going to become morally darkened, incapable of discerning the show from the real thing. Playing the actor, therefore, is part of a spiritual benighting process which begins when we start to turn away from God's true light source, his own revelation of himself to us in Christ and his Word.

We are not to think that we wilfully start out with this intention. It can happen when the Bible becomes more of a source book for our sermons than for our own personal devotions. The pressure is not to enrich that personal walk with the Lord but to keep on producing the goods for the pulpit; after all people do not see us in our studies alone, but they do see us in our churches. The result is a gradual eroding of the soul and particularly if we hide ourselves from certain aspects of Scriptural truth which challenge aspects of our lives which we would rather keep hidden, from others and indeed ourselves. The key cause of hypocrisy then is lack of personal integrity, the unwillingness to face up to the truth about ourselves because we are too busy trying to see how that truth applies to others.

So what are the characteristics of hypocrisy and religious self- advertising? Jesus tells us in verses 37–39. Jesus engages here with two distinct but related groups of people — the Pharisees (verse 38) and the experts in the Jewish law (verse 45) — the scribes. The Pharisees were a group of lay fundamentalist enthusiasts. They were committed to the teaching of Scripture and its application, so much so that they developed a whole system of rules and regulations to make obedience to Scripture possible — so they thought. We often picture the Pharisees as those who wanted to make the law difficult, but on the contrary they wanted to make it easy and livable. They longed for that assurance that they had kept God's law — there was no room for doubt for them. They took their religion seriously and they wanted others to take it seriously too. If they were around today and members of the Christian church instead of the Jewish synagogue, where would we expect to find them but in those groups who promote their faith, who have a zeal for mission and who are terribly concerned with the moral state of society.

On the other hand, the experts in the law were more like professional theologians and ethicists. If there was a dispute of biblical interpretation, they would be the ones you would consult for a resolution. Today you would find them on the board of some of our academic theological institutions.

So the danger of hypocrisy is one which is a special snare for those who want to take their belief seriously. We had better watch out — Jesus says so in chapter 12 verse 1. It is to the disciples, not the crowd, he says, "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees". It begins as a small thing, like yeast, but also like yeast its effect is all pervasive and totally disproportionate to its size.

So, the first characteristic of hypocrisy is its concern with external appearance at the expense of internal character (verses 39–41). The background to this is the Mosaic prescription that certain vessels be cleansed to offset ceremonial defilement. The scribes added to what Moses laid down and went into overdrive. They were scrupulous in this. Jesus wasn't, hence the surprise in verse 38. He dispensed with it. Why? Well, Jesus saw the principle clearly: God is creator not only of the externals of a person — the image — but the inner character as well — the substance. The sort of piety he is looking for is not religious rigmarole but moral kindness — a sacrificial giving to the poor for instance. God is not only looking for clean hands but a clean heart.

I suspect this is never lurking too far away from our own door. The church council shows greater concern over the stain in the church carpet than the moral stain in our own lives. People concentrate on whether the young person coming to our church is wearing a tie or has the right accent — rather than the fact that, shabbily dressed though they may be, they may be at least trying to care for the poor and needy. Concern, you see, is with image, not reality.

It is all too possible to have the outward form of religion with no inner reality — style but no substance. This is no respecter of persons or churches. It can be there in the mass of the Catholics and the meditation of the Quakers. It may be found in the routine of the Anglican prayer book or the exuberance of the charismatics — people going through the motions, loudly or quietly, with ceremony or without — but with no inner reality or belief — it is nothing but a show to impress our family, friends or worst of all, God.

Secondly, hypocrisy is concerned with small legalistic details to the detriment of major moral issues (verse 42). In the Old Testament God required his people to give a tenth of their income. What was not included within that prescription was the herbs grown in your garden. But this was not for the religiously devoted. No, they are committed believers, God can have a tenth of that too. So we have this absurd cartoon of the Pharisee beavering away in his kitchen counting out every tenth mint leaf — that is for God, he would say proudly. And this obsessional attention to detail can in some cases be symptomatic of a deep neurosis — washing hands three times before a meal, turning the light on and off four times before entering a room, arranging your socks on the bed in certain order. Why? Well, in some cases it has a vicarious effect, a way of handling guilt. An easy way of making sure you are on the right side is by keeping the little rituals of our own design. That is much easier than concerning oneself with the bigger issues like social justice or love of God. Distract yourself from real moral failure by focusing on ritual. And again who has not seen it or fallen prey to it? It is much easier to make sure we “take our communion”, sing our statutory three choruses or be meticulous in our Bible study than it is to show sacrificial love to God and neighbour.

Which brings us to the next characteristic of the religious self-advert and that is the concern with gaining public applause to the neglect of positive moral influence — look at verses 43 and 44. Do you see how their whole spirituality was designed to impress? It was the American comedian, George Burns who was once asked what was the secret of his long and successful career, to which he replied, When I learnt to fake sincerity, the rest was easy. Well, everything about these people was one big self-advert of fake sincerity — sham religion which was mistaken for true piety. They sat up front where they were noticed. Their prayers were long and impressive, their giving loud and extravagant, even their clothes marked them out as different and they loved their religious titles, being addressed as Vicar, Bishop or Pastor. They thrived on it, for it reinforced the image they were so desperate to convey.

But far from their piety being a blessing to others it was in fact a curse; they were, says Jesus, like “unmarked graves”. Now to touch or walk on a grave caused a Jew to become ceremonially unclean, and so incapable of approaching God. So normally graves were clearly marked off. But when you came into contact with these people, thinking that their company would draw you closer to God, the very reverse took place; you became spiritually contaminated. How? Well, you would naturally think their way was God's way, the spiritual way, and that they were models to emulate, and in so doing you would copy their hypocrisy.

And we may well think that is enough. Jesus relentlessly presses his point home, but this time it is the scribes he has in view (verse 46). In their case hypocrisy makes religion arduous and unacceptable. It is all a list of do's and don'ts. According to Psalm 19 the study of the Bible should be a wonderful delight, but they have turned it into a laborious chore. Why? Well, they were lawyers, the professional Bible interpreters, and the more complicated you made it, the more indispensable they became as well as all the more important.

Christian ministers especially need to take stock at this point. In their handling of the Scripture what is it they are trying to do? Is it to demonstrate how clever they are, what books they have read, which authorities they can quote so people go away thinking what remarkable people they are and how they could never do anything like that? And so the pedestal is raised one notch higher. Or is it in one respect trying to do themselves out of a job? Then the people can follow what they are saying, how they have got there and say “Of course, I should have seen that”. In their presentation of the faith do they give the impression it is a delight, or a dour business because that seems all the more spiritual, so in reality they become a stumbling block? There is a story of a woman whose teenage son showed no interest in Christianity whatsoever. She would nag him to go to church, leave tracts on his pillow, place Bible verses in his lunchbox all to no avail. One day in despair she dropped to her knees and prayed: “Dear Lord, whatever the obstacle is to my son becoming a Christian, please remove it.” Suddenly there was a flash of lightning and she completely disappeared.

Even worse, hypocrisy makes religion intolerant and incapable of change (verses 47 to 51). These people made a living out of Scripture but what they were not willing to do was to tolerate the living voice of Scripture — the word prophetically applied. They were quite happy to canonise dead preachers, but they were not willing to listen to live ones. And the same is true today.

Worst of all, according to Jesus, concern for style — public acceptability — makes saving truth inaccessible (verse 52). They have locked the door on the kingdom of God and have thrown away the key. By their addition to Scripture and the complication of Scripture, the message of Scripture has been obscured. In the past many godly men sacrificed their academic reputation for the sake of the Gospel, in that holding the views they held ensured that you did not gain a place in the hallowed halls of academia. Today we see a different phenomena, men sacrificing the Gospel for the sake of their reputation.

However, this play acting is such a lonely, crushing business anyway. It is interesting how Madonna sees her present concern for presenting a successful image arising out of her own religious background. She says: “My Catholic upbringing is probably the foundation of everything I do. Once you're a Catholic, you're always a Catholic in terms of feelings of guilt and remorse. Sometimes I am racked with guilt. You're always striving to be good”. Isn't that the problem and burden of style religion — striving to be good? But of course Jesus came precisely for those for whom this striving was proving impossible, who were tired of the pretence, whose mask had slipped and whose image in the mirror simply repulsed them.

As Jesus points out in chapter 12 verse 4 it is fear which often drives people towards this way of living. But Jesus offers a way out of this bondage and that is a sweet reverence for the one who does know our hearts, who sees behind the masks and, remarkable as it may seem, still loves and cares for us (chapter 12 verses 6 to 7).

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs on your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than the sparrows.