Today is the second Sunday of a three week sermon series I’m sharing called “Mythbusters.

” In
this series I’m looking at myths that prevent us from having a deeper relationship with God and a
deeper relationship with the church.

This series is based on the TV show Mythbusters. I discovered last Sunday that a lot of you
watch that show. The premise of Mythbusters is fun. They take a urban myth or Internet rumor
and actually test it out. At the end of the show the myth is busted—meaning it’s not true—
plausible—meaning it’s true under certain circumstances—or true.

This sermon series is unique because our congregation was able to choose the myths that we’re
looking at in this series. At the Grand Opening service two weeks ago I shared eight common
myths that people have about God and the church. I’m preaching on the top three vote getters.

Last week I looked at the myth, “I believe in God, but don’t need a church.” Today I’m looking
at the myth, “church people are judgmental and hypocritical.” Next week I’m looking at the
myth, “if God is so good why is there so much pain in the world.”

I’d like to encourage you to take notes in the sermon notes section in the bulletin. The sermon
notes are an opportunity for you to write something down that you want to remember from the
sermon.

I’ve also included a devotion in the bulletin, and I’d like you to get it out. This devotion can help
you grow in your faith. I encourage you to take ten minutes a day to do this devotion. I’m
guessing that all of us have ten minutes a day we can give to our faith. Going through a devotion
is easy. Start with a prayer, then read the Scripture. You might want to read the Scripture more
than once. Then read the devotion. If you use this devotion you’ll read five Scriptures this week
that will relate to this theme. This devotion can give us something to talk about at Chain of
Lakes. For example in tomorrow’s devotion I asked us to reflect on what logs we have in our
own eyes. We could talk to one another about the logs in our own eyes that prevent us from
having a deeper relationship with God.
 During each Mythbusters sermon I want to start out by trying to understand how a person

comes to believe this myth. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of us here today hold this belief that

Christians are judgmental and hypocritical. I have no desire for anyone to feel guilty for holding

this myth. Instead I want us to understand how these myths come to be believed.

Are church people judgmental and hypocritical? One way to find this out is to ask people

outside the church how they perceive church people. This is what one man did. In 2007 David

Kinnaman wrote an outstanding book called, “Unchristian.” He is the president of the Barna

group. The Barna group is like the Gallop Poll for the church. They do research on religious

questions. For three years David Kinnaman did a survey of over 400 people ages 16-29 who

don’t attend church or don’t have a belief in God. He wanted to learn the beliefs that this group

of people have about God, the church, and about Christians.

I’m going to share a bit of his findings. It would be much better to show you his findings

using multi-media. We’ve had so many other things going on that we haven’t had the

opportunity to get that set up. Listen to this information or write it down in your notes because

this is important information for us to know.

Of his survey
38 percent of the people he surveyed had a bad impression of Christianity
45 percent had a neutral impression of Christianity
Only 16 percent had a good impression of Christianity.

83 percent of unchurched 16-29 year olds have a bad or neutral impression of Christianity.
He pushed his questions deeper. He wanted to know the general impressions that

unchurched young people have about Christians. What he did was share a word or phrase and

asked whether this phrase describes Christians. Here are the top three negative impressions.

Antihomosexual 91% said the term describes Christians a lot or some.

Judgmental—87% said the term describes Christians a lot or some.

hypocritical—85% said the term describes Christians a lot or some.

I have to admit that when I hear information like this my defensive nature rises up. If one

of these 16-29 unchurched folks was here I’d like to say in love, look at all the good that

Christians do. Let’s use Presbyterians as an example. Presbyterians nationwide have already

collected two million dollars for Haiti. We gave $200,000 to help rebuild Holy Cross Hospital in

the town of Leoganne—that town was the epicenter of the earthquake. Look at all the

Presbyterians who went to help following Hurricane Katrina. Presbyterians still have volunteer

camps in New Orleans four and a half years after the Hurricane. People live for a week in these

camps and help rebuild the area. I have a Presbyterian pastor friend who went with his wife to

help over Christmas break.

When I hear research like this there is a part of me that wants to shout out “that’s not who

we are.”

I have to remind myself that the task is not to be defensive, but instead to try to

understand how these myths came to be.

Church people have always been susceptible to hypocrisy. Mary Ann read one story

today. It’s the devotional reading for Tuesday. In the story Paul accused Peter of being a

hypocrite.

These two men were two of the most important people in the history of the church. Paul

authored many of the books of the New Testament; Peter was the rock on whom Jesus said he

would build the church—some churches believe that Peter holds the keys to heaven. It might be

easy to think that since they are so important, they must be these perfect disciples. Nothing

could be further from the truth

 In the story that Mary Ann read from Galatians, Paul rebuked Peter. He said, “when

Cephas (another name for Peter) came to Antioch I opposed him to his face because he stood

self-condemned. He went on:

“for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came,
he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews
joined him in this [here we go] hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their
hypocrisy.

Paul accused Peter—the rock—of being a hypocrite. Why? If you read the devotion for

Tuesday you’ll find out. The point I want to make is if Peter—the gatekeeper for the faith—can

be accused of hypocrisy it’s not surprising that all of us struggle with hypocrisy.

What is hypocrisy? Put most simply hypocrisy is when our actions or words are not

consistent with our beliefs. The nuance from the Greek word means play actor. When we’re

hypocrites we put on this mask, it’s like we’re actors. Our acting is inconsistent with who God

wants us to be. God calls us to love God and each other. When our behaviors don’t match this

calling, then we’re play acting as disciples.

What is judgment? When we judge, we point out the errors of another person. It’s as if

we become like God. I could give a more complete definition, but I’m guessing that we know

judgment when we receive it.

Why is it so easy to be hypocritical and judgmental?” This is where our tradition—our

Presbyterian and Reformed tradition helps us. We Presbyterians have a way that we understand

human nature. Our understanding goes back to John Calvin who started the Presbyterian

tradition in the 16th century. John Calvin believed that humans are deeply sinful people. Our

human nature starts with separation from God. Calvin called it Total Depravity. There’s nothing

that we as humans can do to escape our own sinfulness. We need a savior.

 I personally disagree with Calvin about the depth of our sinfulness. I believe that humans

can do wonderful good and terrible evil. But his point about our own sinfulness helps us

understand why it is easy to be hypocritical and judgmental. The temptation to judge and be

hypocritical is always part of our nature. It never leaves us. We’re all susceptible. I’m tempted;

I fail. All church people are tempted and fail. Peter, the rock of the church, was tempted; he

failed.

Are Christians judgmental and hypocritical? Yes. If someone came up to me and asked

me whether Christians are judgmental and hypocritical I might get a little defensive, but I would

say, “yes.” Because of our nature every human being is judgmental and hypocritical.

To me the essential question is not whether church people are judgmental and

hypocritical. We are. The key question is, “does that mean we give up on the church.” Does

that mean we give up on God? To use a cliché, “do we throw out the baby with the bathwater?”

My response is “no.” We don’t give up on the church or church people. Why? Because

of Jesus.

Jesus gave us this vision of what life can be like. It’s called the Kingdom of God. Jesus

hated hypocrisy. I gave you a few references to this in your devotion. In Luke 12 Jesus warned

his followers about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.

“Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy,” he said. Nothing is covered up
that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.

In Luke 13 Jesus admonished the Pharisees for their criticism of when Jesus healed a woman

who had been crippled for 18 years on the Sabbath. Instead of rejoicing that Jesus had healed

this woman, the Pharisees used religious law to condemn him. The Pharisees themselves were

violating the Sabbath, but here they were criticizing him for hypocrisy.
 Jesus teaches us that judgment and hypocrisy are not part of the kingdom. If we take

Jesus seriously, we’ll be very serious about learning how to avoid these temptations.

You’ll hear me say often how exciting it is to start a new church. Few people have the

opportunity to be involved in the start of a church. What’s exciting is we have the opportunity to

create the type of church we want to be. From the very beginning we can talk about how we

want to resist temptation and hypocrisy. We can be a different kind of church.

We already have started doing that. This past Thursday night our Steering Committee

passed eight Core Values that will define our life in our congregation. A Core Value is a

principle, a quality, a belief, and/or an attitude that is foundational to our community. Our Core

Values are so important that we will teach all of our leaders and staff to follow and be committed

to them. Our task as a congregation is to rise up when one of these Core Values are violated.

We aren’t going to rise up or be upset about little things—like the color of the carpet or if there

are misspellings in the bulletin. We will rise up if we violate one of our values.

One of our values is acceptance. We accept people without judgment, regardless of what

has happened in a person’s life or where someone is on his or her faith journey. We have put it

on paper that there is no room for hypocrisy or judgment at Chain of Lakes Church. It’s very

exciting to me that we have the opportunity to be a different kind of place.

How do we resist the temptation of judgment and hypocrisy?

First we go out of our way to welcome people who are different than us. What would

happen if we had a 24 year old with a half shaved head, tattoos, and all sorts of ear rings come to

worship. How would we greet that person? If the person came late to worship would all of us

turn our heads and go like this ……………..

If the person didn’t come back for a week or two, would we go out of our way to contact the

person? Or would we just assume that people with half shaved heads and tattoos aren’t spiritual

and don’t want to be Presbyterians. Would we consider inviting the person over to our house to

dinner. If we had a conversation with the person, would we lovingly say, “share with me what it

is like to have tattoos and ear rings.”

To avoid judgment and hypocrisy we have to reach out to people who are different. I

want us at Chain of lakes to be a place that isn’t tribal. If we’re a Democrat, I hope we’ll have

Republican friends at Chain of Lakes; if we were born in the United States, I hope we’ll go out

of our ways to invite people into our home who weren’t born in the United States; if we are

Vikings fans, I hope we’ll root for the Packers, that might be a bit much—but Jesus would want

us to. Instead of criticizing people who are different, let’s have them as our friends.

Second to avoid judgment and hypocrisy let’s be honest about the logs in our own eyes.

This is what Jesus was saying in today’s reading. “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s

eye and don’t see the log in your own eye. Basically he was saying we first are to look at

ourselves before sharing an opinion about someone else’s actions. In the devotion I wrote about

the difference between a speck and a log. The speck is a tiny piece of saw dust; the log is a big

piece of wood. We get so obsessed with other people’s small specks of saw dust, that we don’t

see the trees in our own eyes. .

Before we criticize others, let’s look at ourselves. Take parenting for example. It’s very

easy to have opinions about other people’s parenting. Before we get mad at one of our neighbors

and the way they parent, let’s look at ourselves. Let’s admit that parenting is hard and we fail all

the time. I mess up all the time as a parent. Just ask my daughter—she’ll tell you that. And

she’s right.
 One of my favorite books I’ve read in the past ten years is Blue Like Jazz. It was written

by Don Miller. He shared a story about what his Christian group did at a festival at Reed

College in Oregon. They set up a confession tent. Normally we think of other people coming in

to confess their sins. This confession tent was different. When college students entered the tent,

Don Miller and his Christian friends confessed the sins of the church. They confessed the logs in

their eyes. They said with sincerely, “we’re sorry for the harm that the church has done.” I

know of a pastor who did a five-week sermon series on “Confessions of a sinful church. The

first week the title of the sermon was “we’re sorry for our self-righteousness and hypocrisy; the

second week the title was “we’re sorry for our endorsement of slavery. Then we’re sorry for our

mistreatment of homosexuals; we’re sorry for the medieval crusades; we’re sorry for saying the

earth is flat. If we set up a tent at Blazin Blaine this year maybe we should set up a confession

tent.

People outside of the church will take us much more seriously if we share our own

struggles instead of casting this image of perfection. When I was in Plainview I told people

frequently that I’m an idiot. I believe it. I am an idiot. I mess up all the time. I don’t like to

mess up. Through a lot of examples of messing up, I’ve learned to be honest about my own

failures.

Let me close with a challenge. What log is in your eye? What prevents you from being

the person God desires for you to be? My challenge to you is to acknowledge your own log and

then share that log with one person this week. Maybe even share that log with someone in our

community. If you don’t have someone to share your log, you can share it me, your pastor.
 Finally let’s be authentic with each other. In his book Amazing Grace, Philip Yancey

wrote:

I have a hunch why Jesus spent so much time with the [sinners]: I think he preferred their
company. Because the sinners were honest about themselves and had no pretense, Jesus could
eat with them. In contrast, the saints put on airs, judged him, and sought to catch him in a moral
trap. In the end it was the saints, not the sinners, who arrested Jesus.

Let’s become a different kind of place for the world, a place of joyful love where we are

released to celebrate each other. Let’s be a place where we successfully resist judgment and

hypocrisy.