Living Without The Mask

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

There is something so tiring about pretending. Pretending that everything is fine. Pretending that we are stronger than we are. Pretending that we are holy when inside we are angry, jealous, afraid, or wounded. In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives a very strong warning: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” Hypocrisy is not simply making mistakes. We all make mistakes. Hypocrisy is when there is a gap between the person I show and the person I really am. And maybe the theme for us today is this: God is not asking us to impress Him; He is asking us to be honest with Him.

Jesus says that nothing hidden will remain hidden forever. At first, that can sound frightening. We may think, “What if people knew everything about me? What if they knew my struggles, my failures, my thoughts?” But Jesus is not trying to terrify us. He is inviting us into freedom. Because anything we keep hidden in shame begins to control us. Sin grows in darkness. Fear grows in secrecy. But grace works when we bring things into the light. That is why confession is such a gift. We do not go to confession because God does not know our sins. He already knows. We go because He wants us to stop hiding.

And then Jesus says something beautiful: “Do not be afraid.” He speaks about sparrows, tiny creatures that seem almost insignificant, and says that not one of them is forgotten by God. Then He says, “Even the hairs of your head have all been counted.” In other words, God knows you completely. Not the polished version. Not the version you present to others. He knows the whole story: the good, the bad, the complicated, the embarrassing. And still He says, “Do not be afraid.” The amazing thing is not simply that God knows everything about us. The amazing thing is that He knows everything and still loves us.

So perhaps the real question today is: what am I hiding? What part of my life am I afraid to bring before God? Sometimes we spend so much energy trying to look like good Christians that we forget that Christianity is not about looking good. It is about being transformed. The saints were not people who had nothing to hide; they were people who eventually stopped hiding from God. Holiness begins when we are honest enough to say, “Lord, this is who I am. This is where I am weak. This is where I need You.”

And maybe that is the invitation of this Gospel: take off the mask. Stop trying to manage God’s opinion of you. You cannot surprise Him, and you cannot scare Him away. Bring Him the real you. Because God cannot heal the person we pretend to be. He heals the person we are willing to place before Him. And when we finally believe that we are fully known and still deeply loved, then we become free – free to live without fear, free to be honest, and free to become the person God is calling us to be.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, You know me completely. You see what I show others and what I try to hide. Give me the courage to live honestly before You. Bring into the light whatever needs healing, free me from fear and hypocrisy, and help me to trust that I am fully known and still deeply loved. Amen.

– Homily by Rev. Fr. Patrick Agbeko