Keeping Up Appearances

                I just finished my annual study break. I spent the better part of a week, alone at a retreat cabin. On the last day, as I was getting dressed, I realized that, although I was alone, I put on different clothes each day. It was not that the clothes I had worn the day before were dirty. All I had done was read and work on my computer. I could have worn the same clothes again. Yet, out of habit, I changed my clothes. I was struck with the question, why?

                We are all caught up in an unconscious quest to keep up appearances. When I was in school, any child who wore the same clothes two days in a row would have been laughed at, at least behind their back. Most people would wonder about a person who showed up to work every day in the same outfit. The first question that would come to our mind is, don’t they have any other clothes?

                This need to change our appearance daily is born out of many possible motives. We may feel the need to wear something different so that people won’t think that we are poor and can’t afford different clothes. We may feel the need to wear something different to demonstrate that we have fashion sense. We may feel the need to wear something different to impress those around us. We may feel the need to wear something different so that we will fit in with everyone else. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are often controlled by what others think about us, so we must keep up appearances.

                Jesus addressed this significant issue when he confronted the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the religious elite of Jesus’ day. They were men who dedicated themselves to obeying the Law, down to the most minute detail. That is not a bad pursuit, except many of the Pharisees wanted everyone else to know about their piety. What other people thought of them mattered, so they had to keep up appearances. A noble endeavor, keeping the Law, morphed into a self-promoting legalism designed to impress others.

                In Matthew 23, Jesus issued a series of scathing indictments against the Pharisees for being more concerned about their outward appearance than their heart. He brings his point home with a particularly graphic analogy. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” Matthew 23:27-28

                In the Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5-7, Jesus makes the point over and over again that what matters to God is not just what we do on the outside, but who we are on the inside. We can portray the right image, while at the same time be far from God.

                We still struggle with keeping up appearances, even within the Church. We can become consumed with our buildings, our programs, our worship experiences, and neglect nurturing our souls. We want to be known as effective, cutting edge, even trendy, yet fail to cultivate our walk with Christ. We feel like we are serving Christ, but in reality we are performing for a human audience. The problem with keeping up appearances is that the standards are continually changing. Fashion in clothes changes almost quarterly. Fashion in “church” is constantly changing as well. We can expend much energy chasing the latest fad, and miss Jesus.