11 - 21 - 17 Avoiding Hypocrisy

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I think what the story of Eleazar demonstrates are two very related points. One being that this thing, this religion, this faith, should be the most important thing in our life, indeed more important than our insignificant earthly life. The second thing I see is that it is not only what we do that matters, but what others see. I’m going to dive into the second one first. 

The immediate danger I see here is hypocrisy, if one should fail to live up to the standards one claims in public, or pride, whereby when we do succeed we count it as personal strength. I think it’s useful to play off Jesus’s imperative to pray in secret and do good in secret. “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” 

We seem kind of stuck here between two places. There is the call to evangelization (through example, martyrdom, proselytizing) but this endeavor brings with it many spiritual dangers. Simply by drawing other people’s attention to ourselves, we risk drawing our own attention inward and off of what we genuinely hear from God. There are also all the familiar perils that come with leadership like self-aggrandizement and pride.

I think what can save this pursuit is the intention. To be extremely clear and explicit about what we are trying to do when we show our faith publicly should help us to steer clear of some of these pitfalls. Let’s examine Eleazar’s reasoning:

"At our age it would be unbecoming to make such a pretense;
many young people would think the ninety-year-old Eleazar
had gone over to an alien religion.
Should I thus pretend for the sake of a brief moment of life,
they would be led astray by me,
while I would bring shame and dishonor on my old age.
Even if, for the time being, I avoid the punishment of men,
I shall never, whether alive or dead,
escape the hands of the Almighty.
Therefore, by manfully giving up my life now,
I will prove myself worthy of my old age,
and I will leave to the young a noble example
of how to die willingly and generously
for the revered and holy laws."

I see here two principle reasons. Eleazar is concerned for his own salvation. He knows that escaping via this technicality is not what God desires from us. He doesn’t desire us to get on as well as possible in the world while living within the constraints of his laws. His laws aren’t meant to be constraints! If we reduce them to mere words, follow them by mere obedience, and just go through the motions they will not bring the life they have been so carefully constructed to deliver. Eleazar sees this. I see the same fear Eleazar’s “friends” suffered from among my peers when it comes to things like chastity or sobriety. They are so afraid of the ridicule they will receive, the “otherness” they will create for themselves by proudly living differently that they stay the quietest about the things they should have the most pride in. Eleazar sees that to obey the law is to obey the law openly, proudly, and without apology. He knows that God sees far more than man sees, there is no deceiving. If Eleazar would have brought lamb and claimed it to be pork as he ate, it may as well have been pork in the eyes of God.

I know this topic may seem a little irrelevant as Christians seeing as we do not have broad dietary restrictions other than times of fasting but with a little thought the principle extends in obvious and powerful ways. We may not partake of alcohol in the same quantities as those around us, or sex, or pursue money in the same way. Whatever you could possibly find that other people find gratifying but our religion requests us to restrict our consumption of is a perfect analogy to this story of Eleazar.

The second reasoning Eleazar gives is what I see as the justification of evangelization in regards to Jesus’s command to not advertise our own holiness. “I will leave to the young a noble example of how to die willingly and generously for the revered and holy laws.” I will leave to the young a noble example of how to die willingly and generously for the revered and holy laws. It’s not about him! Ultimately, and literally ultimately because it is the last thing he says about his reasoning, his sacrifice is not only for his salvation but for the salvation of his spiritual children. He wants to give the young people in his nation a better chance to live rightly by giving them a story, an example to draw strength from in their times of struggle and distress.

So why are we evangelizing? I say if we are, truthfully and wholeheartedly (it’ll take a lot of soul-searching to determine if it’s sincere), doing it for the salvation of ourselves and our brothers and sisters in faith, we will have a great chance of avoiding the downfalls Jesus warned against. 

A last bit about the relative value of earthly and eternal life.                                                                                                    

"The Lord in his holy knowledge knows full well that,
although I could have escaped death,
I am not only enduring terrible pain in my body from this scourging,
but also suffering it with joy in my soul
because of my devotion to him."

I suffer with joy, because of my devotion to him. It doesn’t matter what we go through in the temporal, in the mortal, in what can seem to be so immediate and all-encompassing, because the love of our God dwarfs it all.