“How terrible it will be for you legal experts and Pharisees! Hypocrites! You give to God a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin, but you forget about the more important matters of the Law: justice, peace, and faith. You ought to give a tenth but without forgetting about those more important matters.” — Matthew 23:23
One of the great mysteries of life for me is how overtly religious people can do or say evil things and still sleep well. In one of his daily meditations, Father Richard Rohr explained concisely:
The only way evil can succeed is to disguise itself as good. And one of the best disguises for evil is religion. Someone can be racist, be against the poor, hate immigrants, and be totally concerned about making money and being a materialist but still go to church each Sunday and be “justified” in the eyes of religion.
Maybe going a bit deeper, evil masquerades as good when people forget or refuse to hold their own lives accountable to the teachings and example of Jesus. It is simply impossible to be a disciple and freely hate, discriminate, do violence, and be greedy/selfish. Jesus was at his angriest when talking to hyper-religious people who twisted religion to glorify and profit themselves instead of God.
Paul said that “all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.” (Romans 3:23) Repentance is a lifelong process of acknowledging the apostle’s wisdom, examining our lives, and being eternally grateful for God’s grace. When we think we’ve arrived and can claim Jesus to endorse things he’d never endorse: that’s called a masquerade ball and not church.