We live in a fake society.

This is most evident in Hollywood. I recall watching a daytime talk show on TV where a model showed a before-and-after picture of what she looked like when the technicians did not cover up the blemishes; when a professional hairstylist, personal trainer, personal nutritionist, and professional face painter didn't get their hands on her. She sure looked different!

We have family friends who always send the most amazing pictures of their kids. I am always dumbfounded by how perfect the pictures look - the kids all smiling, their heads in position and tilted at just the right angles, and with all eyes gazing earnestly at the correct spot. As I look at those pictures, I think back to some of our own family picture experiences. The photographer typically takes what seems to be thousands of shots. We bribe our kids to sit still or threaten to ground them for life just so we can get that perfect Christmas card. My wife finally told me the secret behind our friends' amazing pictures. Apparently, they take many photographs and then piece them together on the computer; a head from one shot and the body from another, getting the best of several pictures morphed together so that they can send out the perfect Christmas card.

It's not just with pictures. How many times have you watched the news and heard a person say about the neighbor who has just been accused of murder or theft; "He seemed to be the nicest person - he even mowed my lawn!"  We live in a fake society.

It's not just out there; it's in the church, too. Countless times I have sat with couples and individuals in my office who think that the struggles and problems they have are unique. They can't imagine that anyone else they see on Sunday morning has any problems. Everyone is smiling and well groomed with their Sunday best on. If you've been in church for any number of years, you know what to say, when to say it, and what to look like. The church "game" is so easy to play. I like to call this "suit-and-tie" Christianity. There's nothing wrong with suits and ties. Personally, I'm not a suit-and-tie kind of guy; if you are, great. When I was growing up, everybody dressed in suits and ties with a uniform painted-on face that seemed to say, "Everything's OK - I'm Mr. Mature Christian." We hear stories about the pastor who runs away with his secretary; we tell people we will pray for them and all the time we're just trying to get away, never praying at all. We don't confront sin in a Christian friend's life out of love for them so we just gossip instead.

We're all just fake. I understand fake because I go there too. Fake is safe and fake is not messy. Fake is easy and the wide road on which most people travel, but fake is one of the viruses that is permeating our church culture today. I like what author Annie Dillard writes:

"On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return."

In the book of Malachi the message is loud and clear. Get real. Nothing gets God more riled up than his people, the church, Christians, being fake. "How I wish one of you would shut the Temple doors so that these worthless sacrifices could not be offered! I am not pleased with you," says the Lord of heaven's armies, "and I will not accept your offerings." Malachi 1:10-11

The Israelites were being fake by playing the religious game and not really trying to do what God instructed. And God's reaction was so pointed: I wish you would just close the doors because [fake] religiosity is worthless. Reading the book of Malachi tends to melt away the fakeness that we tend to bring to following Christ.  Whether it is giving God our best, heeding his instructions about relationship, engaging money from God's perspective, or coming to him with biblical fear, Malachi is a book all about getting real. 

God isn't interested in us playing some church game. He wants us to be in an authentic relationship with himself and with each other. Oh God, forgive me/ us for being fake and playing religion. Empower me/ us in your Spirit to be real with you and with others.

Jason Esposito

Senior Pastor