Religion is Pretentious
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Scripture: Matthew 15:10–28
11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”
The Theatre of Religion
The Theatre of Religion
Before we sing another hymn - lets be honest - let us not pretend we’ve got our lives neatly arranged: religion is pretentious. We end up pretending more than being honest.
If we are being candid, the sanctuary is often the premier theatre for human performance.
Finest clothes.
Holy Voices
Managing our image. What do they think of me?
Lifting our hands performatively… Making sure every one knows we are so holy and close to god.
We want the world — and especially the people sitting three pews over — to think we are disciplined, composed, morally respectable, and devout.
John Prine - one of my favourite lyricists called out this precise theater in his song "Some Humans Ain't Human." With dry unvarnished whit…
"You might go to church, You sit down in a pew, those humans who ain’t human Could be sittin’ right next to you.
Church is often the one place where we feel forced to pretend to be special humans, rather than actually being allowed to be as human as we are.
We turn faith into a brand.
And like any good corporate brand, it requires public relations, spin control, and a strict policy against showing any cracks in the facade.
Why do we do this?
What drives us to put on the performance?
Pride
At the root of it all is pride. Pride is the silent engine of pretentiousness.
Pride insists that we must be self-sufficient, morally flawless, and capable of earning our own standing.
But because none of us can actually achieve that impossible standard, pride inevitably breeds its dark twin: shame.
Pride = Shame
Shame is the terror of exposure — the deep, whispering fear that if people see who we actually are, they will reject us. So pride builds a wall of religious performance to keep shame hidden.
We manage our public image not because we love God, but because we are consumed with anxiety about what other people think of us.
Meanwhile the only one who actually matters…
God.
Knows it all.
In fact our concern about what people think about us. Which is so much more important to us than what God thinks of us - becomes a form of anxiety.
Pay attention.
Shame. That dark prickly painful feeling. That angry feeling at being exposed. Piggy backs on pride… so when you feel shame… pay attention to the other end of the spectrum and you might find that the shame lifts a little when you address your pride.
Matthew 15:10–20
Matthew 15:10–20
Prine keeps singing about those humans next to you…
They talk about your family
They talk about your clothes
When they don’t know their own a$$
From their own elbows.
This isn't a new problem. It is the exact dynamic Jesus confronted so long ago in Matthew chapter 15.
The Pharisees had arrived from Jerusalem, the headquarters of religious propriety. They were the experts in image management. They had turned the God of the cosmos into a ledger book of sanitary protocols.
2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.”
Notice what they are worried about.
They aren't worried about whether the disciples love their neighbors.
They aren't worried about whether they are caring for the poor.
They aren't worried about whether their hearts are full of greed.
Their pride is threatened. They are worried about the script. They are worried about the performance.
What did Isaiah say:
1 Thus says the Lord: Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed.
Prine continues to sing about humans who ain’t human…
Some humans ain't human
Some people ain't kind
You open up their hearts
And here's what you'll find
A few frozen pizzas
Some ice cubes with hair
A broken popsicle
You don't wanna go there
The Pharisees were the ultimate spiritual ice cubes with hair.
Driven by pride and terrified of their own inadequacy, they became religious inspectors whose sole joy was slithering into a room to freeze your joy, turn off your light, and make sure you feel the weight of shame for not doing things right according to their checklist.
Jesus refuses to bow to those hairy old ice cubes.
He calls the crowd over — he doesn't even whisper it privately — and delivers a sentence that strips the paint right off their religious facade:
11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”
He tells them that their religion is an elaborate exercise in polishing the outside of a cup that is filthy on the inside.
What comes out of the mouth.
And we have to watch our mouths.
And we think the worst thing we might do from time to time is swear.
But the worst things…
Those words of gossip.
Those whispered grievances.
Slights of slander…
False Self
False Self
Psychologists have long understood what Jesus is diagnosing here. Paediatrician and Psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott spoke of the distinction between the True Self and the False Self.
The False Self is a defensive structure driven by pride and protective against shame. It is the social persona that says: "If I act like this, if I comply with these rules, if I look this good, you will accept me and nobody will hurt me."
The problem is that over time, the False Self takes over the house.
We start believing that the mask is who we actually are. We live in constant anxiety about human judgment.
When pride and shame rule a heart, if you opened it up, all you'd find is:
"A few frozen pizzas and some ice cubes with hair.”
The freezer looks lovely from the outside. Big white beautiful box - so full of potential… maybe ice cream and delicious leftovers…
But instead.
"A few frozen pizzas and some ice cubes with hair.”
Empty. Cold. Preserved.
That is why the disciples come running to Jesus in verse 12, panicked:
12 Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?”
Oh my - the important people. The religious gate keepers are offended…
Offense is the primary defense mechanism of a prideful heart. When someone threatens the integrity of our False Self, we don't repent — we get offended.
We lash out to protect the mask. We get angry. We fire the therapist. Leave the whatsapp group.
Jesus doesn't apologize. He looks at his disciples and says:
14 Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”
It is so hard not to enter into the cycle of gossip - the Facebook comment war - the WhatsApp spat…
Jesus sighs. He explains the basic biology of digestion: food goes in, travels through the stomach, and ends up in the sewer. It's external.
But what comes out of the mouth? That comes straight from the heart.
Pride, envy, slander, deceit, malice
—these don't come from unwashed hands. They come from the unexamined corners of human interiority that our religious performance works so hard to conceal.
Faith at the Margin
Faith at the Margin
Immediately after this confrontation, Jesus leaves the holy land. He walks straight into pagan territory—the district of Tyre and Sidon.
He is out of the domain of acceptability.
He has crossed the road to the shebeen, the pool hall, the otherwise unacceptable part of town…
Jesus seems to say, you have to leave the theatre of respectable religion. You have to go where people have no pride left to protect.
There, in the borderlands, a Canaanite woman approaches him.
Pay attention to who she is. She is an outsider in every conceivable way.
Wrong Race
Wrong Religion
Wrong Gender
Wrong Culture
She has no theological credentials. She hasn't washed her hands according to the tradition of the elders. She doesn't belong to the club.
She
22 …started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”
23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.”
It is almost like they are a bit excited.
Jesus accepts everyone.
And at last they can call on Jesus to gang up against her…
Look at the disciples’ reaction: "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us."
Why do they want to send her away? Because their pride is offended. She is messy, loud, and embarrassing. She is ruining their calm, orderly, respectable religious procession. Pretentious religion hates a scene because it triggers our shame.
And then comes one of the most unsettling exchanges in the Gospels.
Jesus stays silent at first. When he does speak, he states his immediate mission protocol:
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
She doesn't retreat. She doesn't get offended like the Pharisees did.
Why? Because she has no pride left to defend. Shame has lost its grip on her.
She isn't concerned with what the disciples think of her, nor is she anxious about protecting her reputation. She doesn't care about image or status.
She drops to her knees directly in front of him. Three words:
"Lord, help me."
No flowery religious language. No bargaining. No credentials. Just raw, unvarnished need.
26 He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
It is a harsh, culturally loaded line.
A test of where her faith actually rests.
A proud person would have stormed off, shouting: "How dare you talk to me like that! Do you know who I am?"
Pride demands dignity. Pretentiousness demands respect.
But this woman is entirely done with pretense. She looks Jesus right in the eye and says:
27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
She takes the line and turns it into a claim on his mercy.
She says: Call me what you want. I won't argue my status with you. I don't care about my pride. I care about what is real and true. And what is real and true is that you are full of mercy, and even a crumb of your grace is enough to heal my child.
Jesus stops. You can almost see the smile break across his face.
28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
And I think we realise that Matthew has put these two moments together for a reason. The Pharisees from Jerusalem making a fuss about washing hands. The disciples worrying about the way the Pharisees speak about Jesus… and then Jesus simply tanking the PR campaign…
You think that’s bad… off he goes to Tyre and Sidon to find a foreigner.
And his answer to her...
‘Great is your faith!’
Is a way of saying…
Your belief is correct.
Your picture of God is correct.
A picture of a merciful gracious god - not a conditional god.
The mercy of God transcends the boundaries of our pride, our shame, our sense of belonging…
Seen and Loved
Seen and Loved
See what happens…
The Pharisees were obsessed with being seen by others as righteous, yet they were spiritually blind.
The Canaanite woman didn't care about human approval at all. She came to Jesus in all her messy, unvarnished reality—and in doing so, she allowed herself to be truly seen by Him.
And how does Jesus respond when someone drops their pride and stands before Him in raw truth?
He doesn't shame her.
He doesn't condemn her.
He loves her.
He commends her faith and heals her daughter.
This is the great turning point of the Gospel:
Jesus is in the business of taking away our shame.
He doesn't do it by helping us polish our pretense or build a better reputation. He takes away our shame by assuring us that we are completely seen and unconditionally loved by God.
When you know you are truly seen by the Creator of the universe—with all your flaws, doubts, failures, and messy places—and that He looks at you with boundless mercy, something miraculous happens:
The root of pride is severed.
The power of shame is broken.
The anxiety of human approval evaporates.
You no longer have to live with perpetual anxiety about what other people think of you. You don't have to manage your brand. You don't have to pretend in the pew.
You are freed from the tyranny of human opinion because you are grounded in what is real and true: you are a creature in desperate need of grace, and you are loved by a Savior who has grace to spare.
Authentic Community
Authentic Community
Who are we as a church?
If we want to be an authentic community, we have to dismantle the theatre. We have to become a place where pride goes to die and where shame is disarmed by grace.
We must build a sanctuary where people don't have to lie about their lives just to sit in these pews — where we can stop pretending to be human and simply be human: fragile, needy, and (most of all) dependent on God.
An authentic community is not a gathering of people who have achieved some sort of moral perfection.
It is a gathering of beggars who have realized that pride is a prison, and who have chosen to step into the light of truth together.
It is a community of people who are willing to be counted among the dogs and not the masters.
It is a place where we can say without fear of shame:
"I am struggling, and I don't have it together."
"I am anxious, and my faith feels paper-thin today."
"I am exhausted from wearing this mask."
When one person has the courage to drop their pride, step out of the shame cycle, and say, "Lord, help me," it gives everyone else in the room permission to take off their armour, breathe a sigh of relief, and receive the healing and love that reaches us when we are honest and open.
Let the Pharisees keep their handwashing ceremonies and their fragile pride. Let them look after the hairy ice cubes and frozen pizzas in their hearts.
Like the Canaanite woman.
Let us throw off our pride, step out of our shame, and collapse at the feet of Christ
In his eyes, we are fully known, completely loved, and made whole by His grace.
Amen.
