GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 12:15
Masks
Alice and I ate lunch in a cafeteria on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, which some Chicagoans claim is the world’s busiest street. In fact, I’ve heard the hyperbolic claim that if one stands on a Michigan Avenue corner, sooner or later every person in the world will pass by. As Alice and I lunched, I saw one of my professors from Southern Illinois University walking by the window. Carbondale is about 350 miles south of Chicago in a rural part of the state. I rushed to the sidewalk and called to him; he was as surprised as I was to run into meon such a busy street.
Dr. Brehm joined us for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon giving us a tour of the city, his home. Dr. Brehm had been my professor for ten classes at SIU, and I worked for him for one year as his teaching assistant. On campus, he was all professor, but that afternoon, he was a lunch partner, tour guide, and friend. I remembered that afternoon as I worked on a translation of Jesus’ conversation with the Pharisees and Herodians, who tried to snare him in his words. St. Mark wrote, “Because he knew their hypocrisy, he said to them, ‘Why are you testing me? Bring to me a denarius in order that I might see it.’” (Mark 12:15)
The word “hypocrisy” (ὑπόκρισις, hupokrisis) is a compound word, consisting of “hupo” (under) + “krino” (judge), properly “a judging under,” like a performer acting under a mask. The word normally has a negative connotation—a two-faced person or someone who says one thing but does another. But that’s not necessarily so, for everyone has masks—a student mask, a spouse mask, a parent mask, or a churchgoing mask. These are not “bad” masks; they simply represent the different roles one plays.
The Pharisees and Herodians represented the bad mask, which Jesus recognized—though they came as flattering friends, they were actually enemies. Though Donald Brehm wore a different mask that long-ago day on Michigan Avenue than the one he wore as Professor Brehm on campus, he was not insincere in either case—he was not masquerading. Regardless of one’s mask, it should never be worn in a negative, two-faced way.
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