Ingratitude, hypocrisy and poisoned honey
Dr. Michel E. Abs
General Secretary of the Middle East Council of Churches
The failures of the human race have no limits, and the more “civilization” progresses, the more diversified the failures are and the greater is the number of people who excel in them using everything new and bright.
Since the beginning of creation, man had committed offense after offense, of every type and color, and had deceived his brothers or his surroundings in an attempt to find standing, status, or wealth. The brother killed his brother, the son denied his father, and the friend betrayed his friend.
Confound you, O son of Adam! You portray good as evil and evil as good, and your conscience awakens only as you find out when it is too late.
How brilliantly you do justify the crimes your hands have committed and the major sins you have fallen into, pleading with hypocrisy and manipulating the feelings of others, lying to the point that you believe yourself and engage in a charlatan game until falsehood becomes reality. Convincing oneself of falsehood is the worst, most effective and deadly form of hypocrisy.
How ungrateful you are, O man, denying the favor, throwing a stone into the well from which you drank, and breaking the hand that reached out to you and pulled you out of darkness or from the estrangement of misery.
Arabic literature has been replete with sayings and judgments about the ungrateful, who deny the truth despite their certainty of it, deny the lovely despite its occurrence, who deny what is good and beautiful, because their sick soul orders them to do evil. Alexandre Dumas was right when he said that some deeds are so great that they can only be repaid by their denial. With ingratitude.
Gratitude for kindness, loyalty, honesty and transparency occupy a prominent place in our popular culture, just as denial of favor, treachery, hypocrisy and poisoned honey are condoned in it. The literature of our country, as well as that of the entire world, is full of stories and narrations about people who showed gratitude for those who did good to them, as opposed to people who betrayed those who had supported them in in calamities.
Worst of all are the people who claim to belong to a so-called culture of gratitude who embellish their speech with words that reflect sophistication and belonging to a high-end value system, while they think and act in a way that is the opposite of what they claim.
They are the hypocrites who poison honey with no inkling of regret and make those who believe them partake of it until they get over-satiated with it, to the point of being destroyed.
The Master's biography, in everything He said and did, is full of war on ingratitude, hypocrisy and poisoned honey instances, and those who have studied the Holy Gospel are fully aware of this fact. The problem is that there are those who are aware of such strategies and avoid such practices in their lives, however there are also others who are aware of them and excel in violating the teachings of the Incarnate Master. These latter find that there is gain for them in engaging in such practices, so they persist in their error.
I hear the Master as He says to the hypocrites. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean (Matthew 23 : 25-26 ). The homes of such as these are left desolate for them.
How many diligent people are there who encapsulate falsehood with pretentious rhetoric that shows the opposite of what they harbor? What is worse than uttering the truth that harbors falsehood? Such are those who justify their actions with hypocrisy as they excel in entreating the public to believe in them. We are at the height of hypocrisy. We find hypocrites roaming the community, planting deceit and poison.
This is the crux of the struggle between the sons of light and the sons of darkness.
How right was Gibran Khalil Gibran, son of the Cedars, as he expressed the secrets of his inner soul when he wrote “To those who claim that the Truth I write is poisoned honey hidden behind a thick veil, I say that I do not poison honey. I rather pour poison in its nakedness in clean transparent cups”
Our countries will not emerge from the era of slavery, subjugation and dependency unless our peoples come to say aloud that which they harbor in their inner selves, namely the fact that they reject hypocrisy. It is only then that they shall come to know the Truth and the Truth shall set them free.