When I read how Christ called the Pharisees hypocrites, I used to imagine people who were consciously pretending—people who knew the truth but deliberately acted as though they did not. Calculating deceivers, in other words.

But the word “hypocrite” has another meaning rooted in the idea of an actor: someone who plays a role. This is closely related to pretending, but it adds an important distinction. Acting is not always malicious. A person may play a role because they believe that is what they are supposed to do. They may be entirely sincere in their performance, even genuinely experiencing the emotions of the character they are playing.

The Pharisees whom Christ condemned seem to have sincerely believed that by observing external rules and fulfilling religious prescriptions, they were pleasing God. This may have been what provoked their hostility toward the incarnate God: Christ did not fit their script. In playing the role of Israel’s religious leaders, they lost sight of the most important reality—the living human being standing before them.

This kind of acting in myself is what I fear most.

I come to church dressed in a certain way. I greet people in a certain way. I behave according to an established pattern. I know what a proper Christian is supposed to look like. During Lent, I know that I should dress modestly; at Easter, I know that I should smile.

There is only one step from this knowledge to a situation in which form becomes detached from substance. One can begin to act sincerely while simply performing a role in the large theater of society. One may want to look like a Christian because Christianity appears respectable and virtuous, rather than actually becoming one.

The boundary is extremely thin. That is why I have tried to establish a simple rule for myself: to ask regularly why I am doing what I am doing.

Why do I dress modestly during Lent? Why do I bow? Why do I stand in reverent silence? Why do I recite the Creed together with everyone else during the liturgy?

Am I doing these things for their spiritual meaning, or merely to meet other people’s expectations? And if I am motivated by the desire to conform, does that desire come from genuine care for others—or from the wish to appear good in their eyes?

Religious forms are not meaningless. Clothing, gestures, silence and shared words can shape the heart. They can teach the body to participate in prayer and remind us that faith is not merely an interior feeling.

But no form can save us if it becomes a substitute for love. A bowed head is not humility by itself. Silence is not peace by itself. Correct words do not necessarily indicate a transformed heart.

The danger of hypocrisy is not simply that we might deceive other people. It is that, over time, we may deceive ourselves. We may become so attached to the role that we forget there is a difference between appearing faithful and allowing faith to change us.

The answer is not to abandon every outward practice in fear of being false. It is to return continually to the question of whom those practices are meant to serve. Do they make us more attentive, more compassionate and more honest? Do they help us recognize the person in front of us? Or do they merely confirm our image of ourselves as good religious people?

Christ’s warning to the Pharisees is therefore not addressed only to public hypocrites. It is also a warning to anyone who has learned how to look virtuous without becoming more loving.

I hope that the habit of examining my motives will help me avoid the judgment expressed in the Gospel: “Woe to you, hypocrites.”

The most convincing Christian performance is no performance at all. It is a life in which the outward form gradually becomes truthful because it reflects an inward reality.