Whitewashing a wall has taken on color in recent years. One original purpose of whitewash was to cover up structural defects. Similarly, Jesus accused the Pharisees in Matthew 23:27-28 of being like whitewashed tombs – clean looking on the outside, but full of bones and unclean dead bodies on the inside. Outside they gave people the appearance of keeping the law, but in reality, their fastidiousness with the letter of the law, made them lawbreakers, because they broke the spirit of the law.
It is part of our society to put on a brave face. But, in reality we can be dying on the inside. I have been to churches where if you wore a sad face you were sharply criticized for not "smiling in God's house." The idea must be that Christians never suffer and must therefore always be smiling. That is of course not reality. A whitewashed pretentiousness is not what God wants at all. That's what Jesus said.
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