Matthew 6:1-6
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
July 14, 2024
Today we engage in our tenth reflection on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which is found in Matthew chapters five through seven.
In chapter five, we saw how Jesus, while accepting His followers as imperfect people in a life-long pursuit of perfection, keeps urging them to embody an exceptional righteousness – one in which they dodge no implication of God’s law and which they seek to fulfill in its every facet. With these first verses of chapter six, Jesus illustrates what this looks like in three traditional practices of the spiritual life: charitable giving (also known as “almsgiving”), praying and fasting.
Verse one here lays out Jesus’ general theme and pattern of thought over the next seventeen verses. In verse one He warns His followers about the great treason in doing the right thing for the wrong reason, and contrasts two different rewards people seek as they do the right thing. He says, “Beware of practicing your piety before others to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.”
To Jesus, authenticity matters; and authenticity derives from motive. Whether He’s talking about giving, praying or fasting, Jesus marks the difference between His genuine followers and the hypocrites: those play actors who pretend to have one agenda when in truth they have quite another. They do what’s right in order to obtain the reward of human admiration. The problem with that is that, if that is the only reward they seek, that is the only reward they will get – and they will miss out on the greater reward that the God who “sees in secret” gives those of genuine righteousness.
Now, some object to Jesus’ encouraging any consideration of reward at all. Shouldn’t Jesus, these critics say, want His followers to be pure and do what’s right just because it’s right? Doesn’t their having a payoff in mind diminish the virtue in their action?
In answer to this objection, C.S. Lewis noted there are different kinds of reward. He says, “There is the reward which has no natural connection with the things you do to earn it and is quite foreign to the desires that ought to accompany those things. Money is not the natural reward of love; that is why we call a man a mercenary if he marries a woman for her money. But marriage is the proper reward for the real lover, and he is not mercenary for desiring it.” Likewise, while rewarding a student for academic effort with a video game store gift card might provide some good positive reinforcement, rewarding a student with a university scholarship is a more fitting award that can suit a deeper aspiration and fulfill their ultimate goal. As Lewis says, “The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation.”
Thus, feeling pleasure from seeing God glorified is the natural consummation of the activity of those who love God. The honoring and commending of God to others completes and satisfies the holy desire of their innermost secret heart. Likewise, feeling pleasure from seeing a hungry person fed or an oppressed person freed is the natural consummation of the activity of those who love their neighbors. The relief of need completes and satisfies the holy desire of their innermost, secret heart.
Though some view the hope of heaven as God’s attempt to bribe us into doing what’s right, heaven too is just the natural consummation of righteousness. As Lewis notes, “Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul desires. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to.”
Of course, it’s hard to keep our heart pure, because every heart is deceitful; and, if we’re not careful, our acts of charity can deteriorate into acts of vanity; and our altruism, into egotism. It’s hard not to show off our virtue! That’s why Jesus tells His followers, “When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” That’s His poetic way of urging us, when practicing generosity, to minimize our self-consciousness lest it degrade into self-admiration, and self-admiration degrade into self-absorption. To seek admiration is to fix our gaze on ourselves, and that blinds us to the needy right in front of us – and we’ll again become as selfish and stingy as ever, just sneakier!
As with charitable giving, so with praying! We can make our praying more about us than about God. We can make it a means for drawing attention to ourselves and receiving the reward of human applause. We then become like the hypocrites who impersonate piety. Their playacting for people prevents them from interacting with God. It diverts their attention and blinds them from the God right in front of them seeking their friendship. It turns their focus in on themselves rather than outward and upward to God. They then miss out on the greater reward.
The issue here is not between private prayer and public prayer, but between God-centered prayer and self-centered prayer. Jesus believes in the practice of public prayer – He prayed publicly and the Lord’s Prayer by which He taught His followers to pray was meant to be said publicly with everyone addressing God together as “our Father”. Yet, Jesus knew His followers also needed to have private one-on-One prayer where there is less distraction, and no temptation to parade piety for other folk’s sake. That’s why Jesus instructs His followers to “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret”. In that solitude God is the only possibility of a reward!
We pray to connect with God. We pray to know God and to become like God – with His values, His perspective and His concern to show love and justice to others.
If we pray correctly and constantly, we get ourselves off our hands. We become less self-absorbed and more attentive to the needs of others. We fret less about our own well-being and grow more courageous in being generous. We pursue the reward of a close collaboration with God in making a big difference for good in this world
May we seek first and foremost the rewards God gives!
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