TEXT:Matthew 6: 1-6 NRSV
SERMON
Beware of practicing your piety before others
Piety can also be translated as “righteousness.” Specifically, the works of righteousness that were easily recognized among Jews: almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. Now almsgiving was more than giving to the poor; it included all sorts of acts of righteousness and mercy. We do well to read almsgiving as good works.
This saying, beware of practicing your piety before others, suggests that our motives and intentions are more important than our actions. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, we can have elegant tongues, magnificent faith, and good deeds that would impress the whole world; but if we have not love, we have nothing. Our acts of piety —our good deeds—are okay if and only if they are performed with God alone as our intended audience. Any other motive–such as the desire to be well thought of, or the desire to spread “religiousness”—all are ill-founded and worthless to God.
If God and only God is our audience, we worship correctly. If we do a thing for God’s glory, it is blessed; if we do it for our glory, it is mere vanity.
6:2 "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
Do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do
When the money boxes were opened for distribution, it is speculated that a shofar horn was sounded to call the poor in to receive their aid. It was something of a spotlight event, and major politics. The Pharisees or Sadducees who were there to deliver the funds at the sounding of the trumpet looked great for it—handing out other people’s money as if it was their own. They looked like the heroes, but as Jesus points out, the real heroes were like that widow who put in her two dollars—all she had.
Have you ever done something like this—worked a soup kitchen or a mission project where you helped distribute other people’s donations? Did people look at you like you were being wonderfully generous? It always leaves me with very mixed feelings. You have to be a real politician to hand out other people’s money while smiling for the news cameras.
Who remember telethons? The Jerry Lewis marathon telethon? “And here’s a big check from the Coca-Cola Company for $10,000!” Were we inclined to think of those donors and kind, good, and wonderful? Jesus says that their reward is exhausted right there.
But what exactly is that reward? Prestige? Honor? A kind of saintliness in the eyes of other folks? The earthly reward we seek is a good reputation. We want people to think well of us—to think that we’re good people. We want others to think that so we can think that of ourselves. This isn’t something we do consciously, but it is universal
Years ago I visited a church in Dallas that never did stewardship campaigns—they raised all the money they needed for the coming year in one night. How? Well, they made a show of it. A show and competition. Thousands filled their mega-sanctuary, and after some music and a brief but rousing sermon, the testimonials started. People stood to show their commitment level: “3000 a year, 5,000 a year, 10,000?” And people clapped and praised God. Then a line formed near the stage. One couple was ushered up to the mic who humbly declared their willingness to sell their boat and give the money to the Lord. Standing ovation. A businessman agreed to sell one of his several buildings and donate the sum: thunderous applause. Person after person, challenged and inspired by the giving of others, would take their turn at the mic and the congregation applauded, hooted (Texas, you know), and struck up the band, resulting in 3 million dollars raised in a few hours. Well, why don’t we do this? (I see our Trustees biting their nails hopefully).
Why not? Next verse:
6:3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing
This is a simple image that makes clear that acts of righteousness should be done with discretion. We should do what is right without a second thought, and definitely without any hint of self-congratulation. Keep your acts of righteousness so secret that they’re practically secret from even yourself. But how does that happen?
Quite simply, we do it for God, God alone, and disregard all other eyes, even our own.
Remember, Christ has sent the Holy Spirit to us to guide us and to work through us. That working in us and through us changes us—but you and I do not consciously manage those changes. The Holy Spirit is growing us into Christ despite our self-awareness of the process. We are being grown without seeing it ourselves. This is a gift to us and it is what every pious heart desires above all: for we pray again and again, “Lord, take us, shape us, use us,” and we don’t put conditions on how God should achieve this in us. We simply surrender ourselves to Him again and again.
The gift is that God can do this work in us without us seeing it—and thank God that He does! Otherwise, we would take pride in our spiritual growth. Yes, we would. So to be grown without self-consciousness of that growth is a true good. It is God’s good working in us while protecting us from pride. No matter how Christlike we should become in this world, all we will see in ourselves is our lack of Christlikeness. But that’s good, because we depend all the more on grace alone.
We want God to work through us in such a way that we can participate in His mission without our left hand even knowing what our right hand is doing. It is good to be used by God, but not if we know we are being used by Him at the moment. We need some of that healthy not-knowing so that we do not get in the way of God’s work.
We are to make no show of our giving. We do not give for the glory of giving, nor for the glory of the Church or the church community—but only for The Lord. Just as The Lord says, “Vengeance is mine” so also the rewarding of virtue is His. We do our good deeds for His Eyes Only, so that we may know His reward and none other.
Do not be like the hypocrites
Mt. 6:5 "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
The word hypocrites means actors, but only in the negative sense: fakes, phonies, those who show off to impress others. And though many people may be impressed by their public performance, God is not.
In their day, it was the street-corners, synagogues, and temple courts that provided the stage for their displays. Today, people still take to the streets to display their “righteousness” filled with good intentions, no doubt, but even in COVID lockdown mode, we have our public stage online. Our new synagogue is Twitter, Facebook, and the user comments at the end of every online article. All equally provide the opportunity to wear one’s faith on one’s sleeve.
A few years ago, we evangelicals enjoyed plastering our witness to Jesus on the bumpers of our SUVs (or Priuses if you’re from Claremont), as well as the assorted Jesus T-shirts and other highly-marketed, so-called Witness Wear. Did we ever pause to question if God is actually honored by these things? I love Jesus so much I’m going to put Him on my bumper sticker! Does that not feel like a cheapening of the message? I question whether we were doing it for God at all—it seems more likely we do those things to impress our friends—particularly our Christian friends, because even the most desperate non-Christian isn’t likely to be turned on by that Christian fish swallowing a Darwin fish in the back window of your Elantra.
I think we do well to beware—to be extremely cautious—not to cheapen the gospel or our witness to it. We mustn’t settle for an easy, quick fix evangelism, manifest in crass marketing as if the good news of Jesus could be sold like fire insurance, t-shirts, or party politics. No, the gospel deserves better. We honor God when we treat the message honorably.
Our evangelism, like our prayers, must be intensely God-focused, without regard to any human audience. As we do not pray for the sake of impressing others, but only to give all honor glory to God, so we proclaim Him and share the good news of His saving grace with the same focus. That is, we do not do things in order to feel like good witnesses, nor do we seek to save souls to impress other Christians—which is a huge motivator in evangelical churches (truth is, only God saves. Yes, we pray to be used by him in the process, but it’s never any credit to us for being so used). The things we do we do only to bring Him glory and honor. That is the only intention that matters.
Hide Your Sufficiency
As we see throughout these teachings of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, our religiousness is in and of itself sinful. Luther, Calvin, Barth, Bonhoeffer were all quite articulate on this point: our religiousness is itself sin. It’s kind of funny because it may be the one part of our self-awareness that doesn’t feel like sin—which is exactly what makes it so dangerous. That’s why Jesus warns us against it. That’s why Jesus is angry with the Pharisees and Sadducees more than the common folk. Our religiousness—the little observances, the doing of righteousness, of social justice, the public prayers—all of these things come from our sinfulness because they can feel sufficient. I go to church every Sunday, I give a tithe plus gifts and offerings, I pray three times a day, I read my bible, I give to our missions, so I’m doing just fine. These little lists we make in our heads to feel we’re okay are part and parcel of our sinfulness. In fact, these are actually our way of keeping God at a distance(which is why it is sin) because if we have the list, who needs Grace?
This is why we Christians must have that inner, private room. We each of us need to cultivate that private spirituality that we share with no one but God. God alone is our audience. Yes, we have a shared spirituality with our families and our corporate gathering here at church, but these are not sufficient; Jesus tells us we must have a secret audience for our prayer life and our exercise of righteousness. That audience is an audience of one: God alone.
AUDIENCES
We all play to an audience. We are all actors treading the boards on this stage of life, and we play for someone or a group of someones. For whom do you play? Is it family? Friends or colleagues? Who is your audience? To whom are you accountable for your choices? You buy a blue shirt or a red shirt—who is watching? Who do you think sees and who are you seeking to please? We all have audiences.
The major part of our spirituality begins when we reject every other audience but God. When we quit playing to the crowds and cease any attempt to impress anyone in this world, but rather live to impress God alone. That is the work of conversion.
So our old school friends look down on us a bit because we seriously follow Jesus? Does that slow us down? No—because we don’t care. We don’t play to them anymore. They are not our audience; we have an audience of one.
How we play to the Lord in turn will affect the way we play to our old friends, but it doesn’t work the other way. If we are trying to please family, friends, or anyone in this world, we are putting them in the place where God alone is worthy to be.
So let us keep God in that place. We play to the Lord; we answer to Him alone; we live to impress only Him.
And here’s some final good news. Can you guess what we do that impresses God? It’s probably not what you think. It’s not long prayers, not soul-saving mission work, not glorious songs or symphonies raised in praise to His name. But God is impressed by our repentance—by our awareness of the truth that we are sinners before Him, utterly inadequate and insufficient in and of ourselves. What makes Him smile is when we confess our sins and acknowledge how utterly we depend upon Him—His grace, His mercy, and His peace.
And so it should be our joy to confess our sins to Him, and let our religiousness—our little delusions of self-sufficiency—be always at the top of the list. For we must remember what Martin Luther says as far as this world is concerned, "Christ dwells only in sinners.”
May we all live in the constant awareness of our sinfulness, at may that awareness amplify our gratitude for God’s mercy, grace, and peace!
QUESTIONS
- How do you square “private piety” with Matthew 5:16: “let your light so shine so others would see your good works and glorify your father in Heaven”?
- What are the different actions which constitute what we call piety?
- What does “sounding the trumpet” represent?
- Left hand, right hand—how can we hide something from ourself?
- How can we do good without self-consciously trying to do good?
- Without getting totally distracted, name some contemporary hypocrisies.
- What does it mean for evangelism to be “God-focused”?
- In having a “private room” for prayer and righteousness, what is it that we are hiding and/or hiding from?
- Can you identify some of the audiences in your life? Which are most difficult to abandon?
- What is the one thing we do that impresses God?