"Beware!"

An sermon based upon Matthew 6: 1-18

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership, 

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 9th, 2020

At the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says: “Let your light shine before others, so they may see your good works….” (5:16).   Here, after urging his disciples toward maturity in doing good, Jesus gives a stern, warning: “BEWARE!”

Beware of what?  What does a person who desires to be good, do good, who is good, have to be careful about? 

PRACTICING YOUR PIETY…

In describing his warning Jesus gives us a humorous picture of a fellow putting his money in the offering plate, holding a trumpet between his lips sounding off loud and clear!  This is not the way to give your offering, Jesus says; ‘do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing….’   Let your offering be ‘done in secret’, so that God can ‘reward you…’ (6:2).  This is the way you should ‘practice your piety’—your goodness, or your righteousness ---in secret, not trumpeting in public.

The second picture Jesus gives is stronger: “Whenever you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites; for they loved to stand…at the street corners….so they can be seen” (6:5).   No, when you pray, Jesus says, “go into your room and shut the door’…pray in secret….”   Don’t ‘heap up empty phrases…’   Don’t use ‘many words’ for the sake of words (6:7).  “Don’t be like them, for you Father know what you need before you ask him.”  

During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s most men around here had long beards.  Churches in the area didn’t have electricity, so evening rival services were by candlelight.  Pastor William Linney, told in his book, School of the Prophets, how a man in a nearby Baptist Church was once praying a long prayer during one of those evening services and the prayer went longer, and longer, and longer.   It got so long, that in response, another fellow reached over and grabbed the candle and set his beard on fire, so the prayer would finally come to an end. 

Certainly, Jesus wouldn’t recommend this, but certainly made his point: “Don’t not be like them.”  Do not pray like that.  Long prayers do not make good disciples nor prove true discipleship.  It’s not about the prayer, it’s about the ‘pray—er’.    Following this, Jesus gives us a model of a good, brief prayer, we know as ‘The Lord’s Prayer”, which is only about 55 words in it’s original form.  In other words, you can say everything you need to say to God in about 55 words.  Prayer is less about words, but prayer is about you.  God already knows what you need before you ask.  It’s about you, not words.

The final picture Jesus gives is about fasting.  Now before you write ‘fasting off’ as some archaic religious practice, you need to understand what fasting meant, and what it might still mean. 

Think about it this way, in our society today, many people believe that life is about having whatever you want, when you want it.  This is one reasons we have a drug problem in America.  It’s also one of the reasons addictions to opioids is one of the greatest health problems today.  People still struggle to control their wants, desires, people still have difficulty dealing with pain and suffering.  In a wealthy culture like ours, we’re all so used to having, gaining, and getting, that we can easily become unable to control our desires and curb our physical appetites.   

Even in the ancient world, which had a lot less, controlling appetites and desires was a major issue of daily life.  Self-control was a major part of much of the moral discussion in the ancient world, as we’ve all seen why in some of those historical images of ancient Egyptian and Roman people living in luxury, excess little physical restraint, while the needs of the world went largely unnoticed.

What we need to understand is that ‘fasting’ was important to people of faith, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament too, not simply because it proved devotion to God, but it also reminded them of their responsibility to others.   Fasting was a way of managing and maintaining control over your own body, mind, and soul so that our own desires do not get out of control.  Even though we may call it a diet, rather than a fast, curbing our human appetites is just as important today, as it was then.

Of course, this act of ‘self-denial’ can be taken to the extreme, which is part of what Jesus is addressing here.  Here, Jesus uses the word ‘hypocrites’ again (v.5), pointing out how ‘they’ put on ‘dismal’ and ‘disfigured faces’ to show off pious deeds.  Speaking sarcastically, Jesus says, “Truly they will receive their reward’ (v. 16), but ‘when you fast, speaking to his disciples, he says ‘put oil on your head and wash your face’ (v17).  What Jesus is referring is how, in a dry, dusty, desert culture, people normally presented themselves in public.  It’s something like guys putting Brylcream or girls putting mousse in their hair before going to the office, or going out on a date.  Remember that?  The point is, when you ‘fast’, when you ‘go on a diet’, or when you’re showing self-restraint, it’s not about showing proving that you’re better than anyone else, but it’s about what’s deep within our hearts.

DON’T BE LIKE THE HYPOCRITES…

We can only understand why Jesus takes a different approach from ‘letting our light shine’ to doing things ‘in secret’ when we take seriously this word that keeps coming up in this text: ‘hypocrite’.   We all know the word to refer to someone who ‘pretends to be something they are not’.   That’s certainly part of it, but Jesus means something even more threatening to everything good in the world.  The hypocrite is the person who is appears to do good, and thinks they are doing good, but really, they are doing nothing good at all.   In fact, by doing what they think is good, by doing only what is good for themselves, they are doing no real good, for God, or for the world.   A hypocrite is not ‘letting their light shine’, because, they are only pretending and parading themselves, they are still living in the dark.

Why was Jesus so concerned with ‘hypocrites’?   Why was he concerned with people who give, even though they like to ‘toot their own horn’? I know churches and charities that gladly receive ‘big money’ and putting names on public display, as an example for others.  What’s so wrong with that?   I also know people who pray eloquently in public, what’s wrong with that?  We do need public, not just private prayer, as an example, right?   And what’s wrong with people, like Jesus’ fasting before his mission, or someone like a Gandhi, fasting to make a public protest? 

Of course, the answer is whether someone does something in public or in private, is not only about the merit of the deed itself, but it’s about the intent.  Like he does elsewhere, Jesus is getting to the ‘heart’ of the matter.   The way we live as disciples, is not for simply a show, but it’s about its about who we really are as persons, and what we are trying to do for the world, as people.  The good we practice, whether it be in public, or in private is to be is a good that works from the inside out.  This is a ‘good’, a ‘righteousness’ that seeks to challenges the world because it has already challenged and changed us.

Why was avoiding hypocrisy in our goodness so important to Jesus?  Why is it important that we live out our faith and our goodness in ways that are reflected in our own lives first?   And why is this as important now, as it was then?  Why should we, as followers of Jesus, still be concerned about how we practice our faith as it relates to others in ways that are genuine and authentic?

In answering this, let me tell you about Andy Root.  He has been a Lutheran Youth Pastor, but is now a noted practical, pastoral professor of Christian Living at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Root’s writing is important, because he is making some very interesting observations about being disciples of Jesus in a secular age--- an age where less people believe in God or religion.  In one of this articles, he told the story of a pastor, who has been in pastoral ministry for over 15 years, but now confessed ‘that most days he has no idea what he is supposed to be doing, and it makes him nauseous’.   Root says, this is not a ‘dead beat’, but he’s been pretty good at being a pastor too, he loves his calling, but that pastor is less and less sure that ‘anything he does means anything to anybody.’

Now, don’t get this wrong, pastoral work has always been challenging work, but today something is different, Root suggests.  We live in an increasingly secular culture where God doesn’t matter that much.  In a way, Root says, this is understandable.  Why should anyone live by faith people when we think we have all the facts we need already at our finger tips?  There was a time, of course, when churches were at the center of life and pastors were sought out for spiritual wisdom?  As child 55 years ago, I recall a Saturday morning TV show on WBTV in Charlotte called ‘Parson to Persons.  That show had prominent, local pastor’s discussing life issues and giving supportive solutions.  Who would watch something like that today?  The priorities of our world have drastically changed.  Even to most church members, there are many more important things to do than pray or worship on Sunday.  What matters is what people can count, measure, or manipulate to our own advantage. 

And this goes for church too.  Do you know that the most successful kind of church in this country today is the not a church that comes together to worship God, but it’s a church that ‘serves’ people—that is, it’s the kind of church that gives people what they need or want?  Now don’t misunderstand, I think it’s wonderful for people to go on mission trips, to help the poor, to get involved in social ministries, or even to come to church to become a better person.  These things are important, and I’m not belittling them, but they aren’t central to what church should mean, first of all.

The original meaning of church is to be an assembly of people coming together to give ourselves to God in worship.  Worship is not primarily about getting something.  True Worship is giving yourself to God and then leaving the sanctuary to go out into the world and serve.  But today, in our world, when God is seldom acknowledged in any kind of public way, people, both in the church and outside too, are having greater trouble sensing anything real, important, or tangible of God’s presence.  Unless people feel something in the music; unless they are doing something for themselves or for others, God only matters if God gives you a higher purpose for your own life (Rick Warren).  In short, even for most Christians: If God helps you, then God matters.  God is no longer God because God is God.   

What Andy Root is talking about is important because people, even Christians too, are live in a secular world that has more trouble believing in, trusting in, or acknowledging God as God.  And when God isn’t God simply because God is God, what’s in our hearts matters less than what’s in our heads.   What matters is only what we show, what we see, or what we do, so who seems less important. 

This is why our true, authentic, and sincere ‘witness’ is necessary to true discipleship, not only in Jesus’ day, but ours as well.  Today, people need to see God and good in us in order to see God or God’s goodness at work in the world.  We can all see, on the news most every night, how we are becoming a nation and a world filled with increasing hate, anger, violence, and unending negativity.  The only way we can influence this world, that is be ‘salt and light’ to influence our world in a different direction, is with a genuine, honest, and sincere witness to what is true.   One single Christian, or one single disciple being a ‘hypocrite’ can turn people away from goodness and God, but one single righteous person, doing good, as Jesus himself was and did, can still impact the world for great good. 

PRAY THIS WAY….

To show them (and us) ‘how’ not to be ‘hypocrites, Jesus gave his disciples this model prayer.  This prayer works against hypocrisy because it’s not only a model for prayer, but it’s also a pattern for living one’s lives.   When God is acknowledged as God, and when we genuinely acknowledge our need of God’s goodness and forgiveness, hypocrisy doesn’t get a foot in edgewise. 

Once I was getting tires on my car and while in the waiting area, came into a conversation with fellow from my hometown.  The fellow was just a little older than me, and I asked him if he went to church.  When he told me that he used to go to a certain church that I was familiar with.  I told him that I knew a certain person that still went to that church.  He answered, “Yes, he knew the fellow too, he just happened, many years ago, to have had an affair with his wife.”  Whoops!   You just never know when humanity will show up.

I answered the fellow with my apologies, saying, “I’m sure glad we have a forgiving God.”  But you could tell he was not the kind of guy who went to church much anymore.  He wasn’t bitter, though.  He even admitted that perhaps it happened accidently.  But I wondered, was that what that drove him away?   Did he just lose touch with God?  Did he think all Christians were hypocrites?   Who knows?  What I do know only God is God, and we are not. 

But it’s not just acknowledging God that works against hypocrisy in us, but it’s also acknowledging our need of God’s forgiveness, and our need to forgive each other too.  And sometimes we not only need God to forgive us, we need God to rescue us, or as the prayer says, to deliver us from evil---not just the evil out there in the world, but the evil that can get inside of us. 

This is the hope in Jesus’ prayer, that we will be on a journey in lives, giving ourselves to God’s will and acknowledging our need for God’s forgiveness and deliverance from all kinds of evil.  Let me close with one of my favorite stories.  It’s evidently a very old story because it goes back beyond the negative use of the word hypocrite. For you see, originally, the word hypocrite goes back to the actors who used to put masks on in plays, pretending to be someone they aren’t.  As I heard one actor say recently, ‘when I play someone I have to forget who I am, and become, at least in that moment, the person whom I’m playing and pretending to be.’ 

In the old story, a rough fellow, met a girl that he wanted to settle down and marry, but she was a much better person than him.  He didn’t think he had a chance with her like he was, so he put on a ‘mask’ and pretending to be someone better.  He was able to fool the girl and got her to start going out with him.  But one day, someone saw who he was, and told him, in front of the girl, to remove the mask.  When he slowly took the mask away, to his own surprise, and everyone else, he was no longer the person he used to be, but by pretending to be someone better, he had changed and became the person that he wanted to be.

I like that story because it’s why Jesus teaches his disciples to pray; not because they are perfect already, but he wants them to become the prayer they pray.   Jesus still wants us, his disciples today, to become who we can be when we pray and live this prayer.  Will you conclude this sermon by praying this prayer with me in the great King James language most of us have learned:  “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.  Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever.   

And I close with this ‘Amen’; this ‘so be it’: That you will not only keep praying this prayer and living this prayer, allowing God deliver you, not just from the evil in the world, but from the evil and can get inside of both me and you.  Amen.