Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21

Ash Wednesday 2022 | Mt 6.1-6, 16-21 | by Richard O. Johnson | 

Jesus said, „Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 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. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 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. 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. And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.“ (Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21 NRSV)

This evening we begin our Lenten journey once again—later that usual this year, to be sure, but it is never the wrong time for this journey intended to bring us closer to Jesus by leading us to his cross. Tonight’s passage is the traditional gospel text for Ash Wednesday. Each year it strikes me as ironic. Here we listen to this text that urges us, among other things, to wash our face so that our piety may not be seen by others, and then we receive the imposition of ashes, the visible mark of repentance and mortality. Is this God’s idea of a joke?

But it isn’t just Ash Wednesday. Much of our focus during Lent has traditionally been on external disciplines, things we do to demonstrate our faithfulness. So how do we square that practice with what Jesus says in this passage?

Beware!

Well, I’ll say more about that momentarily. First, I’d like to call attention to the beginning of this gospel lesson: “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them,” Jesus says. Let’s think about that word “beware.” The word as we use it normally is a warning—and a warning against some danger that might not be immediately evident. “Beware of dog!” the sign says, and then we know that we must take special care if we are walking into that yard or near that house. You may like doggies, but this one may be dangerous. “Beware of thin ice!”—and we think twice about skating on that pond—even if it looks perfectly safe at first glance. It is a word that really ought to be painted in big red letters, because it is a warning of danger and it’s important to heed it.

That’s the way we must hear Jesus’ words here, too. Some of the older translations rendered this, “Take heed . . .” but our translation very rightly has it “BEWARE.” It is a warning. There’s danger here. We must be careful.

Now let’s remember the context of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is talking to disciples. He’s talking about the Christian life, and what it entails. He’s giving insider instruction, taking us deeper into our discipleship. So when he says “Beware,” he’s not warning against some grievous, open sin like murder or adultery or theft. He’s talking to people who know the commandments, who know right from wrong. But as in the signs about dogs and thin ice, the purpose of this warning is to point out a danger that may not be immediately evident. And it is, Jesus says, a danger precisely for those who seek with their whole heart to obey God. When we are striving most to be faithful, that’s when this warning sign pops up.

You start showing off

Why the warning? Well, because in chapter 5 of Matthew Jesus has told us that we are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. “Let your light so shine before others,” he said, “so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Part of being a Christian disciple is letting our light shine. Jesus does not want us to be shy about our faith, our ethical standards, the way we live. And that’s why we need this warning! It is too easy, he says, to slip over the line and start doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

In The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger’s classic novel of adolescent angst, Holden Caulfield makes a very perceptive comment: “If you start doing something good,” he says, “then, after a while, if you don’t watch it, you start showing off. And then you’re not as good anymore.” What Jesus is telling us in this text is that it is important to do the right things, but it is equally important to do them for the right reasons. The specific things he mentions are almsgiving, prayer and fasting. Those were the three standard elements of the pious life in first century Judaism. Jesus just assumes his followers, being pious people, will do them. But when you do them, he says, when you give, when you pray, when you fast, here’s how to do it and how not to do it. And “how not to do it” is the same in each case: Don’t do it in order to be seen by others.

So how do we let our light shine, and yet not do these things before others? I think the key lies in the wording of that introductory verse: “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them. What is at heart here is motivation. Jesus is not condemning alms, or prayer, or fasting or any other religious practice that is seen by others. He is condemning those practices when they are done in order to be seen by others. It’s interesting that the phrase, “in order to be seen,” in the Greek text uses the word from which we get our word “theater.” He’s really saying, “Don’t make a show.” And those who do such things he calls “hypocrites,” which, in Greek, literally means “actors.” They are acting pious, putting on a show, but their real motivation is to impress other people with their piety. And that is what we are warned against. “BEWARE,” Jesus says, “The best actions can come from the wrong motivations.”

Hide your good works from yourself

Dietrich Bonhoeffer has a wonderful spin on this paradox between being told to “let our light shine before others” and yet being told to do our good works in secret. The real point here, he says, is not so much that we are to hide our good works from others, but that we are to hide them from ourselves. “Our task,” he says, “is simply to keep on following, looking only to our Leader who goes on before, taking no notice of ourselves or of what we are doing. We must be unaware of our own righteousness.” In commenting on prayer, for instance, and on Jesus’ commandment that we should not pray on the street corners but go into the privacy of our room, Bonhoeffer says that the real danger is that we may, in our praying, put on a show not for others, but for ourselves. “I can put on a very nice show for myself even in the privacy of my own room,” he says! Nobody prays more ardently than I do in the privacy of my room! The point of secrecy, you see, is not just to avoid other people seeing what we do; it is also to avoid impressing ourselves with what we do.

If we hear Jesus aright, we will understand that our piety, our righteousness, our devotion to him is rightly done out of love for him—not out of obligation, not out of self-importance, not even out of self-need, but out of love. It is a love that is secret—not that it is hidden from others, for indeed it shines through us—but it is a love that is genuine and deep between us and God, so much so that our expressions of it come so naturally and easily that we don’t even notice them. But God, who shares that secret love with us, rewards us by drawing us ever deeper into his love.

___

The Rev. Richard O. Johnson

Webster, NY

roj@nccn.net