Big Buts of the Bible

An excerpt from Chapter 6

An excerpt from Chapter 6

Giving, Praying and Fasting

We all like to be noticed. To have someone recognize your efforts feels good.

As the Sermon on the Mount continues, Jesus turns his attention to three acts of devotion common among faithful God followers—giving, praying and fasting. He warned that, if we’re not careful, those things we do religiously can easily become more about gaining the attention of our fellow man than about honoring God. They are God-honoring disciplines, but we should consider our motive.

For Matthew’s audience, these devotions spoke to their identity and practice. He was speaking their language. He employed some big buts to put things into proper perspective.

Be careful, Jesus warns, not to do your acts of devotion to be seen. Don’t announce your giving to the needy to be honored by others for your benevolence.

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

Likewise, He warns, when you pray do not be like the hypocrites. Don’t pray, in the manner that they do, in order to be seen and recognized as pious.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

It was common in Jesus’ day for the most pious appearing folks to make a spectacle of their prayer life. They would run on with elaborate and eloquent prayers—babbling many words, as Jesus described it. 

There was a man at the church I attended as a teenager who, it seemed, seized every opportunity to lead the congregation in prayer. The problem was that he wasn’t leading, because neither I nor anyone else in the room could understand a word he said. He sounded to as if he had swallowed a King James dictionary and was regurgitating a theological treatise with every word— “O God, Thou of omnipotence reigneth! We beseech Thee el Shadai: Reign o’er us, O God!”

People were confused. What did he say? Something about rain? Is the umbrella in the car?

Now, I don’t mean to judge the man’s authenticity by his loquacity—there’s a word for you—but rather to suggest that words, when they can’t be understood by the masses (whether in or out of Mass), are at of the heart of Jesus’ warning. Don’t be like this, he says. Your Father knows what you need. When you pray, just speak in your own voice and with your own vocabulary. And certainly not with an eye open to see if anyone is noticing.

And with fasting, don’t make a spectacle of it like those who do what they do to show others their acts of devotion.

But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Jesus urges that our acts of devotion to God ought be done so that they’re not as obvious to others.

At the very first church I served, I met a man named Carl. Well into his eighties, I was shocked one day to find him face down on the floor in the church sanctuary. Imagine—you’re a fresh out of school, newbie pastor, first pastorate, and you walk into the sanctuary … to find an octogenarian lying on the floor!

He was down, crawling around with a can of carpet cleaner and a scrub brush, attacking coffee stains. The church secretary told me that he stopped by several times a month to perform needed tasks like this—but that he didn’t want anyone to know about it. He’d sneak in and out, desiring to go unnoticed. Another day, I found him lying on his back under a couple of church pews. I asked, “Carl, what are you doing down there?” Without looking up, he said, “This seat creaks whenever people sit in it. I’m just tightening it up a bit. No big deal.” When the Lord laid something on Carl’s heart to attend to, he did it. He did it in such a way as to avoid the fanfare.

This section of Jesus’ teaching is about perspective.

He used the word hypocrite in each of the three examples, giving, praying and fasting. The word hypocrite literally means one who wears a mask—or, in other words, an actor playing a role; a poser feigning to be something they are not.

In each example he also used phrases like to be seen, to be honored, or to show—each demonstrating that the intention really was to have an audience. The motive was to be noticed. It was performance more than piety; religious motion instead of heart-felt devotion. Jesus’ point? It shouldn’t be that way.

Is it irony? Right in the middle of this teaching on true acts of devotion, we find the passage known down through the years as The Lord’s Prayer.

This sample prayer that Jesus offers his disciples speaks to proper perspective: Our Father … in heaven … hallowed be your name. Could there be much stronger a contrast to the idea of desiring horizontal recognition for our piety? To whom are our acts of devotion directed? God himself.