This homily was preached in the Morning Prayer service at the Trinity School for Ministry chapel on Thursday, September 26, 2013.
Matthew 6:1-6,16-18 Homily
Matthew 6:1-6,16-18 Homily
I think we all know this sermon: Do
your good deeds in secret, and the Lord will reward you. We can't
boast in our works, but only in the grace of God our Father given to
us by the Lord Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. So, do your good
deeds in secret, because you must seek the love of God, and not the
approval of others.
But, there's a slight issue here. What
about when we do deeds that are
meant to be in the public eye?
For those of us
involved in ministry, there are times we are meant to show good works
in our public lives so that they can be seen and imitated by others.
Jesus prayed loudly before Lazarus' tomb, “Father, I thank you that
you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on
account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you
sent me.” Paul writes to the Philippians, “What you have learned
and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and
the God of peace will be with you.” Peter writes in his first
epistle, “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that
when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good
deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” So, as ministers
or future ministers, how can we apply this teaching to the way we
conduct ourselves in our doing good for the Kingdom?
We have to ask
ourselves what the purpose is behind this teaching. To introduce this
section of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says “Beware of
practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by
them, for then you will have no reward from your father who is in
heaven.” But I've already listed three examples from Jesus, Paul,
and Peter, where it is shown that there are times when good deeds are
done and seen by others. I think it's clear that Jesus can't mean
that he is just concerned with our good deeds being seen. It's not
like if someone else happens to walk in on us praying that God will
then be like, “Nope. That one doesn't count. You'll have to do it
again later when no one's looking.” And imagine what that could
mean for the soup kitchen industry.
The conclusion that
has to be drawn is that Jesus is saying we shouldn't try to impress
others with our righteousness. In each of the three examples above,
the point of being seen by others is so that God would be glorified.
Jesus prayed so that the people would believe that he was sent by the
Father. Paul wants the Philippians to imitate him so that God will be
with them. Peter wants the Christians to show their good deeds in
order that God will be glorified.
There are now two
further questions we need to ask. Why are there two separate
teachings on practicing good deeds? And, how do we know which deeds
we must do in secret, and which in public?
I think both of
these questions have the same answer. It's all about glorifying God
in what we do.
So, what's with
these two different teachings? On one side, doing good deeds publicly
will bring pride and lose us the reward we have from our Father in
heaven. On the other side, we have our public deeds being seen by
others so that they may be brought into God's grace and so that God
would be glorified through their witness. We have to be aware that
both of these teachings are in the Scripture for a reason. They are
both meant to be followed.
We Christians must
learn to glorify God both in secret and public places. There is no
time in our Christians lives at which we can give up doing one or the
other. We need to glorify God in secret because God desires us to
have a personal relationship with him. We praise him even when no one
else is around to hear because our praise is meant for him alone. We
love him in secret because we were made for his most intimate love.
And we serve discreetly because we are confessing our loyalties to
him and not to others. The good that we do should not be influenced
by how we might appear to others but by our love for God.
On the other hand,
we need to glorify God publicly because we are called to share his
good news with the world. We praise him with our brothers and sisters
because God wants his people to be one. We love him in communion
because his love is meant for all. And we serve in the midst of
others because we are his representative servants to the world. The
good that we do in the midst of others is not meant to magnify
ourselves, but magnify the Kingdom here on earth to the glory of God.
Both good things
secret and public are important for us. But then we are led into the
second question. How do we know which deeds we must do in secret and
which in public?
While I probably
can't answer this question definitively for each of us—since I
think we all have our own contexts we are asking from—I do believe
there are some guidelines as to how we can answer this question.
When Jesus goes
through the list of good deeds, what he doesn't say is “don't ever
let anyone see you do good.” But he says “when you give to the
needy, sound no trumpet before you … when you pray ... [don't]
stand in the synagogue and at the street corners, that [you] might be
seen by others … and when you fast, do not look gloomy like the
hypocrites.” What we see here is Jesus telling us not to
intentionally draw attention to ourselves when we do these things,
because then our reward is in our fame. If you are drawing the
attention of others to you, then you aren't doing these things for
the glory of God, but for the glory of self. The easiest way to tell
if you should be doing your deeds publicly is whether you are
intentionally trying to draw attention to yourself as you do them.
Our public deeds
should come out of the same love as our secret deeds. They should be
motivated only by the glory of God out of thanksgiving for salvation.
We don't do them for the purpose of lifting ourselves up, but to
serve and lift up others. We don't do them to increase ourselves, but
to decrease ourselves so that God might increase. “And the greatest
among you shall be like the youngest and the leader as one who
serves.” Because we are not called into leadership so that we can
exercise dominion or gain power, but so that we can serve and give
ourselves up for those whom we serve.
For
this, we have the greatest example in our Lord and Teacher Jesus
Christ, “who,
though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a
thing to be grasped,
but
emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,” and he said, “If
I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought
to wash one another's feet.
For
I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have
done to you.” And he has not only washed our feet, but our whole
bodies by his very blood when, “being found in human form, he
humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even
death on a cross.”
We
must love the Lord our God in secret and not call attention to
ourselves when we do good publicly. The good that we do is not to
glorify us, but to glorify the one who sends us. And when we do these
things in secret, even when we are seen, we will find that the one
who sees in secret will reward us. And our reward is found in the joy
and peace of his Spirit, and the hope of salvation.
