Flourishing by Following: Perform For Your Audience of One (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18)
I think I was in like 2nd grade, and we had to do this activity in class that required a piece of paper. And one of the students didn’t have a spare piece of paper. So, he asked around, “Could I have a piece of your paper, does anyone have a piece of paper I could use?” And this girl in my class jumps at the opportunity, and hands him a piece of her paper. And you might think, “Awe, how sweet. Kids sharing.” Well, then, this little girl started running around the classroom, telling everyone she could that she gave this little boy a piece of her paper. And she was saying it like he was some poor pauper who had wandered in off the streets, and she was a wealthy, merciful benefactor. I mean she was tooting her own horn big time. Like, “Hey, do you see that piece of paper Michael is using? That’s the piece of paper I gave him. Yeah, I just happened to have another sheet of paper, and I wanted to give it to him. I thought it would be the nice thing to do.” And then the kid she was talking to would nod sort of awkwardly, and then she would move on to the next audience member in her own little talk show. And it’s funny because usually only memories that stoke some sort of emotion end up getting sealed for that long. And while the rest of the movie is pretty blurry in my head, I remember the emotion I was feeling quite clearly. I was embarrassed for her, and almost disgusted. It was so clear she was just being nice for the attention.
And I think we’ve all been at a dinner party before when someone is really posturing themselves as someone important and influential, talking about all the causes they support and the volunteering they do on the weekends. And of all the ways to get people’s attention and try to impress them, this might be the most uncomfortable to sit through.
Maybe you know you do this too. Trying to impress others is a deeply human instinct, and the ways we embody what you might call, “a model-citizen,” are easily hijacked by the desire to impress other people.
Well, we’ve been walking through the Sermon on the Mount over the last few months, and we are just now flipping into the second chapter out of three. I know this hasn’t been a restful series for me to sit through, probably hasn’t for you either. So let’s look over the terrain we’ve covered so far. Jesus has spent the first chapter painting a vision for the Kingdom He is bringing, and where that Kingdom is to be found; where, as Pastor Paul says, “Humans are really flourishing.”
And then Jesus turns to highlight some places where the religious teachers of the day had veered off from promoting true human-flourishing by taking the thing they were teaching, the guide to human flourishing, the Law, and ripping it out of context to use it for their own purposes. He says to the people that, if they want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, their righteousness, the measure of how well they were following the Law themselves, had to look a whole lot better than their teachers. Then, to give some examples, He presses on some touchy issues, like how they handled adultery, anger, promise-making, and divorce. And then, after following the same pattern of exposing their misunderstanding, correcting it, and applying the correction in each case, he says, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
So, after this first chunk of the teaching, I’ll bet we the readers are feeling a little uneasy. The Kingdom is not nearly as accessible as we had once thought. Now, as we move to the next chapter, Jesus is going to throw us even another curveball. Follow me to Matthew Chapter Six, the very beginning of the chapter.
(Matt. 6:1) “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”
Not only is our righteousness gonna need to be greater than the Pharisees, who, by the way, would tithe, or donate a tenth, of even their spices, and would memorize whole books of the Law at a time, but also, as we do our best to put into practice what the Law demands of us, we have to be sure not to do it without an audience.
And what about allowing our light to shine before others? How can we be salt and light in the world if we only move in the shadows?
Well, I don’t think that’s quite what Jesus means. I want to peel back two parts of this starting verse. The first one is when Jesus says, “in order to be seen by them.” I think this answers the question of what Jesus is really getting at here. It’s not that He’s saying we need to be generous shut-ins, righteous, but only when it’s dark out. As Jesus so often does in the Sermon on the Mount, He’s getting at our deeper motivations, our heart.
So you’re doing the right thing? Good for you! But why are you doing the right thing? Are you doing the right thing because people are watching, or so that you can post about it on Facebook later? Are you using this as a means to make yourself look better, to get people to like you? Beware of doing the right thing in front of other people in order to be seen by them, because if that’s why you’re doing it, don’t expect any brownie points from your Father in Heaven.
In fact, my Big Idea is going to flow from this: Perform for an Audience of One. And this first line of this teaching is really going to act like a backbone for about half this chapter. It’s like an umbrella that three further ideas from Jesus fall under. The first idea under the umbrella of hidden righteousness is in verse 2,
(Matt. 6:2) “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.”
Alright, so this is the first of three places Jesus is going to interrogate the religious leaders about how they turn doing the right thing into a parade. He points to how the prominent religious leaders at the time would give money to the poor. And He equates the way they were giving money with blowing a trumpet in front of them. Now most Bible nerds think Jesus was using some sort of metaphor here, and that these guys weren’t actually blowing trumpets, but it’s a pretty striking picture.
The trumpet is the counter-opposite of a subtle instrument. To miss a trumpet blast is like missing a fire drill. And I think back to my 2nd grade self, with this little girl running around highlighting how generous she had been in giving a single piece of paper to my classmate, and I see what Jesus means. Attention-seeking generosity is unbearable to be around. But also, notice that Jesus has a specific name for the religious leaders; a little nickname He often calls them in Matthew. “Hypocrites.”
I can say that word, and most of you have a pretty clear picture come to mind. It’s someone who tells you to do something, but then doesn’t do it themselves, right? Well, this word has almost developed a definition of its own in our English language, but our definition doesn’t quite do justice to its origins. The original word would have been used to talk about “stage actors,” and later it became a sort of insult, referring to someone who was pretending, especially when it came to their integrity. We might call them a poser or a fraud. I like the word “pretender.” And that label again taps on the heart of the issue. When we do the right thing only because other people are looking, we may look virtuous on the outside, but on the inside, we are pretending. Our external appearance and our internal motivations aren’t matched with each other.
But now I want to look at a phrase that Jesus uses six times in this teaching, which makes it sort of a motif or theme here. Jesus says,
(Matt. 6:3) “Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
(Matt. 6:4) “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
Already, we see two of the six. If you hadn’t guessed yet, the phrase is, “in secret.” The Greek for this phrase is “εν τω κρυπτω,” which is where we get the root for “encrypted,” like to set a passcode for something or to create a secret language for a message so its contents are super secret. It’s also where we get the word “cryptid,” a creature that we’ve been looking for and telling legends about for centuries but we’ve never found. Bigfoot would be considered a cryptid, because he’s hidden: whether or not he exists and wherever he lives, it’s a mystery.
Now obviously, when Jesus says we ought to give so secretly that our left hand is clueless about what our right hand is doing, He’s using another exaggeration. Jesus is saying that doing the right thing should always come from a heart that wants to stay below the radar, undetected. And this means that, although the good we do is hidden, there is One Person who sees them, our Father, who is hidden, and who sees in hidden places. Jesus goes on:
(Matt. 6:5) “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
(Matt. 6:6) “But when 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.”
Again, we see that theme of “in secret.” I want to note something really quickly that will become important in a few minutes. And that something is about prayer. In our Western imaginations, prayer is often seen as a sort of therapeutic, restful activity. You might think it comes close to meditation. I know I often go on prayer walks. You might think of your morning ‘quiet time,’ sitting down in a nice cozy chair with a beautifully adorned journal with some calligraphy on the front, just relaxing with Jesus. And while journaling isn’t wrong (I use it often), and while praying in a nice cozy rocking chair or out on a long walk on a spring day isn’t wrong, prayer for a Jewish audience during this time would have been a much more rigid and intense thing.
There were set prayers that Jews were supposed to pray every day, at certain times each day, before certain activities, before meals. Praying was not a relaxing affair. It was rigorous and strict. For instance, according to one commentary I read, you had to adjust your mealtime prayer based on what foods were a part of your meal. You couldn’t just have one overarching dinner prayer. If you were serving bread, it would have been a different prayer than if you were serving vegetables. I also learned that four times a day, Jews were expected to pray what are called, “The Eighteen Benedictions,” eighteen different set prayers ranging from praising God for His power and might to asking God for understanding, to asking for forgiveness of sins, to asking for God to heal the sick, to asking God to destroy heretics and traitors. Four times a day, eighteen different prayers had to be offered. And then there was the recitation of the Shema, “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One…” twice a day. Prayer was like a second job for the Jewish people. It was work. It was not free-flowing and casual. They knew they were talking to the God of the universe who had brought them out of slavery. Customs and diligence were necessary.
Jesus is about to talk about fasting after this, and He just finished talking about giving to the poor, both things that modern day believers don’t find too enjoyable. Prayer is sandwiched in between two religious activities that require a sacrifice on our part. Giving to the poor requires us to lose something of our own. Fasting requires us to give up nourishment for a time. Jesus sees prayer as belonging in a similar category. And given the prayer lives of the Jews at this time, it's not hard to see why. Prayer was taxing. It was not rejuvenating or therapeutic. It was a chore, a form of self-sacrifice, just like fasting and giving to the poor.
I’ll come back to this in a moment, but it’s important for us to realize that what Jesus is aiming at here are not things we can do in passing without much effort. All three are work for us, things we won’t always like doing, things that are important, but not always pleasant.
But on the topic of prayer, most of you have probably been asked at one time in your life to pray in a group setting. And I think one of my favorite parts of my job is getting to put someone on the spot to pray. Most of us have been put on the spot to pray before. And in the beginning of our faith journey, and sometimes even for mature Christians, praying in front of a crowd is a daunting thing. Most people are fairly forgiving if you mess up a group prayer, but it still feels like a lot of pressure.
One thing I noticed happen in my own heart is that over time, as I got more comfortable praying in public, I would try to adopt more clever, eloquent, fancy language. I’d try to think of the thing that would make people say, “Mmm.” And more and more, my prayers became a performance for others to hear, and less a genuine request addressed to God. I stopped performing for an audience of one. It was like I was looking up to Heaven with one eye, and over to the crowd with my other eye. But having your eyes split like that will give you a headache.
Jesus seems to see it as a danger to the health of our prayer life. Rather, Jesus says to go into your room, the ‘storeroom’ to be exact, and to pray in secret to the Father who is in secret. Now here’s the crazy thing about that. Prayer was such a public thing for the Jews. And often it is a very public thing for us. To choose to pray only in secret would be to pull out from a cultural norm. It would be like if Jesus told us, “Only ever tip your waiter in private.” But what will my date think if she doesn’t see me tip? What will my neighbors think if they never see me pray? Jesus’ teaching is costly here.
Not only is the rigorousness of the prayer a sacrifice, but there’s another sacrifice in the idea that I can’t use it to appear normal or faithful to those around me.
Let’s jump down to the last of the three, which is actually after Jesus does some teaching on what prayer should look like. We will get to Jesus’ teachings on prayer next week. But jumping down to verse 16:
(Matt. 6:16) “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
(Matt. 6:17) “But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret.”
(Matt. 6:18) “And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
Look! There it is again, that theme of “in secret.” This time Jesus is talking about fasting, how when people fast, they want everyone around them to know that they’re fasting. I’m gonna be honest, it’s hard for me even today to fast without telling at least one person. Fasting is particularly hard to keep secret, because not only is it doing the right thing, but it is actively painful. And we humans love to complain about what hurts. But Jesus tells us here to not make any big deal out of fasting, hiding any sign that we might be uncomfortable, going on with life as normal. Again, Jesus draws our attention to the ways “doing what’s right” becomes a show for others.
This whole set of teachings is really hard for us modern Christians, not just because they ask a lot of us, but because they highlight how little we ‘do the right thing’ to begin with. The amount of church people who see it as a duty to be generous to those in need and who choose to fast for religious reasons, not just health reasons, is a tiny slice of the pie. Even prayer, as therapeutic and restful as we imagine it to be, isn’t a big part of our lives. The reality is that the ancient Jews probably would have smoked us in just about every one of these categories. So it’s not just that I don’t do a good job of keeping my good works secret. I don’t do a good job of doing these good works at all.
Even in the small ways we try to fast, give, and pray, we are tempted to make a spectacle of it. We donate to a GoFundMe, and choose to include our name in the donation, rather than doing it anonymously. We virtue-signal by putting hashtags for our favorite causes on our social media platforms. We snap pictures of our Bibles perfectly posed with a cup of coffee and a nice highlighter and upload our daily readings so our followers know we take this stuff seriously. We are pretenders, hypocrites. We are making even our small good works into a stage for us to dance on. We struggle to perform for an audience of one
And deep down, I actually think there is an issue of trust at play here. Twice in this passage, Jesus says, not just that the Father sees in secret, but that the Father is in secret. And I think this is a big piece of what stretches our faith as believers. God isn’t living in some glorious earthly palace, waiting for us to come cash in our “good works” tokens for blessings and prizes. God is hidden, “en to crypto,” concealed. And so all of our good works are done for someone that we can’t see, that we won’t always hear from, whose being is secret.
And so, it feels like a bit of a gamble doing things solely for the love of this God who remains in secret. And to make matters harder, some of the things He calls us to are things that humans also get excited to see us do. When we give to the poor, our neighbors might look at that and affirm us. They might compliment us. They might treat us nicer. So sometimes, it might soothe the unsettledness we experience in sacrificing and laboring for a God we can’t see to double-dip, you know, kill two birds with one stone. Impressing our fellow man might feel like a nice byproduct, a little bonus, for a part of our lives that is so difficult.
But, that’s the issue of trust! When we double dip, are we trusting God to reward us? When a kid is in a performance in front of a huge audience of people, the first thing they do is look for a friendly face, a grandparent, a friend, a mom or dad. And of course there’s that cute little moment when they wave from the stage at the person they recognize in the sea of faces. If you see the person who knows you right there in the audience, you aren’t so worried anymore about what the rest of the crowd thinks of you.
But our Father is en to crypto, in secret, hidden in the crowd. We look around, and we don’t see the familiar face shining back at us. So it’s easy to allow the anxiety and uncertainty of whether or not our Father is actually watching to make us think, “Well, if Dad isn’t here, then what does the crowd think of me? I just have to aim for their applause.” And this is what happens in our spiritual walks too. We might say that the Father is watching, that the Father’s approval is enough for us, but do we actually believe it? Do we believe it enough to put all of our eggs in one basket? Or are we tempted to take half our eggs out of the basket and disperse them to the crowd. We can see the crowd! We know what they think of us! Their approval is clear from the get go. Waiting on our Father, who is hidden, to reward us is scary and risky. Will we embrace the risk and take the leap of faith?
When Jesus says to beware of doing the right thing in front of people to be seen by them, He’s calling me to trust that the Father will reward me and that the Father’s reward is enough. But what if the people around us wonder whether we are actually good people? We might become so secretive that they think we’re just an average joe. That would be truly sliding all our chips onto the reward the Father promises us from the hidden place.
There’s one story that comes to mind. I thought it would be a little hypocritical of me to share with you a story of when I did something good in secret. So I’ll share with you a story about someone else, someone who might be called a type of cryptid. He may not be as hairy as Bigfoot, but I know children hunt to find him every year around Christmas time. It’s the story of Santa Claus, old Saint Nick.
Many people don’t know that the tradition of Santa came from a moment in the long unfolding story of the Church. Saint Nicholas, also known as Nicholas of Myra, was a man who lived in the very early days of the Church. He was a bishop, which means he was a high-ranking Church leader. And there is a legend about him that I think illustrates Jesus’ teachings perfectly.
One day, Nicholas was on a walk through town after nightfall, and as he passed by one home in particular, he overheard a father talking to his three daughters. And the old man was stressed out, because times were tough for their family, and he couldn’t afford to have a wedding for his daughters. He was worried that they might become so poor that he’d have to sell his daughters into slavery to pay his debts. Well, Nicholas went home thinking about this poor man, and decided to do what he thought was right.
He took a little bag, filled it with money, and cinched the top. He went back under cover of darkness to throw the bag of money in through the window of the man’s house. And the next morning, the man awoke to see a mysterious bag of money, with enough to pay for one of his daughter’s weddings.
St. Nick did the same thing the second night, throwing a second bag through the window, and when the father woke up, he started becoming overwhelmingly curious about who was throwing these bags. So he stayed up the third night, just like you might have done as a child, hoping to catch who was bringing him presents. And when the third bag came through the window, he ran outside and caught old St. Nick, thanking him over and over for what he had done for his family. But Nick responded in a somewhat unexpected way. He didn’t say “You’re welcome,” or “Don’t mention it.” Shocked that he had been caught, Nicholas became deadly serious and paranoid, and begged the man not to speak of this ever again to anyone. He didn’t want anyone to know what he had done for this family.
St. Nick’s posture in this story models for us how we believers ought to be with our good works. We should be devoted not only to doing the right thing, but to doing the right thing for the right reasons, doing it out of genuine love for God, and genuine love for our fellow man. And when we are wondering what we might get out of it, we should trust with all our hearts the reward of our Father, who is in secret, no matter whether that reward comes in this life or the next. We need to perform for an audience of one.
So as we wrap up, I understand if you’re feeling a bit daunted. I feel the same way. This teaching really puts everything we do under the microscope. But perhaps we can take one step forward. I think a super practical step would be to plan out times of prayer, times of fasting, or gifts for those in need, or whatever else you think is the right thing to do, so that you can decide in advance never to talk about it with anyone else. Our lips are sealed, locked—throw away the key. In fact, that’s my challenge to you today.
Out of those three things Jesus lists, fasting, praying, and giving, or maybe a fourth category that comes to mind, which of them could you choose to carve out a little secret space in? Could you spend a day fasting without letting anyone know? Could you spend an hour alone in a private place praying without a peep to even your spouse or your roommate? Could you plan a gift for someone in need without looking for any recognition, or even a thank you from the person you’re giving it to? It’s less rewarding in the short term, and might even feel a little risky, but Jesus makes a promise and asks us to trust that our Father, who sees in secret, will reward us for the way we sacrifice.
And if you haven’t been with us for very long, and you’re not sure yet whether taking the leap of faith and following Jesus is the right move yet, firstly, thanks for having the courage to sit through this service. I know singing is uncomfortable, and churches this size can feel weird. I appreciate your courage. I’d imagine this teaching from Jesus feels good in one way and foolish in another. On the one hand, it might be nice to see less posturing and to hear less virtue signaling from your religious family or friends. Oh how peaceful the world would be if the Church spent less time talking about doing the right thing and more time doing it. So maybe you can catch Jesus’ vision a little bit. Maybe you grew up with a pretender in the home, someone who wore a mask of righteousness, acted holier than thou, but then at home, they were rotten. If that’s the case, I’m sorry. The Church is by no means perfect. We believe Jesus is still working on us, sometimes very slowly.
But maybe on the other hand, this teaching feels like it’s just too risky. We don’t want to admit that it’s nice to receive approval from others, but hey, if we only have one life, we might as well hear some warm words from the people around us, some acknowledgement of where we are fighting for peace, love, and kindness. And so if this feels like it’s just too much of a cost, I understand. Many people over the centuries have responded in exactly the same way. But, I will tell you, that if you come to believe that Jesus Himself is the reward, that the life in Him is the reward, that deeper communion and intimacy with Him is the reward from your Father in secret, and if you come to experience that well of living water, you’ll never go back.
The approval of a crowd or even of your closest friend pales in comparison to the love of the Father. And whether or not you have seen Him in glimpses and moments sitting in the audience, watching you, He has been there paying attention to you, with pride and joy in His heart, since before you could walk. We have people up here in the front who would love to help you process where you’re at with Jesus today if you’re up for it. You can come up during the next song.
Otherwise, we are about to come to the Table, to fellowship in the body and blood of Jesus, and as you come up, mulling over the little sacrifices Jesus might be calling you to make, it is a good opportunity to immerse yourself in the love of Jesus and His sacrifice that made you one with Your Father in Heaven, your Father in the secret place.
Let’s pray.
Songs from this morning:
Great Things – Phil Wickham
Raise A Hallelujah – Bethel Music
Come As You Are – David Crowder
Oceans – Hillsong United
My Testimony – Elevation Worship