Matthew 6.1-4.
The second chapter of Jesus’s
Matthew 6.1-4 KWL 1 “Be careful to not do your righteous deeds- in front of people for them to see.
- Otherwise you certainly get no compensation
- from your heavenly Father.
2 “So whenever you do for the needy,- you ought not trumpet it out before you,
- same as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and the streets
- so they might be praised by people.
- Amen! I promise you this
- is the compensation they receive.
3 Now when you do for the needy,- don’t let your left hand know
- what your right does,
4 so your works for the needy- might be private.
- And your Father, who sees what’s done in private,
- will pay you back {in the open}.”
“In the open” in verse 4 was added to the text in the fourth century, and found in the Codex Washingtonianus and the
Superficially, Jesus’s teaching appears to contradict what he said about
Jesus’s word “compensation” (Greek
Various stingy Christians claim God owes us nothing when we do good deeds. ’Cause we should be doing ’em anyway, right?
Unless of course we’re not working for God, but for our own gain. Unless we’re not making him any profit, but swiping all that profit for ourselves. This is what Jesus addresses in this lesson: Hypocrites who only do good deeds to make themselves look good. Ostensibly they work for God, but really they’re growing their own little fiefdoms instead of his kingdom.
There are three hypocritical practices Jesus objects to in the Sermon: Self-serving public charity,
Acts of charity.
Jesus warns against doing one’s
Both these words actually come up in
Tobit 12.8-10 KJV 8 Prayer is good with fasting and alms and righteousness. A little with righteousness is better than much with unrighteousness. It is better to give alms than to lay up gold:9 for alms doth deliver from death, and shall purge away all sin. Those that exercise alms and righteousness shall be filled with life:10 but they that sin are enemies to their own life.
Since Jesus objects to hypocritical prayer, fasting, and good deeds, I gotta wonder whether this Tobit passage was anywhere in his mind.
English-speakers in the 1600s considered “alms” to be the pocket change they gave to beggars. But Jesus didn’t only mean this type of helping the needy. It’s any kind of good deed, done to any kind of needy person. Even the wealthy have needs sometimes, and if you do good deeds for them, that’s included in Jesus’s idea. And proud people of every economic status might hate to think of it as charity, but charity it is.
Charity like hypocrites.
Did ancient hypocrites
Thing is, there’s no historical evidence for this behavior. Seriously, none. It’s speculation based on over-literalism. Jesus was
Priests blew shofars as part of major festivals, and during just about every festival, people gave to charity. Plus the offering-boxes at the temple were shaped like shofars—and because they were metal, they made a whole lot of noise whenever people poured coins into ’em. Jesus might’ve had either idea in mind when he brought up how people might “trumpet it out before you.”
And people, particularly the rich, love to publicize their good deeds; it helps make up, in the public mind, for all the other evil, selfish stuff they do the rest of the time. Big donations, galas to raise money, charitable foundations—all of them come with press releases, in which their publicists make sure everybody knows they’re good people. Of course the motive isn’t to glorify God; it’s why the foundations have the donors’ names on them. It’s to make people think, “What good people.”
Our best-known philanthropists might be Christian, and might justify their behavior by telling themselves, “Well I am making my light shine before others, like Jesus said.” But are they known for being Christian? Are they known for their devout lifestyle outside of their public or business functions? Seldom. They have to remind everyone they’re Christian, because their underpaid employees, financial mismanagement, underhanded competitive tactics, deals with unscrupulous companies, startling materialist lifestyles, and fascist politics, declare just the opposite.
Plus in the United States, your contributions to nonprofit organizations gets you a tax rebate. Give enough of your income away, and you won’t even owe taxes. Many wealthy people would much rather give their money to the needy than to the government. So they do.
Certain socialists like to say the rich hoard their wealth like a dragon on a pile of gold, and demand laws be passed to whittle away at this wealth. So in order to prove they’re not hoarding, that such laws aren’t necessary, many wealthy people regularly make a public display of giving to charity: “Look, I don’t hoard.” But it’s a relatively inexpensive donation on their part. Say a billionaire gives away $10,000 a week. Sounds generous, doesn’t it? But to them it’s pocket change. They spend $520,000 a year… but a true tithe of a billion dollars is actually $100 million. Are any billionaires giving away $100 million? Any of them?
That’s the situation when hypocrites give to the needy. For most, it costs ’em little. They never give till it hurts. Whenever money gets tight, they drop the charities long before they’d go without their luxuries. They might alleviate others’ hardship, but they’ll never share it. “Moral support” is the furthest they’ll go: They’ll feel bad. But rarely self-deprived. Rarely sacrifice.
In fact I’ve heard people use this reasoning to encourage other people to give: “It’ll cost you less than a cup of coffee per day to make such a huge impact.” Your charity will cost you little. No strain. No suffering. Just $4 or $5 a day, and you can feel like you’re doing something instead of nothing. You can feel good about yourself… and do nothing more. Hold on to your wealth, and use a tenth of a tithe to feel like you’ve gone far above and beyond the rest of humanity—which, sad to say, you kinda have. But what a bargain!
Jesus calls such people hypocrites. Not just because they’re pretending to do it for God, but really to salve their own consciences, or get public acclaim. It’s because they usually give so little. You realize only one out of five Christians actually
Nope, charity isn’t a part of their daily life and their daily makeup. Charity’s a special occasion. The reason they make a fuss about it, is because of its rarity—“Look, I’m giving! (For once.)” If we gave all the time, we wouldn’t even think about giving a bit more. Our left hand wouldn’t know what our right was doing—because our hands do this automatically. Not so much secretively.
That should be our goal. Never publicity. Never to stop our consciences from bothering us. We give simply because God’s given us so much. We’re generous because we’re passing grace along. We love ’em enough to limit ourselves, to say, “I don’t need a new laptop this year,” and give like it’s not our money—’cause in a sense it’s really not.
And when God sees fit to give us public attention and praise for it—’cause sometimes is is the way he chooses to reward us—then okay. That’s up to him. Let’s not argue with his rewards, or focus on any rewards; let’s just focus on doing good deeds, and be pleased enough with the fact the needy are having their needs met, and people are praising God because of us.
