What did HE say? (continued)
Thoughts on The Sermon (Part 6)
In the arbitrary chapter breakup of the Bible, we have completed Chapter 5 of the Gospel of Matthew which is the first of the three dedicated to The Sermon on the Mount. The subject matter changes here from the comparison of the ‘old’ law versus the ‘but I say unto you’ law of Jesus, to a dissertation on how one should act toward God in giving, praying and fasting so as to avoid the hypocritical nature that He saw dominating the lives of the religious Jew at that time.
We start Chapter 6 with “take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly” (Matthew 6:1-4). The lesson here seems easy yet it is not one easily learned. What one does in alms is to be between himself and the Lord and it is to be kept that way. Whether giving to the church or to the poor or to some fund for such and such, what we are giving is not to be broadcast about so that we look good in the eyes of men. Now giving is such that Jesus does tell us that in any kind of giving the giver will have his reward. However, when we understand His teaching and we know better we should refrain from broadcasting what we give for the benefit of the egotistical self. Men are and perhaps have always been far too concerned about how they look to others when giving is concerned and this should not be. Neither should be competitions in giving, nor evaluating others’ giving. Nothing that singles one out from the crowd. His statement of let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth should give us a key as to what level of emphasis He places on the secret act of giving. One could see also that this teaching should extend beyond individual giving and into the modern world of corporate giving, church giving or the giving of any group; all this, in His words, should be in secret, between the giver and God and not as a method of self-aggrandizement whether intentionally sought or not. Our giving should not be deemed to be money or material things only; giving one’s time or other resources should also be considered in the same way.
Should the idea of sowing and reaping enter into decisions on giving? Is not giving that you may receive just as self-serving as the giving to be recognized for it as shown above? Some tend to interpret thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly as a cue to position oneself to receive a material reward for what he gives. It may be so that we do get some perceived reward at times; but should it be the reason for giving? What should we say about public testimony concerning what one gives and gets as a perceived result? This too seems directly contrary to the Master’s teaching. As part of his much misunderstood message on giving as sowing and reaping (this is my opinion) the Apostle Paul does make a very profound statement on the nature of our giving which should be true for all: “Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly , or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).
The Master moves on now to prayer and treats it in much the same way as He does alms insofar as it is a private thing and not something to be done so that others can see or hear our petitions to the Lord. On prayer He says: “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you , They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him” (Matthew 6:5-8). Jesus makes two points here; the one, of course, is to pray in private and the other is to refrain from ‘vain repetitions’. On the private part, we should take this as more than just being alone and without any desire to be seen; we should also take that we should go into our secret place. We should pray from the heart which, when held in the Light of the Soul, in His Presence, is free from the trappings of the world. When done this way, prayer can truly be direct communication with the Father. This idea then plays into Jesus’ next point on prayer and that is that it should never be vain repetitions or the utterance of words that are of no meaning for the one praying at that moment. Our prayer should be from our secret place, from the heart, and not from the head alone in meaningless blabber. We should remember also that He tells us that God already knows what we have need of so that endless repetitions in any manner are meaningless.
The next line leads into the Lord’s Prayer as it is commonly called and comes in the form of a direction from the Master on how to pray. It does seem here that He is giving us an outline and a tone for prayer when He says: “After this manner therefore pray ye” (Matthew 6:9). It is interesting to note that in Luke’s rendition of this prayer the Master says straightforwardly “when ye pray say” (Luke 11:2). Here, there is no suggestion of an outline but rather a statement of how to pray to the Father and what one should say. Next follows the prayer itself for which there are two slightly different forms in two of the gospels. “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen (Matthew 6:9-13). The choice of words in this prayer have led to much debate but debt is in reality debt; not only monetary debt or the like but any owed thing. In the verses that follow the prayer, which we will address later, Jesus changes the tenor of the word debt buy substituting trespasses during His explanation of the nature of forgiveness. In the Gospel of Luke these same words read “and forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us” (Luke 11:4) which is a sort of combination of the two thoughts from Matthew. For our purposes we should look this way: debt and indebted do tend to make the offence personal or person to person while trespass and sin tend to infer offence against God or the law. In this light we can see that we could do another person wrong or be done wrong by another with the wrong not rising up to the level of sin. But which, in our hearts, still weighs heavy and requires forgiveness.
Now there are unified versions of this prayer which take the above into consideration and most likely they are what each of us knows as the Lord’s Prayer. However, these versions tend to substitute the word trespass for both sin and debt which may take away from the intent of the Master to show us that it does not have to be clearly sin for which we forgive or require forgiveness but anything that we, in our hearts, feel the weight of in our relationship with others. For our analysis of the Lord’s Prayer in the combined form from the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 please see the Prayers and Meditations section of this site which can be found as a menu on the right side this post page.
Jesus closes this part of His Sermon with the admonition: “for if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15). Simple to say but in life in this world exceedingly hard to do. In His Presence however it is easy and natural and is done without effort. In the world where the ‘I’ principle controls lives it is easy to hold a grudge for years; it is easy to not forgive because the someone to be forgiven has not performed the same to you; it is east not to forgive for many reasons but, in the Light of the Master’s teaching and in His Presence, all our reasons become meaningless. Emmet Fox says, in an affirmative prayer, about the act of forgiveness: “if anyone has ever injured me or done me any kind of harm, I fully and freely forgive him now, and the thing is done forever. I loose him and let him go. I am free and he is free.” This is the power of forgiveness; FREEDOM. In true forgiveness we never give the thing a negative thought again. This is not to say that we cannot remember; it means simply that we hold no negative thoughts or feelings. It means we see the reality of our true nature and the other’s true nature and the temporal nature of the thing itself.
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.
