Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21)
And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Our gospel reading from Matthew chapter 6 is from the middle of one of Jesus most famous sermons often called “The Sermon on the Mount.” It starts with the beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and later Jesus explains the 10 commandments in detail. But right in the middle of the sermon we have our gospel reading tonight, which speaks about three different things: giving to the needy, prayer, and fasting.
And three times in our reading tonight we read the words: And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Tonight we come together to celebrate Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, which is a season of the church year where we prepare for Easter for 40 days. These 40 days are in honour of the 40 days where Jesus fasted in the wilderness. And it is also called a season of repentance, sometimes also called a penitential season of the church year. There are two seasons like this, Lent and Advent. Advent prepares for Christmas, and Lent prepares for Easter.
Lent was also a time for self-examination, prayer, fasting: a time to have a good look at yourself in the mirror, a time to acknowledge what sort of a person you really are that Christ needed to so painfully suffer and die for you.
But why do we prepare for these happy times of the church year, Christmas and Easter, with repentance, prayer, and fasting? Because it acknowledges one very serious reality: the Christian faith is no use to anyone if we don’t recognise that we are sinners. The birth of Jesus is no use to you, if you don’t recognise that you were conceived and born in sin. The death of Jesus is no use, if you don’t recognise that the wages of your sin is death. The resurrection of Jesus is of no use to you if you don’t recognise that without Christ, you are dead in your sins.
This is a very serious business. There are many false prophets in the world today who want you to think differently. There are many people who think that sin is something that something that can be laughed away: “She’ll be right! Everyone’s a sinner!” But just because everyone’s a sinner doesn’t mean that everyone’s saved.
We are living in very evil times, because not only do people not believe in God, but they don’t believe that the devil is real, or that there is a hell, a judgment, a reckoning for every careless word spoken, and every sinful thought.
And before we start to think that the people who think like that are outside, over there somewhere, out there in the big bad world, remember that these lies of the devil are your cradle. You’ve been raised with these lies, you’ve breathed them in your whole life long – you’re not immune. In fact, every single person born in the natural way, is born with sin. Every thought word, and action is done is blemished, and tainted, and scarred with sin. Genesis 6 says: “Every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” St Paul in Romans 3 says: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no-one does good, not even one… There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
In 1530, the first Lutherans were asked to confess their faith publicly by the Emperor Charles V in the city of Augsburg. In the presence of many witnesses, they read their confession of faith, which was called the Augsburg Confession. This confession of faith became then the foundation of faith, teaching and confession for the Lutheran church. This is what they wrote about sin: “It is also taught among us that since the fall of Adam all men who are born according to the course of nature are conceived and born in sin. That is, all men are full of evil lust and inclinations from their mothers’ wombs and are unable by nature to have true fear of God and true faith in God. Moreover, this inborn sickness and hereditary sin is truly sin and condemns to the eternal wrath of God all those who are not born again through Baptism and the Holy Spirit.”
Now, in our reading tonight, Jesus speaks about three things: giving to the needy, prayer and fasting. These are not good works for us to earn God’s grace and favour by our own efforts. If we want to appease God with our own works, then we spit in the face of everything that Christ did for us on the cross. He died for you, he rose again from the dead for you, he has baptised you. Jesus saves you and only Jesus saves you. Acts 4 says: “There is no other name given among men by which we can be saved.”
If Jesus had to die for you, do you think that you’re few dollars that you give to the needy, or your stammering prayers, and skipping the odd meal here and there are going to earn salvation for you?
Nevertheless, giving to the needy, prayer and fasting teach you about God through experience and they teach you about yourself. And anything that teaches you about yourself, teaches you about sin.
Now, what is interesting about our reading tonight is this: Jesus doesn’t wave his finger at you and say, “Oi! Give to the needy! Pray! Fast! Do it, because I say so!”
That’s what’s Islam says. It says, let me tell you what to do to be a good Muslim: say that you believe in Allah, pray, fast, give to the poor, go to Mecca. That’s called to five pillars of Islam.
Now Jesus is talking in a completely different way. He teaches about these things by saying: “When you give to the needy, when you pray, when you fast.”
Jesus assumes that you will do these things as part of your life. He also doesn’t give you a money limit for giving to the poor, a time limit for prayer, and a food limit for fasting. He leaves that to you.
Each person will notice different needy people at different times. It’s important that when we see Lazarus sitting at our gate that we don’t harden our hearts to such people.
Each person will have a different capacity to pray. It’s important also that we don’t neglect to pray and treat it as unimportant.
Each person will have a different physical capacity to fast. It’s important also that we don’t neglect the faith completely like so many do because they do nothing but worry about what goes into their bellies.
Now the interesting thing about each of these things, giving to the needy, prayer and fasting, is that Jesus doesn’t want us to do these things so that we can be noticed by other people.
He says: “Beware of practising 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.” Notice Jesus choice of words here and let them sink into your heart and convict you: Beware! You will have no reward!
With governments, service clubs and other organisations, they always want it the other way around. They want to be seen. They want people to notice them. They don’t realise that ultimately they are answerable to God: instead they make people their judges and only do what they can do so that they look good. You don’t have to go very far in Gippsland to see the enormous social dysfunction, broken families, hurting people: and most of the time, nobody does a thing to help these people, but instead perpetuate the problem. The government does nothing, service clubs do nothing, and most of the time, churches also do nothing, because it’s thankless work and nobody sees it. Governments only invest in what will give them votes, and other organisations will only invest in what will continue their funding.
I’m not saying that governments and service clubs like Lions, Kiwanis and Rotary and such like don’t do a lot of good things. Of course, they do a lot of good things. But they do it to be seen. And so on the last day, there will be no reward for the Australian government, Lions and such like. They already have their reward.
There are a lot of people in the world who want to do good and help people, both inside the church and outside the church. But there is always so much back-patting that goes on – we did this, we did that, and aren’t we good! Beware! You will have no reward!
Jesus says: 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. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 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.
If you want to help people and do something good, do something that won’t be seen, that no one will know about, because then you can be sure that God himself sees it. If nobody will know about it, then you can be sure that God is shining his light on it for you and saying to you: Go over there, and help that person.
And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Now when it comes to prayer, Jesus tells us the same thing: 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. 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.
There is one thing to pray in public together – and often when we do come together in public in prayer, we pray set prayers that everyone can join in with: psalms, songs, hymns, the Lord’s prayer, or else the pastor prays and we all add our responses and “Amen” at the end. But all of this is so unflashy! How people love to criticise prayers out of the book, and say “It needs to come from the heart!” What people really mean when they want public services to be full of “meaningful”, “heartfelt” prayers is that there are few people that have been longing for their whole life to put their prayer-life on a stage, on the street corners. And so we have churches all over the world now, where people have to feign sincerity by waving their hands in the air and perfecting this pious look on their face as if they’re passing a kidney stone. And then they look with disdain on other churches who pray out of a book, and say: It’s not from the heart. You shouldn’t pray out of a book.
Rubbish! When it comes to set prayers, what about the Lord’s Prayer and the book of Psalms, not to mention 151 examples right there? Then we don’t have to put up with everyone’s “heartfelt”, “show-offy” pretences of prayer. Don’t be embarrassed because you are a good old Lutheran who doesn’t know how to pray in front of other people. Ecclesiastes 5 says: God is in heaven and you are on earth, therefore let your words be few.
Jesus tonight lets you off the hook with pretending to be a Pentecostal prayer expert and says: go to your room, shut the door. Forget about your kidney stones, and your pretences. Stammer and stumble and lisp all you like. Fall asleep during your prayer, and wake up again. Cry and sigh all you like. Your heavenly Father understands that language, and he listens, and he cares. St Peter says: Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time, he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.
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.
Prayer doesn’t have to be some long-winded affair. But it is a secret affair.
The same goes for fasting. Fasting is not an excuse to make ourselves look miserable, and putting a guilt trip on everyone else for not being as miserable as we are. For us, fasting is a joyous preparation to receive the gifts of God, like the message of Christmas and Easter, or the Lord’s Supper. Martin Luther says in the Small Catechism: “Fasting and bodily preparation are indeed fine outward training.”
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. 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. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Hear these repeated words tonight, like a repeated chorus to a song: Your Father who sees in secret, your Father who sees in secret, your Father who sees in secret.
It takes great courage to do something in secret, to do something purely because God will see it and no one else. That will be the strength of Christianity: not doing things to be seen, but doing good things for people in secret, praying in secret, fasting in secret. Because when something is done in secret then it is done together with God alone.
Giving to the needy teaches us to be generous, and that all our daily bread comes from God. Prayer teaches us that all our time comes from God. And fasting teaches us that our bodies come from God.
But doing these things in secret teaches us to trust in God, and to learn from experience that in actual fact is our judge and no one else. And in the meantime we will live in this broken world and say to our heavenly Father, “Lord, how long?” But don’t you realise that his work is being done in secret?
Christians and pastors might think: what’s happening to the church? Why can’t we make a bigger noise? Why are people turning away?
Jesus died. He rose. He baptised people. He forgives your sins. He gives you his body and blood. But these things aren’t flashy, and so churches throughout the world – and even Lutherans in this country, Australia – are exchanging their birthright for lentil stew, making any old excuse to get backsides on seats and then patting themselves on the back for supposedly doing God’s work for him and making themselves supposedly look good with strategic plans, competency indicators, and all things which that devil would like us to call “being practical”, all at the expense of being faithful to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus says: Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
The Word of God taught – The sacraments administered rightly -- It’s a lonely road. It gets no praise – only persecution and every scheme of the devil against it. But you should lay up for yourselves these heavenly treasures. Lay up for yourselves the clear words of the Holy bible, holy baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. For where your heart is, there your heart will be also. Lift up your hearts! We lift them up to the Lord!
And the rest of it God’s working in secret, and he calls you to work with him covered in the holy and precious blood of Jesus Christ – in secret.
Your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Amen.
And the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
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