Ash Wednesday [Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21] (13-Feb-2013)

This sermon was preached at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon, 7pm.

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: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

“Praise God! I am alone again and have snatched myself from the world’s damned hypocrisy and its kisses of lust; Here I have only my Jesus, here I will begin the cure of my soul in solitude.

The proud Michal cannot mock me in my distress, when I must yearn for Jesus in a faithful labour of love. Here the gentle pouring of tears can flow freely and a sweet kiss can join me to my Saviour.

Here the sighs go forth freely, mixed with sweet words, as if I were in front of the house of heaven at the gates I have desired. Here my dear Lamb of God appears as my dearest bridegroom in sweetest confidence.”

This little poem was written by a Lutheran pastor, Valentinus Löscher, sometime in the early 1700s, and it based on some things in our Gospel reading tonight.

Today in our Ash Wednesday gospel reading, we read about what it means to be a Christian in solitude. Today many people desire community and we often emphasise the fact that the church is a community of people, a communion of saints.

However, in our reading tonight, Jesus speaks about those things which should be done not as a community, not in public, but “in secret.”

Firstly, Jesus 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.

Now earlier in this same sermon—the Sermon on the Mount—Jesus says to his disciples, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

Here Jesus wants to teach us that good works are done for the benefit of other people—they are not for God’s benefit. God doesn’t need our good works, they are for the benefit of others.

But on the other hand, Jesus says: Beware of practising your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. Even though all our good works are for the benefit of other people, we are not to perform our good works, to practise our righteousness, in such a way that we simply want to be seen by them. Of course, sometimes we are going to be seen by them. But when people see our good works, it is so that they may glorify our Father in heaven, not glorify us.

Also, when we do good things, when we practise our righteousness, and do pious, godly things, things which are pleasing to God, we submit these things to God’s judgment, not to other people’s judgment.

Sometimes people say: It’s not just important that we do good things, but that we’re seen to be doing good things. Not so with Jesus. It’s not important to him that we are seen to be doing good things, as if appearances are all that matter. What’s important to Jesus is that we are doing good things. Sometimes people are going to misinterpret our actions and intentions – let them! They are not our judge, even though our good works are for their benefit.

There’s a nice poem called “Anyway” that used to be hung on the wall of Mother Teresa’s hostel, which read: “People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centred, Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives, Do good anyway. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies, succeed anyway. The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow, Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable, Be honest and frank anyway. What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight, Build anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you help them, Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth, Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.”

This poem beautifully summarises this tension between letting our light shine, as Jesus commanded, and also being careful not to practise our righteousness before others in order to be seen by them.

Jesus says: For you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

As we begin the season of Lent, we remember that this is a time throughout the history of the church for self-examination and for prayer, fasting, reflection and all that sort of thing. And so it’s so important that Jesus holds before our eyes God the Father as our judge.

We wait for our reward from our Father in heaven.

Now atheists will never really understand this, because they don’t believe that their Father in heaven exists. And through the influence of these people, many Christians also forget to give serious consideration to this passage from Matthew 6. It is important that Christians dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to doing good works, but this is quite different from doing things to be seen. Many community clubs, government organisations, welfare groups and all sorts of corporate charities always have to do things in order to be seen. They have to gather statistics and show people that they are doing what they say they are doing—then they can get more donors, and get more government funding, or whatever. This is not what Jesus is talking about here.

He says: For you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

Notice that the verse doesn’t say, “You will have no reward”, but “you have no reward”. Jesus is not talking so much about a reward in the future, but a reward paid right here and now. We are not clocking up points so that we can go and cash them in with God later. The reward here is simply God’s own approval, which he promises—on top of that, God may even work things in such a way that someone may show kindness to us in return in this life. But if all we want is the approval of people, of human beings, then we will act differently, and we will already have what we wanted. As Jesus keeps saying in the reading tonight: They have received their reward.

So in our reading tonight, Jesus teaches his disciples about three important things: giving to the needy, prayer and fasting.

In Greek, the word for giving to the needy means “doing merciful things” or “doing works of mercy”.

Many times in our life, we may be confronted by a needy situation. A person may need financial help, clothing, food, or help with something. There are all sorts of reasons why people may need our help. Luther’s small catechism says that we should help and support our neighbour in every physical need.

And everything we always do is always under a microscope. Our heavenly Father knows our every thought, our every word, our every move, our every gesture, our every facial expression, and he discerns everything. The angels are watching us. Jesus himself is watching us.

And it’s strange—there’s always this temptation to want to ignore the attention that we already have, the heavenly attention, and we want a draw a crowd of people around ourselves and make sure that everyone knows just what good people we are. Let God build your reputation! Let God promote you! Don’t promote yourself and try to build your own reputation!

And so 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.

Jesus says, instead of letting everybody else know what you’re doing, don’t even let the different sides of your body know what you’re doing.

In each of these little sections, Jesus uses the words: hypocrites, and secret.

God knows what you are doing. Let him commend you. Let him reward you. Let him see what you’re doing in secret. A person who is not content with the fact that God watches you and is happy with you and wants to reward you is a hypocrite. They’re just actors. Hypocrites want people to watch them, they want people to be happy with them and to reward them. Hypocrites worship people instead of worshipping God.

And now, Jesus talks about prayer. In our reading tonight there’s a large section about the Lord’s Prayer which is left out. But once again, Jesus wants us to pray in secret. He wants you to go to your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.

Then later, Jesus talks about fasting. He says: 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.

You can see that in each of these things that Jesus is teaching, he calls us to examine ourselves, and to test ourselves in front of his words.

When I have given to the needy, have I sounded a trumpet before me? Have I been a Good Samaritan to someone and then told everyone all about it? Have I become angry when people haven’t noticed something good that I did?

When I have prayed, have I made a show? Have I been concerned that when I am in public and in church that I make sure that I have the appearance of being holy and pious? When I pray, have I babbled on, thinking that God will only hear me if I make a long prayer? Have I doubted that God has heard my prayer because I said a short prayer?

If I have fasted—maybe I have decided to give something up and go without some luxury—have I wanted people to know about it? Have I carried on so that people notice that I’ve been making sacrifices?

But at the end of the reading we have a very significant passage, where Jesus says:

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

If we only do things to be seen by others, then we are simply laying up treasures on earth. And our heart is simply stuck on the earth, where our treasure is.

But instead, our Father in heaven wants our hearts to himself, with all their sin, with all their worries, and with all their cares.

And so we ask ourselves: where is my heart? Where I am laying up treasure?

It’s so difficult for us to imagine what wonders and treasures and glorious and beautiful things are waiting for us in heaven! No one can do a scientific experiment and fathom all of heaven’s depths. Instead, all we can do is look around us and see what is in front of us—the earth, people, things, stuff. And then we realise just how far away our hearts really are from heaven, and from all the secret things that are there.

But our heavenly Father is actually here with us, in secret. He watches in secret, and he rewards in secret. And through Jesus, he continually brings heaven down among us, and unites us with Jesus. Jesus calls us to examine our hypocrisy, to recognise ourselves as true hypocrites and play actors. Jesus wants us to test our heart between two things: “being seen by others” or “in secret.”

Jesus Christ himself is no actor, and he comes to make his home among sinners. He speaks his forgiveness in public, in church week after week, and we receive these gifts altogether in the community of the church, but then in solitude from day to day, there is also time to be spent privately, secretly with him in giving to the needy when situations arise, prayer which is available to us all the time, and sometimes fasting. This secret work does not go unnoticed. In fact, more than that, it is rewarded by our Father in heaven himself.

And Jesus is the greatest treasure. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Let your treasure be him. Let his blood be more precious to you than anything. Let his words of forgiveness and blessing be the most precious thing in the world.

Let Jesus and all his promises and blessings be your treasures, and let your heart be there. Meditate on him, think about these things.

So as we begin this Lent and call our hearts to account, let’s pray:

Hence, all fear and sadness! For the Lord of gladness, Jesus, enters in. Those who love the Father Though the storms may gather, Still have peace within. Yea, whate’er I here must bear, Thou art still my purest pleasure, Jesus, priceless treasure. Amen.