This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of Lent. I’ll be honest, out of all the seasons we observe as Christians, besides Holy Week and Easter, Lent has become my favorite. One thing I really like about Lent is that if I take it seriously, and by that, I mean, if I take the time to be focused on the spiritual practices of prayer and fasting and giving, then Lent becomes a time for me to recalibrate, to refocus spiritually. And I have noticed each year my own spiritual practice becomes a little deeper and richer because this time of focus during Lent. And so, I look forward to it, I really do.
The other thing I really like about Lent is that the whole purpose of Lent is to prepare us for the Easter celebration. Since the earliest centuries of our faith, Christians have spent forty days praying, fasting, and giving as a way to refocus and prepare for the Easter feast. So, even though I didn’t know it, Lent was what I was looking for the whole time. Which, brings us to our passage.
You’ll notice this passage is about giving, praying, and fasting. If you wonder why these three spiritual practices are observed during Lent, this passage probably has a lot to do with it. The very first line gives us the theme of the passage: “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” So, the subject of this passage is the practice of piety. Literally, what Jesus says is, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them.” I have no idea why the translators decided to translate that word “piety” instead of “righteousness,” but it’s important to know that what Jesus is referring to here is the practice of righteousness. And, why is that important?
This passage is part of the Sermon on the Mount, which we’ve been studying throughout the month of February. And one of the main themes of the Sermon on the Mount is righteousness. In the opening lines Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Later when he talks about how his followers are the salt of earth and the light of the world, he explains why that is the case, because their righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. And then after this passage, Jesus will tell his followers to not worry about life, or worry about what they will eat or drink. Instead, he says, they should strive first for God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness. So, what is this righteousness?
As we saw in the last post, this righteousness is a matter of the heart. Ultimately, true righteousness is found in the heart that loves God and neighbor. And, out of that heart flows good works. The heart that loves God and neighbor isn’t just going to do the right things, but is going to do the right things for the right reasons. And that is pretty much the point of this passage.
But, it’s important to point out this righteousness ultimately comes from God. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Who is filling those who hunger and thirst for righteousness? Well, God. So, righteousness comes from God. This is simply another way of speaking about grace. But grace is not some static thing that happens only once. Grace is transformative, grace is God’s continued work in the human heart, where the inner person is transformed more and more into the image of Christ.
What does that transformation look on the ground, in our everyday living? It looks like us practicing righteousness! This idea that true righteousness comes from God, but it is also something that we practice is similar to Paul’s statement in Philippians 2, when he says we are to work out own salvation, because it is God who enables us to work it out and do what is right. Jesus clearly says, if you hunger and thirst for righteousness, God will fill you with what you hunger and thirst for. And yet, he is also saying “practice your righteousness.” That is, practice being and doing now that into which God is transforming you. This is why we refer to these as “spiritual practices.”
So, notice, like we saw a couple posts back, Jesus is not giving a commandment here. He’s not commanding his followers to give, or to pray, or to fast. No, he simply assumes his followers are going to do these things. So, instead of saying, I command you to give, he simply says, “Whenever you give, “or “Whenever you pray,” or “Whenever you fast.” And, for the most part, Christians have done these things for two thousand years. The one exception being fasting, and we’ll come back to that.
The other thing to notice is that in each instance he contrasts how his followers give, pray, and fast to those he calls the “hypocrite.” The word “hypocrite” is a Greek word, and it simply means an actor. The word for actor in Greek is “hypocrite.” In ancient Greece, actors would often wear a mask to 1) hide their true identity, and 2) to play the part. When Jesus uses this term in relation to those who practice righteousness so that others may see it, he is touching on this idea that what they are doing, in essence, is playing a part, so to speak, but their true identity, who they truly are, is not being revealed through what they do. What they do, like a mask, hides who they truly are. And, again, this goes back to the heart, to the inner person.
Jesus says, blessed are those who are pure in heart. The pure in heart are not those who are sinless. No one is sinless. The pure in heart are those who have a single-minded devotion. Or, a single-minded focus on living according to the righteousness of God, or the kingdom of God, in this world. In other words, their heart is not divided. They are “pure in heart.” So, in contrast to the actor who is essentially playing part, so that what they do doesn’t represent who they are, the righteousness that is practiced by the pure in heart does represent who they are. What they do and what’s in their heart are in line.
And, basically this is what these three spiritual practices are intended to help us do. They help us nurture that single-minded devotion. Jesus says, instead of worrying about everything else, the first thing his followers should be striving for is God’s righteousness. And how do they do that? Part of how we do that is through prayer, fasting, and giving.
In prayer, we are seeking God’s righteousness with our inner being. This is why he says, pray in secret. Pray in such a way that the only observer of your prayer that matters is God. To be clear, Jesus isn’t saying we shouldn’t pray in public. According to the gospel witnesses Jesus, himself, prayed publicly many times. What he’s cautioning against is praying simply so that others see us pray and will thereby think well of us. But, again, the point is not so much about where we pray, but that prayer is a way of focusing our inner person towards single minded devotion to God. In prayer we are striving for single-minded devotion to God with our minds and our hearts.
Likewise, when we give, we are striving for single-minded devotion, not with our inner self like in prayer, but with our resources, to God. Part of single-minded devotion includes how we use the gifts and benefits God has given us. I don’t think any of us blow a trumpet when we’re about to give to some needed cause. But, this idea of not letting one hand know what the other hand is doing is to prevent us from taking pride in our giving. We don’t give to make ourselves look good, we give because there is need, and God has blessed us in order that we would have something to give. But, again, the idea of giving as a spiritual practice is that it forms within us a single-minded devotion in how we use our resources.
And as with praying and giving, the same is true in fasting. When we fast, we are striving for single-minded devotion our bodies, our flesh, to God. For two thousand years, Christians practiced the spiritual discipline of fasting. And, most Christians around the world still do, the exception being Protestant Christians in the west. But even that has begun to change. Christians in our culture, more and more, are beginning to realize the spiritual benefits of fasting.
So, the traditional Christian fast is to refrain from food for the day and then have a light meal in the evening, and to do that one or two days a week. But, what’s the spiritual benefit of fasting? Two things come to mind: 1) Fasting reaffirms in our own hearts the truth that we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. In other words, it refocuses our understanding that we are wholly dependent on God. It is God who gives life, and not food alone. 2) Fasting is about focus and clarity of mind for praying. Prayer and fasting go together. That doesn’t mean one can’t pray without fasting. But, fasting brings about a clarity and focus that just doesn’t happen otherwise.
I noticed years ago when I was in school, that I was much more productive in the mornings than I was in the afternoon and evening. My mind was much more focused and worked better in the mornings. I never understood why that was, I just thought I was a morning person. What I learned, after taking up the spiritual discipline of fasting, was that my mind worked better because I don’t usually eat breakfast. Food doesn’t just weigh down the body, it weighs down the mind. Think about it this way, let’s say you decide your going to set aside some time for prayer. But before you do that you decide to eat a big heaping plate of spaghetti. Well, you know what’s going to happen. You’re not going to sit down to pray, you’re going to sit down and take a nap. Fasting benefits the attention and focus needed for prayer.
So, these three ways of practicing righteousness, they don’t replace God’s grace, but by God’s grace they help us nurture single-minded devotion to God. Prayer nurtures single-minded devotion of our minds and hearts, giving nurtures single-minded devotion of our resources, and fasting nurtures single-minded devotion of our bodies. I pray you have a blessed Lent. And it helps to keep in mind during the Lenten season the words of our Lord, when he said, “The kingdom of God is within you.”
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