New Thoughts (12/26/05-12/29/05)
The message Jesus is delivering comes down to two words: Get real! It’s a phrase common enough in today’s culture, but for the Christian, it must be heard in its proper sense and context. Here, Jesus sets the context in plain terms, again taking His examples from the daily experience of those listening to Him. Every man and woman who heard Him could recall occasions – quite probably within the week – on which they had seen such ostentatious display of giving alms. Almsgiving was a major feature of the culture of God’s people, and rightfully so. How it had come to be practiced, however, had rendered it all but worthless to its practitioners.
In modern terms, we might look to those philanthropic celebrity tycoons who have burned every ethical bridge en route to obtaining their wealth, and now seek to leave a better impression on those they have trod under foot. So, they make great display of their giving, making certain that the press is there to cover the event. Yet, their giving is of a nature that barely touches them. The amount of their gift, while impressive to the average man, must be thought of in scale. As large as that amount may be, it is little different in terms of personal sacrifice, than for us to put a quarter or two in the pot as we pass the Salvation Army representative. Yet, who amongst us would make all manner of fuss and bother to draw attention to those two quarters we threw in? Most of us would, I suspect, be embarrassed to draw attention to the meanness of such giving.
What is Jesus saying, then? Is He telling us that giving ought not to be done on the grand scale? Is He telling us that were it in our power to give in such terms, still we ought to avoid it? Not at all! In all truth, I don’t think it’s the means of their giving that He complains about so much as the motivation. If you think about it, a public display of giving can be the inspiration to our brothers and sisters to do likewise as their means allow. This is especially true, I suspect, if it is not done in the fashion of instigation. The grand gift given as exhortation to giving is not really that much different than the gift given by those who seek to be honored by men. If it is not over that line Jesus draws, it is certainly dangerously close. Such a gift given simply because the opportunity has come up, though, is an inspiration indeed! How many times have we heard about the anonymous gift that put a particular mission or task over the top?
Of course, the impact of such a story can go either way. To some, it will be the inspiration it ought to be, stirring the heart toward greater activity on behalf of the God we love. To others, it will simply be evidence that their effort is not needed, since those better off than themselves clearly have matters well in hand. These have missed the point. Quite frankly, it may well be that those who have held up the anonymous example have likewise missed the point. The church is not primarily a fund raising organization. Neither ought the focus of preaching in the church be about financial goals. The finances are ever and always a secondary matter at most. The mission of the church, the salvation of the lost, the expression of God’s mercy to a lost and dying world are the primary purpose. The finances, if they are to be kept in mind at all, ought only be kept in mind as the means God has provided by which we can pursue the purpose He has created us for.
If we give, and we certainly ought to, it must be out of the motivation of a heart stirred by the great need around us. If our giving is a matter of hoping to make up for our shortcomings in other, more critical areas, it is made worthless. If our giving is a matter of obligation in our view, rather than a matter of desire, it is made worthless. If we have been moved to give by a guilty conscience, or manipulated into giving by the sales pitch of some pseudo-religious, our gift is worthless. All such things have become giving to be seen and known. Don’t do it! Don’t be fooled! That is what Jesus is telling you right here.
I really like the way the Living Bible has this bit: “Don’t be like the hypocrites who pretend piety.” Stop putting on your church mask and get real about your faith! If you’ve been stuck in the role of an actor every time you reach the church parking lot, it’s time to stop it. No more! Either pursue piety for real and earnest, or stop wasting your time. If your piety is only for those time when you’re at church, you are doing yourself no good at all, and you are likely doing damage to those who would pursue faith in truth. I know the example that was set for me in the church of my youth was sufficient to keep me from entering a church for decades!
There are two types of people which Jesus tells us not to emulate: the hypocrite and the heathen. The problem with both is much the same – a lack of reality. For the hypocrite, there is a lack of real faith, for the heathen, a lack of real god. The end result is the same, a vain imitation of real piety and what is at best a false hope. A hypocrite, as this word has its derivation, is one who acts as in a play. In Greek theatre, many of these plays would be act by actors who wore masks. That sense of masked anonymity carries over into the larger sense of the word. The hypocrite that Jesus rounds upon here and elsewhere is just such a one, a man behind a mask, acting out and displaying one character when in reality his character is far different. For some, the act had been put on so often that they had begun to believe themselves.
In pointing the nation back to the real meaning of the Law, the real definition of love and the real standards of righteousness, Jesus is laboring to pry the masks from their faces. It is critical for every man to get behind the mask that he has assumed, to look at himself as he truly is. We are all of us trained from our youth to imitate and emulate certain forms of conduct. The societal powers of peer pressure seek to conform us to the standards of the culture, whatever they may be at the moment. Soon we are made adept at reflecting whatever tastes and interests the current surroundings may require. We are taught by parents to try whatever dish may be put before us, to mask our displeasure. We are taught as parents to put on looks of blessed contentment when our children place their gifts before us. Whatever you do, don’t let on what you really think of such things! Truth be told, there is quite probably a sound basis to some of this training. The problem is that we become so accustomed to putting a bold face on such matters that we soon begin applying it to other situations.
This is an entrenched habit that we bring with us as we come to Christ and His ministrations. We come with our conceptions of good and bad, right and wrong, and for that time that we think ourselves in His house and amongst people of His character, we do our utmost to look the part. We play act at being so good that we never slip. We promote that same behavior in those around us, either by joining in the general habit of looking askance at those whose masks crack in our presence or by our exaggerated condescension. Oh, it’s all right, dear. We understand. Yes, we used to be that way, too. We may even slip in that lovely platitude that we all make mistakes, which true as it is we still tend to think applies to others far more than ourselves. Why is that? Well, it’s because of that habit we have. We are not well inclined to measure ourselves by the standards of Scripture, for that almost invariably hurts our self-esteem as it was intended to do. Instead, we compare ourselves with those around us, most particularly those we know to have some failings. That way, we come of looking pretty good. We begin to think that goodness consists in making certain nobody ever sees us without our good Christian mask on. We become the church equivalent of Jekyll & Hyde, godly men by Sunday’s light, worldly men by all others. And we allow ourselves to reach the conclusion that this is enough.
In this, we are no different, and perhaps even worse, than the Pharisees whom Jesus holds out as the prime example of this hypocrisy. Nobody in that crowd listening to Him could have missed the reference. Who were these ones who so grandly announced their gifts to the poor? Who were these ones who worked ever so hard to make certain that no good deed of theirs went unnoticed? Who were the ones who made such great display of their prayers? Everybody in that crowd knew the type, and knowing the type, they knew to what class and sect they belonged. Knowing this, they could also understand the implication of the label Jesus gave to them: hypocrites. They were not righteous, as they would have everybody suppose. Once out of the public eye, they were quite different in their behavior. What they showed to the people on the streets was a mask. They were but play-actors, these men who insisted that to go to the play was a sin of great burden!
To such as these, and those who would think it good to emulate them, Jesus says, “Stop playing at piety and get real about it!” Stop trying to look good and seek to actually be good! Stop pretending you’re good enough, and open your eyes to the real standard of goodness. Then, look at yourself in all honesty and see the real measure of your goodness. Until you open your eyes to the Truth, and allow yourself to acknowledge how far from righteousness you are, how utterly incapable of attaining to righteousness you really are, you will never be able to lay hold of what God has offered in Messiah. Until you lay down the mask and admit to your real character, there is no hope that your character will ever be what you pretend it is. Whatever hopes you have taken in your pretensions, know that they are false hopes. Know that if this is the extent of your righteousness, you are as condemned as the worst criminal, without the least possibility of parole or pardon. Such false hope can never attain to salvation.
As a second example, Jesus holds up the model of heathen worship, the ways practices by the followers of false and futile gods. The most striking feature of these would be worshipers is their habit of pouring out torrents of words, as if to impress their god by sheer volume. It saddens me to recognize that this admonition immediately precedes the example Jesus gave for prayer and yet the majority of believers are happy enough to simply recite the Lord’s Prayer and think they have done something grand. To my mind, the whole ‘repeat after me’ thing that I see happening in churches today falls into that same category of religious activity that Jesus rejects. How can I be thinking about what I am saying or saying what I am thinking if all my focus is on repeating your words? Jesus does not, in the subsequent verse, say, “When you pray, repeat after Me.” He says, “Pray in this way.” He is setting out a sense of what is appropriate prayer, both in content and perhaps in style. I hesitate to go so far as to say He gives us a template, for even then we are rapidly headed toward more thought being given to filling in the blanks appropriately than in what we have put in the blanks.
I must suggest that what He is telling us about the heathen prayers is much the same as He is saying about those of the hypocrite. They are empty matters, full of show and impressive, perhaps, to the minds of men, yet utterly worthless in the sight of God. Considering the way in which Jesus took His hearer’s self-esteem down a notch or two previously, I can easily suppose that He intends the same comparison to be evident to His listeners in this section. Previously, He noted the boundaries men have set upon their efforts at doing good, and pointed out the simple truth: even the worst of sinners does that much. Then comes the inevitable question to drive home the point: How does your doing the same make you any better than they?
Now, that same logic, if you will, is applied to prayer. Look at the heathens, listen to their endless chanting, their outpouring of ritual formulas. They pray most impressively, do they not? They can go on for hours pleading with their gods. Yet, we look at them and we know that all that effort is in vain, for their gods are no gods at all and cannot answer. By proximity in His message, He practically ensures a comparison to that sort of prayer He decries amongst His own people: that showy prayer of the Pharisees and others who seek to look pious rather than seeking to be pious. Oh, their words are perhaps impressive enough. Certainly, there is great display, carefully crafted facial expressions and gestures whose whole purpose is to make sure we recognize what righteous men are before us. Yet, their words are as empty as the words of the heathens, perhaps moreso. They have taken the rich blessing of intimate relationship with God and reduced it to ritualistic repetition. They speak grandly, but their words have no connection with themselves, and therefore can establish no connection with God.
To all this, Jesus says, “Stop playing and get real!” How shall I hear this in the context of the modern church? How many of us are impressed by the long outpourings of prayer that we hear from the prayer warriors of our churches? Yet, how often do we stop to consider whether these are the sort of prayers Jesus calls us to? Are they long solely because the list of matters to discuss with our Father is long, or are they long because these warriors pour out quantity rather than quality? What about that whole ‘pray until something happens’ movement? Certainly, there is a place for persistent prayer. Yet, when does persistence slide into unbelief? If I really believe that God provides my daily needs, what more do I need say to Him, other than ‘Thank You?’
I suppose the question that really needs asking at this point is whether we truly believe what Jesus says here. “Your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him.” It must be noted that the example Jesus follows this with still includes requests against our needs, yet I would note that they are brief, general, and to the point. “Give us what we need today.” Nothing more need be said, because the prayer of faith knows that He will do this. The prayer of good sense also knows that He has a better sense of our needs than we do. We get too confused by wants to recognize needs. Prayer is not, in the end, a shopping list. It is part of a conversation we are graciously allowed to have with God.
Whatever teachings, acrostics, and whatnot may come our way in regards to prayer, be it ACTS, or PUSH or any other such thing, the fundamental fact that ought to be borne in mind is that prayer is conversation, and a gracious privilege at that. It is an opportunity for intimacy with God Most High! What the high priests thought reserved to themselves is made available to each and every one who truly walks with the Christ of God, who hears His words and heeds them. “Stop playing at this religion thing, and get real about it!”
Yes, Lord, and give me grace and peace to meet the needs of this day, for You are gracious. Guide me, Father, that I might do all Your desire in this time and place. Be glorified ever and always.
The prayer God complains of through Jesus is that prayer which is spoken foolishly. It is a prayer that, long though it may be, has no purpose. I could include in this all the ‘form’ prayers that have come about in recent years. I don’t know. Perhaps they’ve been about for centuries. These prayers are a plague on the Church, and work to reduce the earnest prayer of faith to the empty ritual against which Jesus teaches. Just repeat the formula, inserting your illness here, your sin there. Why, some of them have been so far reduced that the blanks are just left blank!
Likewise the majority of ‘salvation’ prayers. These, too, have little in them of earnest and heart-felt communication with God. Rather, they are industrialized form-letters designed for efficiency. All thought can safely be left out of them. Just repeat after us, we’ll have the whole church say it with you so you needn’t feel any shame in confessing your sins to God. It’s just a social contract. The applause at their recitation is in all likelihood going to be the whole of their reward for such a vacuous prayer as this!
God! Rescue us from thoughtless prayer! Forgive us for those prayers that are offered only because we feel we must, because the social situation requires it of us. Let our prayers, however frequent or infrequent, be honest communications with You, spoken from an earnestness of thought and emotion, not from any calculation. Help us all, Holy One, to truly stop playing religion like a game and to get real with You as well as with ourselves. Keep us from this disease of needing to be noticed, for it is as much a plague upon us today as ever it was in Israel. Guard us, Holy One; inform us, O Light of Life, that our piety might be a matter of who we are rather than stopping at the image we seek to portray to those around us.
You, Lord, are the One who sees our secret places and thoughts. You turn your thoughts toward our most hidden being, and there discover and experience the truth of us. Yes, and You are faithful to make Your own aware of that truth, if we will but pay heed to what You are saying. Oh! That we might see our reality drawing closer to our intent, to Your intent.
Thank You, Lord, for knowing my need, and bringing it to my attention that I might know You are even now moving to address it.
These things and more are there for the discovering in what Jesus says here. The Father who sees in secret is He who discovers in me all that I think to hide, be it from others or from myself. Yes, He knows those hidden things by experience, for even in my most hidden places, He is there. He is there, and He directs His thoughts toward me in those times, for He would have me to know myself in Truth. He will not suffer me to fool myself with my attempts to hide away. He will have me to know myself as I really am, for only then will I understand where my real needs lie. Until I have opened my eyes to my own sinful state, prayer will continue to be a shallow wish-list like those made for Christmases of old – a holy shopping spree and nothing more. When my eyes are opened to the sorry condition of my heart, though, then my prayers are in earnest, and are aimed at those things that concern my Father in heaven. If ever there were a prayer that availeth much, this is the one! Never mind the prayer of Jabez, which we have now cheapened to the level of your typical “Nigerian royalty in exile” scam.
No, our Father looks to the real condition of His children and insists that they, too, see their reality. Why? Simply because He knows what we need. He does not need the information He finds in our secret places, for He already knew all that anyway. He knows our need intuitively, because He knows our fallen state. No other data are required. He knows our need, and He cherishes us so, holds us in such regard, that He will not suffer our need to go unaddressed.
Too often, our chat with Dad reduces to our desires, our wish-list. Even David could be found in that place on occasion. “All my desire is before You,” he writes, “yes, and my sighing is not hidden from You” (Ps 38:9). Most assuredly, David was in a hard place when he wrote these thoughts, yet it is noteworthy that he does not write that his desire is reserved for God, only there for God to see. However, this prayer has its redeeming qualities. First and foremost, it is honest with God, as well as confessing the Truth about God. Our desires truly are before Him, for better or for worse. Knowing this and knowing God, David rejects the impulse to hide his real feelings and concerns behind the veil of some religious sense of propriety. David is earnest in his dealings with God, as he generally proves to be inasmuch as we have record of these conversations.
David was not afraid to cry out to God for vindication against his enemies. Neither was he afraid to submit himself to that same God, while knowing he had earned such vindication against himself. He did not hide his failures from God, but was as honest with the Lord as he knew how to be. At the same time, he never allowed himself to lose sight of who his Father is. He did not find it necessary to sugar coat the God he was praying to. He did not insist on Jesus, meek and mild at the cost of foregoing the Father, mighty in power, swift in vengeance, perfect in justice. He honored God most thoroughly by addressing himself to the God who Is, not to the god his present situation might have led him to prefer. He knew in a way we would do well to recover for ourselves that the Lord, our God, He Is One. He is merciful even as He is vengeful. He is loving even as He is wroth. He is faithful even as He is just. We are not allowed to choose the bits of God we want, disposing of the others. No! We must come to Him Who IS as He is, accepting Him Who has accepted us; knowing Him Who has revealed Himself to us.
He, who knows our most secret places and yet loves us; He who provides for our needs even when we are too caught up pursuing our desires; He who loves us enough to care for us even when that care takes forms we don’t like or want – He longs to hear from us, to hear our hearts. He longs to be known by us, known as He truly is. He longs to know that when we pray, we pray honestly. He longs to hear His children call out to Him as children who know their Father, and therefore are certain of His response. The prayer of faith is nothing more or less than such a conversation. It is the call of child to Father, an honest talk to One whose reactions we well know, for He has always been steadfast in His ways with us.
Because we know Him to speak truly when He says He already knows our needs, because we know He has been totally honest with us when He says that He provides all we need and more, we can simply present to Him those things He reveals to us, and know that they are dealt with then and there. Doubtless, there will be a question regarding the place for prevailing prayer, such prayer as Jesus commended in some of His parables. There will be the example raised of the woman who pestered the corrupt judge until he finally gave in to her demand of justice. How does this fit in with the framework that Jesus is giving us here? That is a difficult question. It seems like such a constant praying must fall into the camp of those Baal worshipers who kept beating on the air and on themselves, trying to attract the attention of their deaf gods. It seems like such a constant praying must display a lack of faith in God having heard the first time. Yet, if this were the case, then surely Jesus would in no wise commend it. No, there is something else in what He is saying there. It is not, I think, a suggestion that we can or ought to demand anything of God. This, too, is a form of prayer I have heard often enough, but it strikes me as the arrogant demand of a spoiled child, not the earnest crying out of a heart and mind that know God in full and in truth.
So, what is the point of that lesson in persistence? Clearly, if there is to be persistence, it must be a persistence based on faith in God answering, not such a persistence as the heathen display. Might I suggest that the persistent prayer we are exhorted to offer up is a matter of our remaining personally involved with the things we pray? There are indeed many things which deserve no further mention by the man of faith than a simple acknowledgment of God’s hand in the answering of need, and really ought not occupy any grander place in our talk with God. There are other matters that have less to do with our need and more to do with His purposes. Here, I think, is the place for persistence. Are there people on your heart that are so closed to the Gospel of grace that you despair for their eternity? Know that your heart is beating to God’s heart! Here, there can be no crime in pleading their case before God. Here, it is not a matter of doubting God’s ability or willingness to stand on His word. It is a matter of seeking His mercy towards an individual, a mercy that we know is His. It is persistent because we also know and acknowledge His justice, and recognize that these lost ones, having rejected Him, have fully earned their condemnation, and that He would be in no way reprehensible for leaving them to their chosen course. It is persistent because we know that but for His grace we would be right there walking along with these self-condemned rebels, and knowing His mercy shown towards us, we cry out our desire for that same mercy to be shown towards those who have found a place in our hearts.
Here is the heart cry for family, those who are dear to us even if only because they are flesh of our flesh. This is perhaps the first place that we sense our part in the kingdom, the first place where we feel so great a desire to see the Gospel put forth and accepted. Yet, it is at the same time the place where we are least likely to be effective tools in God’s hands, and we know that. If ever there was something to call forth persistent prayer on our parts, this would be it! Parents know well the persistent cry to God for the salvation of their children. Is it persistent out of doubt that God is able? Not at all. Is it persistent out of concern that He has not heard? No way! It is persistent simply because the need is ever before our eyes, and we cannot but cry out to Him in the honesty of our desire that He would make manifest in our day the salvation that is His promise.
Such feelings are not reserved for parents by any stretch. Though Jesus requires that we leave parents and siblings behind if need be as we pursue Him, He never suggests that we ought to cease in praying that the faithlessness that made leaving them necessary might be made faith through His grace. As our understanding of His kingdom grows, and as our commitment to His purpose grows, the circle of those for whom our hearts are drawn to consistent prayer grows too. It is exactly this growth of true piety within that moves men and women to commit their lives to missions and to mercy. It is this growth that leads folks to set aside the pursuit of pleasure and comfort to go out and help the needy. It is this growth that leads folks to address not only the physical need of the world, but more importantly the spiritual need. The world looks askance at these efforts, complaining of the religious overtones foisted upon such public service. It’s so unfair to insist that those receiving our support also hear our message! Yet, many a church as lost its way because it did divorce the physical provision from the spiritual, and allowed the spiritual to wither and die. These may have fed the poor for a day or a year, yet they have done the poor no good, and left them every bit as condemned after their ministrations as before. Worse still, they have neglected their own salvation, so caught up are they in the material matters. They no longer trust God to provide, but claim the credit for themselves. Professing themselves to be wise and virtuous, they have become fools, blind leaders stumbling their way into damnation, for they have stolen God’s glory rather than served His kingdom.
Don’t follow their example! Dare to be honest with God, even when honesty requires you to question His ways. Dare to be honest with God, even when you’re angry with Him. He’s big enough to take it. Dare to be honest with Him about yourself, and to be honest with yourself, for that matter. When you pray to God, pray like this: as one who knows God, and counts Him faithful beyond all measure; as one who knows himself, and counts himself needy beyond all measure; as one who is certain of having been heard, and certain that God will indeed work all things for good, according to His good pleasure.
