DEBTS AND TRESPASSES


And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
(Matthew 6: 12 – NAS)


When I was young, the church I went to used “trespasses” in the Lord’s Prayer. I did, of course, know of the other translation. It would be one of the things when traveling, when we would visit a church somewhere. Were we to be debtors or trespassers?

I would think about how we see those as two different things, very different it seemed to me. So how was it that whatever the Greek word was at this point would translate acceptably as such different things?

To my young mind, I understood the need for forgiveness of trespasses. That word (and the negative aspect of it) was fairly easy to grasp. “No trespassing” signs were a common plot device in many older cartoons, so even the very young could follow that it meant the you weren’t supposed to intrude on someone else’s territory. From there it was easy enough to extend it outward and see that any act when infringed or damaged someone else’s “territory” whether physical or psychological or spiritual was a trespass of sorts. An injury of sorts.

So it was easy enough to understand the need for forgiveness of trespasses. Especially if you committed the trespass unintentionally.

But debt was a different matter.

A debt, to my youthful mind, was something you owed someone else, usually because they had given you something. So what did it mean to ask that our debts be forgiven?

When you’re young, you think in the most basic terms. In this case, money. Suppose I owed my brother a dollar, if that debt is forgiven, I don’t have to give a dollar back to him.

On the one hand, that seemed like a very desirable thing. Especially if I no longer had a dollar to return to him. I wouldn’t have to worry about his constantly asking for a dollar I no longer had to give him. But on the other hand, it seemed kind of unfair. After all, I had gotten the benefit of the dollar. Didn’t he deserve to be repaid?

Of course, there is a condition on this. “As we forgive those who ....”

Ah, ha! So this isn’t just a blind waving away of all the things we got wrong, intentionally or otherwise.

How well do we forgive others, when they trespass against us, when they are in our debt for any reason?

It’s human nature to remember injuries done to us and debts that are owed us. When we are intruded upon, we feel the damage. When we give out of our means we know we have shortened our own supply in order to benefit someone else. We remember these things because they are significant.

But to forgive them? To set them aside? That’s not so easy.

Most all of us keep a mental ledger of injuries and debts, whether we admit it or not. Quid pro quo, this for that, is a very common factor in life.

At this point, we start to realize what a difficult process forgiveness is. Yes, certainly, we desire to have our own infractions forgiven. To know that we are relieved of the burden of knowing we have injured someone, that is a joyful feeling. But our sense of justice balks at being relieved of our debts to others. We know full well that we have benefited from something given by someone else, something they gave out of their own means. But to be forgiven our debt to that person means it’s likely they will never receive a recompense for what they gave out. That just doesn’t seem right.

The weight of indebtedness can be crippling. So much of our life has been supported by the assistance of others, in so very many ways. From the small debt to the person who made way for us in the grocery line because we were in a rush and they only had one item to the person who helps us out financially in a major emergency. The small debts we accept easily enough. The big ones we often respond to with “You don’t know what this means to me. I can never repay this!” Often when we say that last one, we are talking not about the debt of the actual money, but rather the significance of the help at that moment.

To have debts like that forgiven is to lighten our hearts, to let us accept the gift and bless the giver and move forward without being entangled in trying to balance things out on our own.

But Jesus in instructing us to pray this way is making us equally responsible for how well we extend this grace to others. “As we forgive those who have trespassed against us, as we forgive our debtors.” We are asking to receive just the type of forgiveness we give to others.

Which is where I come to a screeching halt.

So, it is not just about asking to be forgiven for my own mistakes and injuries I have done. It was easy enough to ask for that, for the Lord knows that I’ve made those mistakes and committed those injuries – many inadvertently, but some intentionally. It is about how well I can let go of requiring retribution or restitution for what has been done to me or what I have given others.

That’s not so easy.

“You hurt me.” We want our injuries to be understood and acknowledged. We want the other person to apologize, to ask for forgiveness.

But that’s not what Jesus seems to be supporting here. He doesn’t say “Forgive those who have injured you only when they ask for it.” He’s saying that basically we are to be living in such an attitude that we can forgive even as things happen to us. Pretty much the way God goes about it. In some ways, forgiving injuries can become easy. We can humbly endure the blows of the world, and forgive the striker even as the blows fall.

Forgiving debts as we go along is not as easy. If we loan someone money, on the understanding that it IS a loan, we expect a return on it. That’s reasonable, that’s fair, and when we’re the debtor, we understand that. It’s why we fall into great distress when we cannot repay such a debt. It is fair and right that our benefactor be repaid. When we are the one who has given something out, we expected a return at some point. It takes a lot of strength to let go of that expectation.

When we get beyond mere money matters and into other types of debts, we don’t often pay attention to the fact that we do regard them as debts. “I helped you with that thing, I expect you to return the favor.” That type of thinking lingers in the backs of our minds. Quid pro quo. We want to feel that we got something out of our actions.

“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

Forget about asking for return favors from those you have helped. If they give back, it is grace. But not because of quid pro quo.

That is what Jesus wants us to strive for.

Forgive us as we forgive others.

I know I am in desperate need of forgiveness – we all are. However careful I am, I know it’s possible to do injury to others. There are debts of caring and support and encouragement that I can never repay fully: the givers cannot possibly know how deeply important some small gift was at the moment they gave it. I need forgiveness.

How well do I forgive others? That’s where I trip up. Am I holding on to some unvoiced expectation of recompense for something? Am I harboring the sting of a wound I received? Am I holding on to the memory of something given that went seemingly unacknowledged and never repaid?

Maybe we need to add something here: “Help me to forgive, Lord, because I’m not very good at it.”

Happily, the forgiveness of God is more far-reaching, deeper, all-encompassing than we can possibly imagine. But we still need to learn how to do it ourselves.

DAILY BREAD

Give us this day our daily bread.
(Matthew 6: 11 – NAS)


It’s so simple and straightforward. What more needs to be said?

A lot, actually.

Jesus will have more to say later about how anxious we get about our basic needs, but here He pares it down to the most immediate element.

We need to eat.

And by teaching us to pray for this, Jesus makes it clear that God knows this is necessary to us. Our bodies need sustanence in order to function.

But He also is pointing out that we don’t need a lot to be functional. “Our daily bread.” The basics of what we need to get by. Fuel for energy.

He doesn’t tell us to ask for feasts, for treats, for favorite foods. He tells us to ask for the staples of life, our daily bread.

That’s not to say that He thinks there is anything wrong with feasts or treats. But just that it isn’t what we should be focusing on or spending our precious time asking for.

And it’s our daily bread. Not tomorrow’s bread. Not next week’s bread. Today’s.

I once wrote about this and spent time discussing the length of time required to prepare bread for a day. That usually a household would spend a portion of the day baking and preparing the bread needed for the next day. I observed that for us, that meant that part of today’s job was preparing the basics for the next day.

I’m not going to say I was wrong about that, because often, that is indeed part of what our day ought to be concerned about.

But here and now, I think I will cut even closer to the bone. Jesus says we are to ask for what we need to eat today. And I think He wants us to believe completely that God always responds to this particular part of the prayer.

We tend to hold back when things get tough for us. We keep looking forward to tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. If we are short on money, and don’t know where the next dollar will come from, we start thinking “Well, I don’t need to buy that sandwich today. I had some meat yesterday, and if I don’t think about it, I can get through the day. I’ll drink a lot of water, that’s it. Besides, I need to lose some weight.” So, we don’t eat, because we don’t know if we’ll have money for when we get really, really hungry tomorrow.

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

I’ve been as anxious about tomorrow as anyone. I’ve put off eating today because I didn’t know if I’d be able to get anything tomorrow, and if I could just get through today, that’s one more day along, and I’d be able to get bread tomorrow. I’ve been acting as if my prayer was “Get me through today, Lord, so I can get bread tomorrow.”

The Lord wants us to pay attention to the here and now. We have no guarantee about “tomorrow.” The world could break apart in the next hour. There is only this moment, and God is in this moment with us.

We need to eat.

“Give me this day the daily bread I need.”

Not what I want, what I need. What I want would be a nice slab of fresh prime rib beef, with horseradish, mashed potatoes with a touch of garlic served with butter, fresh green peas still firm, a salad of greens and other garnishes with juicy sliced tomatoes with a Thousand Island dressing. That’s what I want. What I need is some protein and energy, maybe in the form of scrambled eggs on toast, maybe some liquid yoghurt.

Daily bread.

We’re not being presumptuous to ask for basic food needs. We are not being frivolous with money when we buy the sandwich we need right now instead of paying some bill.

God knows what we need. He knows our prayers before we lift them up. What He loves is that we come to Him in our need. But He wants us to stay focused on the immediate. It’s not “Stock my cupboard with all of this week’s meals.” It’s not “Make sure there is always something in the cupboard, just in case.” It is “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Here. Now. What we need.

I admit it. I find it hard some times to stay in that middle ground. I either want my kitchen so stocked up that I have a multitude of choices about what to eat, or I start holding onto the pennies so tightly I start thinking “I only have X amount of dollars. If I don’t eat today, I can go buy foodstuff tomorrow and I’ll be one day further along.” On that second option ... just how foolish can I be? If I don’t eat today when I am hungry, I spend the day hungry and not as well focused on the work that is immediately in front of me. I won’t be any better tomorrow. On top of that, having not eaten today, when I go to the store tomorrow, I will be shopping hungry, and thus inclined to spend more on edibles that are less than necessary.

We need to trust the Lord when we pray this. And act as if we really believe that He will provide for our daily needs, no matter what.

It’s easy enough to do when we are prospering in even very modest ways. We give thanks over our food and roll onward. The challenge is when supplies are short, for whatever reason.

“Give me this day my daily bread.”

And the Lord provides.

GOD’S WILL BE DONE


Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.

(Matthew 6: 10 – NAS)

We pronounce this part of the Lord’s Prayer all the time, but do we ever think about what we are saying? We know the words, that is certain. And we often pray for “God’s will” in our lives, by which we usually mean “Keep me from making stupid and sinful mistakes.”

Do we really think about what it means to call for the coming of God’s kingdom? To ask that His will be done in the here and now the way it is done in heaven?

What does that mean, anyway?

What do we know of heaven and its actions?

For one thing, we know that obedience to the will of God is constant and immediate. When the Lord says to one of His angels “Go”, the angel goes. It does not become a matter of consulting a schedule, or checking availability of transportation, or finishing off some other task first. It does not involve arguing with God about timing or finances or personnel needs. God says “Do this” and it is done.

“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

What is it that we think we are praying about when we repeat these words?

Are we expecting to see other people all around us jumping to do God’s will? That somehow, in some vague way, the design and desire of the Lord gets fulfilled by some mysterious and invisible means?

Are we paying any attention to what we are asking? To what Jesus has already conveyed about what the will of the Lord is?

Are we, any of us, ready to be humble, merciful, righteous, meek, steadfast according to the descriptions given in the Beatitudes? Right here? Right now? On earth as it is done in heaven? I don’t think we are. We may recite the Lord’s Prayer every morning of our lives, and then the minute we step out the door, we forget about fulfilling God’s will here on earth the way the angels leap to His directions immediately.

We chastise and rebuke our friends when we think they are flaking out – and we forget the Lord’s call to speak and act in mercy toward others. Our dignity becomes offended and immediately we demand the recognition due to us – and we forget about being humble and meek and trusting that the Lord knows our worth. We hold to our own understanding about what is needful in circumstances, ready to fight for “the cause” – and we forget that we have been instructed to be peacemakers not warriors.

And that is just asking for God’s will to be done in the world! Do we ever think of what we are asking when we seek “God’s will in my life”? We are usually thinking “Dear Lord, please let Your will be the same as what I want to do – let Your will be that I get this job, finish this task, have this relationship.” Do we ever think God’s will might be the exercise of courtesy and mercy to the clumsy and forgetful waiter that served us yesterday? Or being the peacemaker who yields to the roadhog jerk driver who cut us off on the freeway, making us miss our exit?

Instead, we pray for God’s kingdom to come, and the exit our homes expecting to be treated like kings.

God gives into our hands the authority of heaven: it is ours to command, to do His will here and now on earth as it is in heaven. And what do we do with it? We drop it on the doorstep, and go out into the world anxious, feeling helpless and downtrodden.

What are we thinking? We ask that God’s kingdom come, but we don’t look for it. We tell ourselves that it will happen “Someday”. “The Lord will come ... someday. But we can’t know the day of His coming.” But that is about the Lord’s return physically to the world. His kingdom is already here, among us. Jesus told His followers this time after time after time, and yet we still don’t “get it.”

The kingdom is here, now. We call for it and it is with us immediately, on earth as it is in heaven.

Perhaps we do not have eyes to see or ears to hear. Perhaps we are just closing our eyes and ears to the presence of God’s kingdom around us.

“Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

I’m not very good at the instant obedience. I want to discuss things, plan things, evaluate things. “As it is in heaven” – that’s a real challenge to perform. Or the simplest thing in existence.

FIRST THINGS FIRST


Pray, then, in this way:
"Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name."
(Matthew 6: 9 – NAS)


Jesus had just told His followers not to bombard the Lord with meaningless repetitions, not to make a big display of their acts of prayer. He realized that they needed a model for intimate simplicity, and so He gave us this prayer that we call “the Lord’s Prayer.”

Jesus wants us to remember just who we are having the prayerful communication with.

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6: 4-5 – NAS) This was something the ancient Hebrews were supposed to remind themselves of every day. But human nature being what it is, it’s probable that people fell into not paying attention to what they were saying (if they did recite it) or not saying it at all.

And then there is, of course, the other biggie: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20: 2-3 – NAS)

When He had spoken about the making of oaths and vows, Jesus had addressed the matter of the holiness of the name of God. This was a matter that many Jews took very seriously in that day (as many people do today), to the degree that they would not say aloud “I am that I am” in Hebrew at all. There developed a cloud of alternate names and titles that stood between the believer and the Divine, to such a degree that all sense of true intimacy had been removed.

Jesus changed that. Not only did He remind those who listened to Him that God behaved towards His creatures as a father does to his children, the Lord desired that level of familiarity and intimacy. Jesus did this by telling His followers to address the Sovereign of the Universe by calling Him “Father.” Our Father. Not some remote personage. Not some entity who belonged to someone else. Our Father.

“Who is in heaven.” Because we need to be reminded that this world is not the only thing. God is beyond all this, even though He is simultaneously right in the midst of it.

“Hallowed be Your name.”

We don’t really hallow much these days. Not in the sense of making things truly holy. We have this impulse for reverence, this desire to give that devotion to something. But we tend not to pour it upon God, the one object that ought to receive it. Instead, we “hallow” sports stars (as long as they stay winning) and entertainers (as long as their works stay “good”). We “make holy” victims of accidents and senseless crime. I don’t mean to say that these people are not worthy of our respect. They often are. But we confer upon these fellow humans more devotional energy than we ever direct at the Lord God.

Do we pray as if God were the Divine Answering Machine, taking our messages and delivering the goods to our doorstep like pizza?

I think we do, far too often. And I’m as guilty of that as the next person.

Jesus wants us to remember firstly that God is God. God is Holy. We come before the Lord, the most awesome presence existing. His name is hallowed, and we need to remember that.

But ....

We may also call Him “Father.”

Not just any father. Our Father. My Father.

For those who come from damaged homes, where their relationship with their father is riddled with abuse, neglect, folly, it may be hard for them to connect with this. Such people know intuitively what their relationship with their parents should have been. But because they suffered so badly, the very word “father” may have terrible resonances. They cannot get beyond the contamination their worldly father brought to the title. Perhaps that is why Jesus included the qualifier “who is in heaven.”

The Lord is what any father ought to be: loving, protective, the provider of shelter and food, supportive of his children.

And He is ours.

Jesus tells us to look beyond whatever we have known or experienced in life, to look to the Ultimate and know that the Lord is here for us, always. Both unbearably holy and pure while also being envelopingly intimate.

I was recently thinking about the Lord’s Prayer, partly thinking ahead toward writing this and the following posts and partly because my circumstances have made me focus on my complete dependence upon the Lord. I mulled over how Jesus moved toward teaching this prayer to His followers. I thought about how I’d learned the prayer at a very early age in Sunday School. I remembered how as a child dusting the knick-knacks in the house each Saturday morning, one of the items was a lovely smallish shell with the Lord’s Prayer carved on it: I would pause and read it every time I dusted it. I know the Prayer well.

But, because of my circumstances, it occurred to me to look at the Prayer a new way – or at least, new to me. I was so used to the plurals in the Prayer, our Father, our daily bread, our trespasses (or debts). But what if...? What if, instead, I made it personal?

“My Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name.”

I was shocked at the change within me when I made it personal. The “community-think” of using the plural terms has the power to still keep the Lord at a distance.

Jesus wants us to pray with deep intimacy. God is holy and God is intimate. In your “prayers in secret” let God come close.

THE PRAYERS OF BABBLE


And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
(Matthew 6: 7-8 – NAS)
One would think that for a religious tradition that included rants to the Divinity, such as the Book of Job, there would be little danger of prayers with “meaningless repetition.” But Jesus takes a moment to address that matter. And if we consider that Jesus is God Incarnate, there is a certain humorous irritation in this statement from Him.

God, it seems, gets “tired” of our need to fill in the empty spaces with sound, especially sounds that are repeated endlessly without real meaning from us.

In meditation practices that have been influenced by Hinduism, there is the tradition of using the word “OM” for the purposes of focus, to shut out the distractions around the person meditating. The mantra "OM" is considered to be the name of God, the vibration of the Supreme. The Sanskrit name for the syllable is from a root word meaning "to shout, sound,” or "to make a humming or droning sound." (Thank you, Wikipedia.) What an amusing contrast to Jesus’ statement in these verses. The most popular meditative word simply means “to make a droning sound.” Talk about meaningless repetition!

And surely none of us fall into that practice in our prayers!

Well....

“Father God ... Great God ... Lord ... Father God ... Jehovah Jireh ... Father God ... Lord ... Lord ... Lord... Lord, Lord, Lord.”

I have from time to time been in small prayer circles where at least one person’s prayers are filled with such declarations. And though I believe their prayers are indeed lifted up in sincerity, I have often felt that the person praying that way includes names and titles for the Lord more like audible punctuation than direct address.

“Father God (address) help me Lord (punctuation-period) I need you so much Lord (punctuation-comma) for everything is going wrong. Oh Lord (address) be with my friends also Father God (punctuation-comma) especially Friend X Lord (punctuation-comma) who needs your healing Jehovah Jireh (punctuation-period) Lord (address) be with us every day Father God (punctuation-comma) wherever we go Father (punctuation-comma) whatever we do Lord (punctuation-period)”

When we speak to someone face-to-face, do we ever use that person’s name that much in conversation?

“Susan! I’ve really wanted to talk with you, Sue, about this event coming up, Susie. Ms. Bryant, you’re really important to the event, Sue, and Susan we just can’t do it without you. Susan Marie Bryant, we just have to have you on board for the event, Sue, because, Sue, you’re the only one who can make it work, Susan. So Ms. Bryant, please say yes, Sue, say you will be there on Saturday, Sue. Bless you, Susan.”

No. I don’t think we do talk that way to someone when we are face-to-face with them. Then why do we do it to God?

I think part of it comes from our enthusiasm in having the privilege of addressing God directly. One of the Ten Commandments declares “You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain.” This has led to the disapproval of using the name of God in cursing someone, certainly. But it was also intended to keep people from “name-dropping” without significance. The ancient Hebrews took this so very seriously that they would not speak the name of God at all, making it blasphemy to speak the Holy Name aloud in general public. As a result, they came up with a number of circumlocutions, creating titles for God that spoke to His various attributes instead of His whole being.

But Jesus has told us we can be intimate with God, that we can call him Abba, “Father.” Which brings us back to the matter of general “meaningless repetition” in prayer. He tells us, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” With that level of intimacy between us and the Lord, shouldn’t our prayers be as direct, immediate, and personal as possible?

This is not to say that repetition itself is out of place. God knows that sometimes our hearts are so full of some concern that we cannot stop ourselves from speaking of it over and over and over. There is nothing wrong with “Help me! Help me! Help me!” If it is the cry of our heart, our Father will answer it.

But let us not use repetition because we cannot think of anything else to say. Pray what you mean to pray, be it praise or thanks or petition. And then stop. And don’t sprinkle the Lord’s names and titles throughout as if they were garnishes or punctuation. Speak from the heart, clearly and briefly. Our Father who sees the secret places of our hearts knows our prayers intimately. What He wants is that intimate time with us.

OM ... or is that “Um”?

PUBLIC OR SECRET PRAYER


When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
(Matthew 6: 5-6)

Once again, Jesus points to our intentions behind our actions. What is it we are doing when we pray in public? What is it that we think we are doing?

It is worth considering, since even in this day where performing acts of worship in public, particularly if you happen to be Christian, is more and more discouraged – or at least criticized. Even though the “marketplace” is open and public, factions of society dislike the presence of public displays of worship. And prayer in public is one of the disapproved displays. Prayer at the beginning of meetings or events gets treated as an infringement of the rights of non-believers, even though it does them no harm beyond a few moments of listening to something they don’t believe in (which can hardly be considered unusual in our lives, since we all have to listen to politicians whose views do not match ours).

Even so, a distinction can be made between a “public prayer” (one a leader makes on behalf of those gathered) and “prayer in public” (standing on a corner and making personal prayers out loud in the hearing of others).

What is it that a person is after, when they make a show of praying in public? What are they trying to do? For as Jesus says, Our Father hears our most secret prayers, our small hidden voices. And if He can hear those prayers, He certainly has no problem hearing the prayers we might make in crowded noisy places. When someone makes a point of praying out loudly, whose ears are they really trying to reach?

I’m sure we’ve all seen occasions where someone has used the moment to pray in public to rebuke someone present and listening, to lecture someone in the disguise of giving God the details of a situation. Or heard someone round off a hostile encounter with a very heavy-handed “God bless you!” in a voice that is really asking for something other than a blessing.

What are we expecting on those occasions? Are we even really interested in what God’s plans for the other person are at that moment?

Any time we start praying in public to make a particular point to someone present, someone other than God, we “already have our reward.” The person we’re trying to lecture hears us, certainly. He hears us lecturing God about the whys and wherefores that God already knows. What the listener does not hear is genuine concern for his well-being.

When we are called to pray for each other, to pray for those we don’t know, to pray for those in governance over us, to pray for our enemies, we are called to be concerned about that other person’s well-being, not the punishments we think they deserve, not the wisdom we think they need. We’re supposed to be remembering that every person is precious to God, that He wants to touch and save each of His creatures. When someone else prays for our Loved Ones, we are deeply touched by the discovery that others love our Beloveds as much as we do. But when we hear someone praying a lecture at our Beloved, we don’t react as well.

What happens then, when we pray privately, in secret?

Well, at the least, Jesus assures us that God hears those prayers. There is no place we can go that God cannot hear us. That is a pretty wonderful thing, as well as challenging. We cannot hide from God.

But when we come before Him privately, we are very aware that it is a conversation between ourselves and Him. We are much more aware that God doesn’t need lectures about situations, about what we know about someone that He doesn’t know. Because of the intimacy of private prayer, we become much more honest about why we are praying for someone. Is it simply duty? Or do we feel the need to rant and complain about someone – instead of praying for that person and their relationship with God? We end up exposing our own feelings about the subject of the prayer, which is what God wants from us. Until we open our hearts to Him, He cannot touch us (or others through us).

There are legal fights going on in America these days over the issue of prayer in public, institutionalized prayer. Some are fighting for the right to stand on the street corners and pray aloud in public – and they treat opposition to this as if it meant that they would not be allowed to pray at all. Why is this important to them? What do they believe is being served in praying on the street corner or in front of a public civic meeting before it begins? I realize that there is wisdom and power in calling for God's presence at such occasions, but does God somehow “hear better” when we do it in public than when we do it “secretly”? If we pray privately before the beginning of such a meeting, asking God’s blessing on all attending, His guidence for the work to be done, are we somehow lessening His effectiveness by doing it quietly and not in public? He “who sees what is done in secret”?

The reward of prayer is the time we spend with the Lord. If anything we do diminishes that intimacy, we should consider why we are proceeding that way. What are we trying to accomplish? Because for that sort of prayer, we “already have our reward.” Did you get what you wanted out of it?

Let us strive to be intimate and personal in all our prayers.

SECRET GIVING

So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
(Matthew 6: 2-4 – NAS)

Jesus continues to address our impulse to make production numbers out of our actions, especially our giving to the poor. His description of a philanthropist walking down the streets with a trumpeter going before him playing a fanfare seems a bit over-the-top. That is, until we consider news stories where Billionaire Bigname donates a million dollars to some charity at a lavish event for the groundbreaking of the charity’s new headquarters. That is today’s street-walking trumpeter.

Jesus says that those who make those public displays already have their reward in full. And apparently that reward doesn’t have much to do with the kingdom of heaven, since He makes no mention of that.

Why is it that we do make production numbers of our giving?

I suppose some of it is our wanting the reassurance that we are good people and that others know this to be true. It is a curious thing that we often do what we know is right, often with absolute certainty, and yet after the act is done, we still want the reassurance that we made the right choice. It is as if we cannot let go of the act. By holding on to the action and making it public, we seem to continue to exert some ownership or control over the gift.

Which is contrary to the whole point of giving anything to anyone, of course. You cannot give something away and then continue to exert control of the gift, let alone make a big splash about the fact that the recipient has the gift. Which is why so very often people give large sums of money to charities and specify how the money is to be used. “Build this new wing here!” (whether or not the institution needs the new wing). We might even cover up the fact that we are giving the gift for self-aggrandizement by insisting that the new Whatever that will be built with the gift be named in memory of some Loved One Of Ours. Because, no, obviously we’re not doing it to draw attention to ourselves, but rather so everyone remembers the name of our parent, grandparent, uncle or other beloved mentor of ours.

Our motives in giving can be very mixed, especially when they are large-scale. Yes, it is good to do honor to the memory of someone who has inspired and guided us in our lives. We should indeed lift up examples of Good Living. But even if what we intended goes astray, we should let go of the gift.

Recently in the news there was the story of a major music star who was in contention with a hospital because a gift given to the hospital to honor the musician’s mother was not about to be used the way the musician understood it would be (a specific type of care facility). Because the gift was not going to be used the way he wanted and intended, he sued the hospital for the return of the gift. The jury agreed with him, and he was awarded a refund plus punitive damages against the hospital for an equal amount.

I read this story and felt there was so much wrong with it. Now, admittedly, the musician wanted to honor his mother with a facility that reflected her concerns and interests. Well and good. But this is a man who can earn a million dollars with very little effort on his part. And his gift to the hospital was $500,000 for the building of a hospital wing. I looked at that and wondered about it, because although I don’t know what hospital construction costs are, it seemed to me that a mere half a million dollars would barely cover the cost of the shell of a small clinic. It wouldn’t finish the building or equip it. But it certainly would help the hospital do something. Whatever the misunderstanding between the musician and the hospital, it seemed amazingly petty to request the money back. Short of out-and-out criminality on the part of the hospital (which was not the case, let us be clear), there was a self-centeredness in demanding the money back.

When I step back and look at it, I can see what Jesus was saying about the nature of the reward for those who have to make a production number of their giving. The musician looked for his reward in a certain type of construction, a particular end result. One that he did not get. And since he didn’t get his reward, he even took back the gift.

Jesus tells us to give in such a way that our left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. Is this possible, we wonder? After all, it is one brain that makes the decisions, so how can one half of our being not know what the other half is doing?

I think the point is that Jesus wants us to be so easily open-handed in our giving that it happens without any more thought than we give to breathing. For the most part, we do not have to consciously expand our lungs to fill them with air: the body just does it. Our giving should be like that – that we can respond to need without weighing “worthiness” or whether anyone notices that we are giving.

Jesus also reminds us that the only one who needs to know about our giving is Our Father God. And God knows all the secret things anyway.

God gives to us in secret. He very rarely makes production numbers out of His gifts to us. I was thinking about this recently, as I was wrestling with anxiety about my circumstances. I had been praying that the Lord deliver a big answer to my troubles, a Big Miracle. But then it struck me that for the past five months, the Lord has met me at every corner and taken care of what was absolutely necessary. Time after time, in small ways from unexpected directions, He has moved providence into my hands, through both my own labor and through the hearts of those that care about me. Are these not miracles? They are. And so many of the gifts that have helped me have been given quietly, almost in secret. But I know they were given and indeed the Lord knows too!

I learned recently that someone I knew had practiced Secret Giving so very well, that even those closest to him did not know of his acts. I marveled at it, at the willingness to give and not even to think about needing acknowledgement from even the recipient. I admit, I have not quite achieved that degree of open-handedness yet. I can do it in fits and starts, but I still often want at least a little acknowledgement. There’ve been occasions where I wanted the recipient to know that I was the one who gifted them. But to learn of this example of someone who had practiced Jesus’ admonition so well, I feel ashamed. What a great reward my friend has with the Lord! It inspires me to want to do better at secret giving. Oh, to be able to let go that easily!

Do we really want to be one of those who already “have their reward in full” – being center stage in a public spectacle in this world? Or would we rather receive our reward from God Himself when we meet Him face-to-face?