A sermon preached
by The Reverend Scott D. Nowack
at First
Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas
on Ash
Wednesday, February 22, 2012.
Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Matthew
6: 1-6, 16-18
I
think it is fair to say that nobody likes a show-off. You know whom I’m talking about. There was the kid from grade school who bragged
about how fast he or she could run. Or
the kid who always talked about how great he or she was playing the piano. Or the kid who never seemed to be able to
tell you enough times about how many goals he or she scored last season in
soccer.
Indeed,
there are adults who love to show-off.
There is the neighbor bragging about their new car; or the corporate
executive bragging about how once again they have broken the company sales
record. And there are the parents who
speak incessantly about how perfect their children are, bragging about all
their numerous achievements and how their children do no wrong. Nobody likes a show-off.
Tonight we discover Jesus has an important message for
all of us “show offs”. Jesus is in the
middle of the Sermon on the Mount teaching us what it means to be an obedient
Christian and what it means to be right with God. In chapter 5, Jesus gave us the WHAT of the
Christian life and now in chapter 6, Jesus teaches us the HOW: how we are to be
righteous.
Jesus illustrates this with the “three pillars” of Jewish
piety: almsgiving, prayer and fasting.
These three pillars are not a part of the Jew’s public or
corporate worship, but rather they are examples of ones personal devotion. These were religious obligations used to make
up for breaking a Commandment or if one wished to go beyond the commandments to
earn extra merit and gain more righteousness for oneself.
What do these pillars mean and what do they represent? First, almsgiving, or to give alms, means to
give money to the poor. In Jesus’ day,
this was seen as a religious obligation and not merely a humanitarian one. Giving away significant amounts of money was
also seen as a sign of power. Many of
those who could give away money wanted everyone to see and know that they
could, so often the places where alms were given were in highly visible public
places. Busy streets and raging
marketplaces were the locations of choice.
It would be like standing on the 50-yard line at the Cowboys Stadium
during the halftime of a football game announcing to the world you are going to
give away a million dollars to a family in need.
It
is not that Jesus condemns helping others.
In fact, he encourages us to do so and to do so generously. What Jesus does condemn is “showing
off” to the world your generosity. Jesus
also says, “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” What Jesus is saying here is that when you
give alms, when you give money, gifts, or your time to those in need, don’t be
a show-off!!! Don’t brag about
it!!! Do it in secret. Do it anonymously. For the invisible God that sees and knows all
things will reward you in full.
And with prayer, Jesus is not condemning public or
corporate prayer. His concern is not
with prayer done inside the synagogue.
His concern is with private prayers done outside the synagogue. It was customary for Jews in ancient
Palestine to pause in whatever they were doing in mid-afternoon each day in
order to offer prayers in conjunction with the evening sacrifice in the
temple. The “show-offs” or the
“hypocrites” of Jesus’ day would recite their private prayers in the most
visible way like they would with almsgiving.
They often would stand on wide, busy streets filled with lots of people
making sure they were seen being holy.
They were looking for and seeking human approval. Thus, their prayers are directed not to God,
but to their human audience. It is from
their human audience, not God in heaven, that the hypocrites will receive their
reward. Jesus’ point is clear: all
private prayer must be directed to God alone.
In the time of Jesus, fasting was not only a Jewish
religious obligation on high holy days, but a cultural norm as well. Many who engaged in fasting would try to look
tired, exhausted, worn out, and appear as though they were in great pain. These “hypocrites” wanted to show the world
that because they were fasting, they were holy and righteous people.
Jesus teaches us that if you are going to fast, keep it
between you and God. The Bible says,
“Put oil on your head and wash your face.”
The rest of the world doesn’t need to know. And what is done in secret, will be seen by
your Father in heaven and he will reward you in full.
So what does all this mean for each of us today?
We
are like those hypocrites in that what people see on the outside isn’t always
the same as what is on the inside. We
essentially live two lives. Each of us
has an outside life and an inside life.
I refer to this phenomenon as “The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Syndrome”. The outside life is what
everybody sees, hears, and knows about us.
It is the mask we wear. We are
concerned with what clothes we wear, the size of our house, the type of car we
own, and where we go on vacation year in and year out. In time, our outside life becomes a shield of
sorts completely covering our inside life.
Now, our inside life is what only you and God can see and
know. All your unexpressed thoughts,
fears, dreams, and secrets are known by God.
God knows whether you are telling a lie, or telling the truth. God knows all your problems, and all your
troubles. Most of all, God knows the
real you. God knows the real you. God knows how you truly feel about yourself
and what is truly in your heart. This includes
all those secrets that we don’t want anyone else to know and all those times we
speak negatively about someone in our heart.
God knows every letter of every word we think and say.
I can’t begin to count the number of times that I have
found myself, a caring, sensitive, loving man of God, in my car alone in
traffic jams getting mad and yelling at the cars around me. When I am alone, I don’t always take the time
to pray to God like I would with all of you here in church. On the outside I may appear to have it all
together and under control, but on the inside I am all too often struggling to
keep the various parts of my life in order and in tact.
And nobody is immune from this. Each of us has the “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Syndrome”. We live two lives, which all
too often exist in opposition to each other.
How can we do away with this nasty syndrome by which we have found
ourselves infected? Where do we begin?
We begin from within.
We must look at ourselves, and realize that we are indeed living two
lives; two lives, which do not exist in harmony with each other. We must then desire a change of heart in our
relationship with God because this lack of harmony leads us to sin against God
and our neighbor. For Christ loves us
the way we are, but too much to let us stay that way.
And once we have recognized that we have sinned, we must
repent or turn away from our sinful and corrupt lives. We must come before Our God Our Creator with
a humble spirit, expressing our desire to sin no more, to stop living two
separate lives, to change our hearts and to transform our whole selves. It is only when we come before God, when we
humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, through the workings of the Holy Spirit
that Christ will enter our hearts and begin to transform our inside and our
outside lives to live in harmony. And as
we are transformed, we become re-oriented and re-focused with Christ at the
center of our lives. Every time this
happens, we become closer and closer to God.
We enter into a deepened communion with God. This is the reward that Jesus talks about in
our text. Every time we repent of our
sins and ask God for forgiveness with humble hearts, we are transformed into
the people that God intends us to be: holy and righteous people. Brothers and sisters, this is the Good
News! This is the Gospel! This is what Jesus was sent to proclaim, “The
Kingdom of God is near; repent and believe the good news.”
Today is Ash Wednesday, the day of repentance, so let us remember
that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We all need to ask God to create in each of
us a clean heart and to renew a right spirit within us. We all need to turn away from our sins and
shortcomings in order to restore in us the joy of Christ’s salvation and to
sustain in us a willing spirit. If not,
we will be nothing more than the hypocrites of our text; the hypocrites
striving for human approval, rather than God’s saving love and grace.
Jesus
proclaims to us, “Repent or perish.” So
what do we do? Are we going to be a
show-off? Or are we going to repent of
our sinful natures, accept Christ into our hearts, and come into a deeper,
closer relationship with God? My
friends, for all who exalt themselves before others will be humbled, and all
those who humble themselves before God will be exalted.
Turn away from sin
and seek the love of God with humble hearts.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment