Mt 6:1: General Warning About Righteousness
"Take heed that you do not practice your righteousness before men to be seen by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven."
Jesus Christ had spoken above in Mt 5:10-12 of a great reward that is connected with righteousness: "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. Rejoice and be glad, because your reward is great in heaven." From here on, he now designates the intention that must underlie our striving for righteousness in order to obtain that reward. All works of righteousness, that is, all good works, have value before God and consequently a reward, a messianic recompense, only when their first and last motivation, their motive, is the will and the glory of God. The reason why one cannot have a reward in any other case lies simply in the fact that one has not worked for God and the messianic kingdom. Whoever works for God and heaven may expect his reward from there; whoever works for men, for their sake, must seek it from them. Consequently, he can expect nothing from God.
The connection of Mt 6:1 with Mt 5:10-12 is so striking, already contained in the very wording of these verses, that it could not be overlooked. Thus Jesus, after a brief interruption, takes up again a previously stated principle and develops it according to its further consequences. Moreover, we may say: Jesus set forth in the first main part of his discourse what messianic righteousness consists of (Mt 5:3-15); in the second, what its advantage is (Mt 5:17-48); in the third, to which he now proceeds, what foundation it has, from what root it springs. While in the first part he presents the basic teachings of the new law without further consideration of other opinions and principles, in the second he demonstrates its relationship to the old law, he now sees himself, in explaining the motives for the works of Christian righteousness of the new law, compelled to enter into decided opposition to Pharisaic motives, since they could all too easily also become the driving force of the new life.
Concerning the nature of the reward, compare above verse 10; concerning the expression "your Father who is in heaven," see below Mt 6:9. We note here only that the Jews distinguished between heaven and paradise. They knew two places of otherworldly retribution: paradise for the righteous, Gehenna (hell) for the godless. Both places were underground and separated from one another only by a partition wall or, according to another view, by a narrow abyss, so that the departed in both places could speak with one another. A heavenly retribution was to occur only with the resurrection through the Messiah. By explicitly referring to that reward which is in heaven, or as he says, with the Father in heaven, Jesus sharply distinguishes the retribution of the new law from the retribution they had hitherto attached to righteousness and holiness, in unambiguous clarity for the Jews.
Every teaching, but especially every warning—and the words "take heed" contain such a warning—becomes emphatic and clear through examples (Breviter per exempla). Jesus maintains this way throughout, whether through examples or through parables (indirect examples), and so also here. He shows what one must guard against and what one must observe concretely in those works which have always been practiced among the Jews as good works, works of righteousness, namely in almsgiving, prayer, and fasting.
Mt 6:2: Warning Against Ostentatious Almsgiving
"Therefore when you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward."
With "therefore" Jesus introduces the application of his general principle to individual cases. If you therefore wish to give alms according to this maxim, do not do this and that. First follows the warning corresponding to the preceding "take heed that you not," then the direct instruction. Jesus gives the circumstances under which a good work—here almsgiving—is practiced before men, under which it is practiced before God. Alms are given before men when one sounds a trumpet before oneself; before God when the left hand does not know what the right hand does. Just as the second is proverbial and figurative, because an actual knowing and not-knowing cannot be meant, so also the first. To sound a trumpet before oneself means to make noise and cause a sensation. With almsgiving, to sound a trumpet before oneself vividly designates the noise and sensation with which one gives alms, so that it must be noticed.
Jesus does not mean to say: do not trumpet out how much you give, but rather: make no noise when giving your alms. He does not touch upon the much or little, because he only speaks of the motive that underlies a good work. By the expression "hypocrites" he means the Pharisees, but he does not name them, for he only warns against the actions of the Pharisees; he combats the matter, not the person.
Alms were given in the synagogues and on the streets. Under the doors of the synagogues, at the corners of the streets, before the gates of palaces—compare the parable of poor Lazarus—sat beggars to whom passersby gave. In the synagogues themselves, alms were collected and distributed in the evening among the poor. Jesus especially emphasizes these ways of giving alms because they bore a public character, and here alone his warning applied. It is a warning not against but concerning this. We must carefully note that it did not occur to Jesus to warn against this manner of almsgiving, but rather against the bad motive in its practice.
Charity is fundamental to the Mosaic law. "If there is among you a needy person, do not harden your heart and shut your hand" (Deut. 15:7). "Blessed is he who considers the poor and needy; in the day of trouble the Lord will deliver him" (Ps. 41:1). "Well with him who has mercy and shares" (Ps. 112:5). "A generous heart flourishes, and he who gives drink will himself be refreshed" (Prov. 11:25). "He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord" (Prov. 19:17). "Break your bread with the hungry, bring the poor and homeless into your house, when you see the naked, clothe him, and do not despise your own flesh; then your light shall break forth like the morning, and your healing shall spring forth speedily" (Isa. 58:7-8).
And so in a hundred other places—compare especially the beautiful little book of Tobit. The Archangel Raphael says there to Tobias and his family: "Prayer with fasting and alms is better than laying up treasures of gold, for alms deliver from death, purify from sin, and cause one to find mercy and eternal life" (Tob. 12:8-9). We encounter the same principles and teachings in all rabbinic writings; they are full of the most glorious sayings about the high merit of almsgiving. And how it was actually practiced we see in the life of Christ, who himself, though poor and living on alms, yet always also gave alms (cf. John 12:8: "the poor you always have with you").
Maimonides says: "We are obligated to observe the commandment of almsgiving more than all commanding precepts, because almsgiving is a sign of a righteous person and one from the seed of Abraham our father, as one reads in Genesis 18:19. The throne of Israel is neither established nor the law of truth maintained except through almsgiving, according to Proverbs 16:12. Indeed, Israel will not be redeemed except through almsgiving (Isa. 1:27)."
Since almsgiving was thus regarded as a strict commandment, it is easy to imagine what hypocritical ostentation was driven by the Pharisees with it (cf. Mark 12:41; Luke 21:1-4).
Mt 6:3-4: How to Give Alms
"But when you give alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand does, that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."
The teaching follows the warning; one confirms and strengthens the other. Giving alms is God's commandment. It is done before God and for God's sake, however, only when it is given so secretly that the left hand does not know what the right hand does—the greatest and most vivid contrast to sounding a trumpet before oneself. We would diminish the impact of the saying if we translated "what your right hand gives." Jesus demands more. The alms should be handed over so imperceptibly that the left hand does not even know what the right hand does, much less what it gives.
The meaning of this proverbial expression is beyond doubt. What happens completely without appearance, that is, purely for God's sake, is what even the one who is as close to us as the left hand to the right, who is our brother in the fullest sense of the word, does not notice or observe. Similar sayings are also found among the Rabbis, for example: "He who gives alms secretly is greater than Moses our teacher." When Rabbi Jannai saw someone giving money to a poor person publicly, he said to him: "Better not to give than to give thus."
Concerning the motive in almsgiving, compare the following account: Rabbi Elazar (Lazarus) was an alms collector for the synagogue. When he once came home and asked what was new, they answered him: "Some came and ate and drank and spoke ill of you." "Good," he said, "thus a rich reward will be ours."
The fourth verse gives the reason why alms must be given in this way. It lies namely in the nature of almsgiving, from the standpoint of merit before God, that is, considered as a good work, that it be given in secret, without sensation and noise. For alms are a work of love of neighbor only where the poor person is spared, and they are a work of love of God only where no human consideration prevails. But both occur only when the above rule—"let your left hand not know what your right hand does"—is held unshakably.
However, Jesus hereby gives only a precept for the disposition of the heart, not for the external action, and thus what we have already noted concerning similar passages in verses 39 ff. also applies to this saying. The last sentence, "And your Father, etc.," contains the general conclusion. Jesus returns in it to verse 1. Therefore it is equivalent to: "Then you will have the reward with your Father who is in heaven." Almsgiving has its definite great reward. The Lord calls it, full of loving condescension, "recompense." "God will reward you" with what He has assigned to almsgiving from eternity in heaven, or in the narrower sense, in the messianic retribution. From this it follows that no special emphasis lies on the words "who sees in secret." It forms a beautiful parallel to "alms in secret," and the addition arose naturally as a comforting assurance.
Mt 6:5: Warning Against Public Prayer
"And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be noticed by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward."
The second example is taken from prayer. The Mosaic law contains no special regulations about prayer. In the ritual of public worship, only blessing formulas occur, for example, in the daily blessing of the priest at the dismissal of the people, or individual invocations of God, for example, at each raising of the Ark of the Covenant. Prayer was left to private practice; but there it is as old as the worship of God itself. That already early the individual prayed for himself in the Tabernacle, we see in Hannah, the mother of Samuel; that much was prayed by pious Israelites in all places and at every time, the Psalms teach us.
One prayed as a rule three times a day, but also before and after meals, before every important undertaking, in every danger, before battle, etc., alone and with others, especially in the synagogues, which had their own prayer leaders. The holy books, like those of the Rabbis, are full of praises of the effects of prayer. "When you prayed with tears, I brought your prayer before the Lord" (Tob. 12:9). David testified often that he was helped as soon as he prayed.
The later Jews say: "Prayer is the greatest of all virtues, greater than sacrifices. All the world and all Israel depends on our prayer and could not otherwise exist. Many thousands of angels have the office to receive Israel's prayer. Prayer is a winnowing fan; as this turns the grain, so that turns wrath to mildness."
Therefore, in the Talmud there are extensive precepts about the types of prayer and external behavior during it. When the prayer hour is, the Jew should interrupt all his business and perform his prayer. He should descend from the roof, from the tree, from the horse and pray; he should pray on the street, on the way, on water and on land, alone or in the midst of people. Besides the prayer times, there were still many occasions for prayers which the Mishnah Berakhot chapter IX enumerates.
The usual external sign of prayer was that one stood still with the face toward the Temple and bowed head. In doing so, one should pay so little attention to anything else that one neither greets nor moves a foot, even if a snake winds around it. The former pious ones used to wait an hour at the place where they prayed before they prayed, to direct their heart to God. If even a king greeted such a person, he did not greet back, and if a snake wrapped around his foot, he did not stop. Standing during the usual obligatory prayer was a precept. No one may pray otherwise than standing. Only impossibility made an exception, as everywhere.
Above all, praying in the synagogues was considered meritorious; hence their other name, house of prayer (proseuche). "Every Jew should go morning and evening to the synagogue. For no prayer is heard at any time except in the synagogue."
When we observe this ritual of later Hebrew prayer practice, we see that Jesus in his warning, or rather in his prohibition, places emphasis on "love" (gladly do), and gives as the reason for this loving: "that they may be seen by men," that is, that they may be regarded by men as those saints on whose prayer the existence of the whole world and of the people of Israel depends, in whose service many thousands of angels are to bring their prayers before God, etc. The hypocrites love to pray before the eyes of men, that they may be held to be new Moseses and Elijahs and Jeremiahs, all renowned in history through the power of their prayer.
We see at the same time that the emphasis does not lie on "standing to pray," as if here some kind of spiritual rapture were alluded to. For "standing to pray" or "praying standing" is a formula familiar to the Hebrew, whereby he means nothing other than we mean by "praying" alone. Standing was a sign of reverence, not of special inner devotion. The Rabbis describe precisely the manner of standing—with feet together, eyes on the ground, hands on the breast, the right over the left—and add: "as the slave is accustomed to stand before his master." Standing during prayer was also a sign of reverence and submissiveness in the early Christian church, as opposed to the sitting so common in the Orient. Even that rabbinic remark that the pious man should not move his foot even if a snake winds around it only emphasizes the holy reverence before God. There is no indication of an ecstatic state.
Jesus's warning extends to the whole sentence: he warns against praying in the synagogues and at the street corners because that happens before men, not before God.
Mt 6:6: How to Pray
"But you, when you pray, enter into your chamber, shut its door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you."
The teaching follows the warning; the command follows the prohibition. The latter reads generally and without exception: Pray in your chamber with the door closed. Opposed to this stands: Do not pray in the synagogues and on the streets. We may limit the one as little as the other. Jesus forbids praying in the synagogues as he forbids sounding a trumpet when giving alms, and for the same reason. It lies in the nature of prayer that it happen before God alone.
Thus the same conclusions necessarily apply as with almsgiving. Prayer is intercourse of the soul with God; accordingly, the place of prayer can only be where the soul is alone with God, that is, the chamber. If we observe here that Jesus speaks of the motives for praying and that he depicts the state of mind that one must have in prayer if it is to be a good work, then all apparent contradiction with the practices and demands of the Church disappears. The state of mind can be such under all and every circumstance that we commune with God alone. Further limitations are no longer necessary.
The meaning, the spirit of these words is: When you pray, at whatever place it may be, even in the largest assembly where you are seen and where you cannot be unseen, always and everywhere let your interior, your intention, your mind be as little directed toward people, their seeing, their judgment and praise, as when you prayed alone in your little chamber (Kistemaker). Likewise Maldonatus, etc. That is indeed the spirit of Christ's words; the literal meaning, however, is and remains: Pray in your chamber. The conclusion that follows from this reads: Make every place where you pray into a chamber.
The addition "pray to your Father who is in secret" points to the omnipresence of God. To commune with God, one does not need the temple and publicity. In this respect, the chamber is like the church; but to commune with God alone, one needs the chamber.
Mt 6:16: Warning Against Ostentatious Fasting
"When you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, of sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward."
Jesus returns after a longer interruption to his initial warning: "Take heed that you do not do your good works before men to be seen by them." As a third example, he takes up fasting—first, because it was counted by the Jews as preeminently among the good works and holy, God-pleasing exercises, and then because precisely at that time, as in all later Judaism, it constituted an essential part of religious acts.
All peoples of the ancient world placed great value on fasting. It was held to be a principal means to appease the deity, to atone for committed transgressions, to make prayer more powerful, and to make oneself more receptive to heavenly inspirations. Daniel prepared himself through fasting for divine revelation; the Egyptians consecrated themselves through fasting for certain sacrificial acts. "Fasting"—so runs the unanimous testimony of the ancients—"increases the value of repentance, strengthens the inner man, and brings him nearer to the deity"; hence the Socratic saying that to need nothing makes one godlike.
In the public cult of the Greeks and Romans, fasting takes no prominent place, yet examples of fasting among individuals as well as whole communities are found among them also. The same occurs in the Mosaic cult. Moses had ordained only one general day of repentance and fasting, but had already sufficiently emphasized its high significance by the very fact that this day was the holiest of the whole year. For the rest, it was left more to private practice. The Psalms provide us with sufficient evidence of how closely prayer—which also recedes in the Mosaic legislation—and fasting were connected with one another.
Later, as the cult more and more absorbed the otherwise free exercises into itself, fasting also gained an eminent significance in it. After the Exile, we have five general fast days, plus the extraordinary fast commands at every public distress, in wartime necessities, during the plague, when rain failed, etc. Already at the time of Christ, zealous Jews fasted twice weekly; especially the Essenes placed much value on fasting, and many made their whole life into a fast—here the one example of the Baptist suffices. Among the apostles, James led a similar life, and tradition claims the same of Matthew.
With this, the ritual of fasting also developed. The Mishnah gives detailed precepts in the tractate Ta'anit (that is, fasting). Fasting for one day consisted in complete abstinence from food and drink, from anointing and bathing, as in the prohibition of marital relations, with now greater, now lesser strictness. Zealous fasters extended this even to several days. Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah became quite black from fasting, that is, covered all over with dirt.
The aberration into the merely external was obvious, and Jesus Christ warns against this. Therefore he says: "Do not become like the hypocrites." We see from this that the individual expressions of our verse are to be taken in the greatest generality and only in their relation to the external. "Sad countenance" refers accordingly solely to the repulsive appearance of an unwashed face and disordered hair; the second word, "disfigure," designates the same thing. In that the hypocrites do not comb and wash themselves, do not care for their head, they disfigure it. We must not seek more in it, and we must not relate it at all to the state of the soul. These hypocrites were not sad, even if they made a bitterly evil face.
Mt 6:17-18: How to Fast
"But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that you may not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you."
We can refer here to what was said in verse 6; only we must, as above, warn against the merely spiritual interpretation. It lies in the nature of fasting that it happen before God alone, just as in the nature of prayer. Jesus wants one to anoint one's hair, etc., while one fasts, just as he wants one to go into one's chamber when one prays.
Kistemaker, with most, also emphasizes here, following Maldonatus's lead, that Jesus does not command that the faster should do this and that. The Orientals used to anoint their head with fragrances on festive days before the meal; some also every day. Our Savior does not command that the faster should do that, but rather the meaning and spirit of his command is: You should as little outwardly strive to appear sad to men, as if you were like one who has anointed his head.
Such purely spiritual interpretations have their reservations; they unconsciously touch upon the rationalistic way of explaining the holy books. Jesus simply says: do this. We have no right and no reason to depart from it. Otherwise one could also interpret fasting spiritually, as, for example, the English Bible does: "Christ declares fasting to be lawful, but a different fasting which consisted not in the external abstinence from food and other comforts of life or refreshments of nature, but in abstinence from sins," etc.
Anointing belongs in the Orient to the demands of decency, like washing. Even if it did not happen daily like washing, Jesus nevertheless connects both because they were as a rule connected, and he speaks in vivid detail. It means quite generally: Omit nothing of what makes your fasting hidden.
CONTINUE
Comments
Post a Comment