(Audio)
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus seemed to warn against the possibility of being one way on the outside and another within one's heart. He didn't want his disciples to merely avoid violence while cherishing it in their hearts or to avoid the act of adultery while indulging in a lustful gaze. He desired his disciples to be whole and well integrated and not given to hypocrisy. He wanted hearts so full of light that there would be fear in exposing them to others. The opposite of this ideal of Jesus was what was the case with some of the Pharisees. Their commitment to the law and to goodness in general were only designed to enhance their status. Their concern with the commandments was more motivated by their desire to be subject matter experts than by any love for the law of God.
Take care not to perform righteous deeds
in order that people may see them;
It first it might seem that Jesus was moving in a different and contradictory direction here, suggesting that his disciples be one way in private and another way in public. But the problem he was trying to prevent was actually the same problem. He didn't want his disciples motivated by the external appearance of righteousness without concern for the transformation needed in the heart. He did not desire for people to give alms, fast, or pray, merely to appear righteous in the eyes of others. He knew that it was human difficulty to find such actions not sufficiently rewarding to perform without additional incentives like spiritual pride. It was this prideful hypocrisy that he didn't want his disciples to risk.
When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites,
who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners
so that others may see them.
Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.
It was not the case that Jesus was content for his followers to hide their faith in him. Indeed, he said that "everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven" (see Matthew 10:32). He even acknowledged that the good deeds of his disciples would not only be visible before men, but sufficiently visible to give glory to the heavenly Father (see Matthew 5:16). What Jesus was warning about was a matter of motive, rather than a concrete statement that something like almsgiving must never under any circumstances come to light. The point, again, was not doing it for the sake of the exposure for oneself.
But when you give alms,
do not let your left hand know what your right is doing,
so that your almsgiving may be secret.
We tend to look for consolation prizes when we perform spiritual works, to avoid the occasional sense of dryness or lack of feeling that sometimes attends them. But this dryness need not detur us if we pay less attention to looking for immediate rewards in the actions themselves. Rather than trying to reward ourselves we ought to have the consolation of faith, knowing that we can trust in the Father to repay us. The simple approach is to begin to think about ourselves less so that there is more room for God and for our neighbor in our hearts. In thinking of ourselves we have a hard time avoiding creating a mask and entertaining a false self-image. But when we surrender this responsibility to the God his light is free to shine forth.
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