Acts of Righteousness and Giving to the Needy
Matthew 6:1-18
We’ve been working through the Sermon on the Mount, which Jesus himself describes as the foundation, the rock, the teaching on which the Christian life is built. So when someone asks, “How does the Christian life work? How does a Christian live? What does God expect the Christian life to look like?”……we need look no further than the Sermon on the Mount.
In what we call chapter five, Jesus has described the various part of inward religion, bare essentials, foundations made up of spiritual poverty, holy mourning (I’m bringing to mind the beatitudes), meekness and so on. And he has described how these inner dispositions of our heart, when brought under the influence of the Holy Spirit, lead to outer holiness. The holiness without which no one will see the Lord, as the writer to the Hebrews puts it.
In our last talk we saw how these inner attitudes, mixed with the power of the Holy Spirit, enable us to, in the words of Jesus, have a righteousness which surpasses that of the Pharisees. Without which, Jesus says, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. So having dealt with the inner things, Jesus now describes the outer Christian life.
In chapter six and verse one, Jesus talks about your acts of righteousness. Some translations have your religious duties. The KJV speaks of your alms.
The Christian life is not just an inward thing. It is an outward thing as well. And Jesus describes three outward acts of righteousness: giving to the needy, praying and fasting. These therefore become part of the foundation to the Christian life. Remember Jesus’ words at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, ‘Whoever hears these words now and obeys them (that’s a choice that you and I have) is like a wise person who built his or her house upon the rock.” And of course, visa versa. Hearing them, not obeying them is foolishness and is building your house on sand.
Notice Jesus is not saying, “In this kingdom, which I invite you into in this life (in fact, which you must enter into in this life if you are not going to be washed away into hell in the next life), in this kingdom, if you feel like giving to the needy, this is how I suggest you do it. And if you feel like praying, this is how I suggest you do it. And if you happen to feel like fasting, here is how I suggest you do it. No! He says, when you give to the needy, when you pray, when you fast. These are not suggestions for us to pick and choose from.
Now Jesus is not introducing something new here. The idea of doing your religion has always been and remains an established part of the life lived under the Lord who is my shepherd.
Acts of righteousness…the doing part of our faith/belief/religion…. can be divided into two groups: acts of mercy and acts of piety. Giving to the needy, from verse two, is an act of mercy. In verse five, praying is an act of piety. In verse 16, fasting is an act of piety. Jesus and Scripture and Methodism speak of there being a balance. A Christian life which has only acts of piety and no acts of mercy is an imbalanced life spiritually. The early Methodist class meeting held people accountable in both of these areas. We are going to look at prayer and fasting separately over the next two weeks so for today we have a look at giving to the needy.
Who are the needy and what do we give to them? At the end of Matthew’s gospel, in chapter 25, Jesus describes various acts of mercy and who to do them for in a lot more detail. He says it is identifying with the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, assisting the stranger, visiting the sick and the prisoner. This is giving to the needy and Jesus says, “In as much as you do this for the least of these, you do it for me.” Notice first of all, Jesus identifies with this group of people, the poor. That means we must too.
Notice secondly, the words “the least of these.” The Christian’s ministry and of course the ministry of the church and the mission of the church is not just to the poor, but to the poorest of the poor. It is not just to the sick, but to the sickest of the sick. John Wesley said to his ministers and to the early Methodist people, “Don’t go to those who need you (as an aside let me say that there is always an endless list of those people who need you), but go to those who need you most.” When you give to the needy (in the Old Testament this was over and above what you gave to the temple, to God and for his work and this is the case now as well), and while today in this church we have areas and channels of mission, it is always to those who need us most. And while these things might be in place in our church, you and I still have an individual responsibility to the needy who God in his grace and wisdom places in our path each day. So it is not, I’ll give to the church and they must look after the needy – no, Sermon on the Mount Christianity makes things far more personal than that.
Jesus says, “When you give to the needy.” It really is a command for personal religion, isn’t it? He’s talking to a crowd of people with a word that is individual. This is not something for others to do, it is something for you to do. And he says, ….When you do this, don’t announce it. In verse 2 he says don’t blow your trumpet. The Pharisees did that, they blew a trumpet. They said it was to call the poor, to get their attention. This is what they would do when it was time for them to give to the needy they would go out onto the street corner somewhere and blow their trumpet. Their trumpet blast would announce: “The Pharisee is about to hand out goods to the poor.” That’s why they blew their trumpet. Jesus says, “Don’t blow your trumpet” because he knew their motive was to get everyone to stop and look at them – picking up the trumpet, blowing it – “look at me, I’m about to give to the poor. I’m saying it’s to call the poor but actually it’s to make sure you notice that I am giving to the poor.”
Jesus knew that was one of the reasons they blew their trumpet. I think Jesus also knew that they were just too darn lazy and too proud to actually go to the poor. Their arrogance made them believe that the poor should come to them. It could also be because their lack of real faith might have meant that they were actually afraid of going to the poor. So they blew their trumpet to bring the poor to them, to where they felt safe, their comfort zone we would call it today.
Jesus says, When you give to the needy (verse 4) do it in secret. He uses an idiom, he says don’t even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, don’t blow your trumpet. Do your acts of righteousness in secret so that all the glory goes to God.
So, we’ve looked at giving. We’ve looked at who we must give to. We have looked at what we should give. We’ve looked at how we should give.
Jesus says, “So when you give to the needy …”
I close with four words: Give to the needy.
Amen
