UNMASKED
Matthew 6:1-21
Ash Wednesday, Year C
Analysis by Matt Metevelis
1Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them, for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your alms may be done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
5And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
7When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9Pray, then, in this way:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
10Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11Give us this day our daily bread.
12And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.
14For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
16And whenever you fast, do not look somber, like the hypocrites, for they mark their faces to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
19Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, 20but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
From Wikimedia Commons
“Praise, adoration, wealth, status, and admiration all fade away. But love never dies. This is the face that Jesus chose to show the world, and on the cross it’s the face he shows us.”
Author’s Note: This study has been written without the use of the text break. Eliding the Lord’s prayer cuts much of the sense of what Jesus drives at in his sermon. A holy God with a powerful name, a great kingdom, who daily gives people what they need and delivers from evil by forgiving sins is an invocation of just what kind of God that we repent before on this holy day. The ability to offer proper prayer to such a God is a vital part of the good news in this text. Read it all in worship if you can.
DIAGNOSIS – Face Up
The sinner turns the religious life into a quest to win rewards both tangible and intangible. This reduces God into a silent badge of honor who can win us favor but never give us gifts.
Step 1: Initial Diagnosis (External Problem): It’s All an Act
“Acting” is the key to what Jesus is criticizing here. The Greek word hupokritai, directly translated “hypocrites” carried the meaning of “to interpret” in its wider origin in classical Greek culture. It refers to actors who recited poems on stage and “interpreted” them by using gesture and emotion to make the story come alive to an audience. Just like modern actors ancient actors portrayed mythic and tragic heroes while still remaining themselves. An actor is one person on the outside and another on the inside. For the duration of the performance they are living a double life no matter how rigorous their “method” for inhabiting a character. It’s great when we see a show on stage or screen and suspend our disbelief to be entertained. But outside that context “acting” is usually just sheer deceit.
Jesus contrasts the life of blessings identified in chapter five with the counterfeit self-chosen and cheap blessings of chapter six. Call it “method” religion. The hope that we can “fake it until we make it” when it comes to the religious life. Our neighbors are seldom fooled. God isn’t either.
Step 2: Advanced Diagnosis (Internal Problem): Masked
For Jesus all visible piety is merely a show. Charity, prayer, and almsgiving meant to curry favor with your neighbors are no different than the emotive masks of the of ancient actors. They are meant to dazzle and sway crowds but are cast aside once the show is over. Fake righteousness is righteousness that’s a mere performance. It’s skin deep. It doesn’t last. The hypocrite is somebody who has no faith in his heart but wears it on his face instead.
We are tempted to think that the behavior of hypocrites belongs to the Elmer Gantry’s in our midst – the preachers who panhandle for private jets, the Christian athletes who steal from their charities, the espousers of family values with closets full of skeletons. But the sad fact is that Jesus isn’t just talking about these paradigms of vice. These words are aimed at us.
The mask of the hypocrite is rarely a cover for malice. Instead, it’s a coating over the insecurities harbored by so many of us. The nagging sense that we just don’t measure up. The constant buzzing alarm that says we just aren’t good enough. We seek worth from others because there are times where we are just too conscious of our worthlessness. If you don’t believe me, just click over to your favorite social media platform right now. What you will be looking at is the collective masks people wear uploaded onto the internet. The vacation photos, the funny memes, the clever thoughts, the warrior poses over scenic vistas, and even the sappy invocations of love and empathy all are meant to convey the sense that we are a certain type of person that will earn admiration, trust, or even envy. These masks, and so many others, make up the face that so many of us show to the world.
Step 3: Final Diagnosis (Ultimate Problem): A Bar Too High
Jesus knows that the real danger here is not our proper social adjustment or self-esteem. The masks we wear don’t just cover up our lacking self-regard. They are fig leaves we wear over our glaring lack of faith. Many people look to the things they aren’t, the goodness they can’t achieve, or even the peace and love they can’t experience – and they call it “God.” They imagine that God lives on top of a list of things they won’t do, judging them from a mountain they won’t climb. God just becomes a bar that they just can’t clear. A standard they can’t meet. We seek from others what God won’t (or can’t) give to sinners like us because we just don’t measure up.
What happens here in theological terms is that under the law we confuse God and goodness. Instead of telling us that “God is good” the law works on us to teach us that “good is God.” And just as rigidly as the law enforces the boundary between good and bad so too does it enforce the boundary between God and us. No matter what we do the law is right there to show us that there is something better. Jesus has actually employed the law in this way previously in the sermon. Even though your body might be unsullied from idolatry your lustful eye is not. The blood of murder might not be on your hands but all the time it drips from your words. What Adam and Eve found to their dismay is that the knowledge of good and evil means knowing that God is good and we are not. And they did the only thing that they can with that knowledge. They fled as fast as they could. So do we. Unmasked and exposed, we cannot stand before God.
PROGNOSIS – Face Off
Christ reclaims our religious life by seizing us in the hidden, secret, shameful places and filling us with the life of an abundant God. This life does not seek blessings from our neighbors and instead bestows blessings upon them.
Step 4: Initial Prognosis (Ultimate Solution): A Low (Cross-shaped) Bar
Jesus is certainly not invoking spiritual perfection for condemned sinners. He is describing his own cross. Jesus did not seek the approval of others. He didn’t wear a mask of glory. He related to the outside world in powerless shame and agony. Praise, adoration, wealth, status, and admiration all fade away. But love never dies. This is the face that Jesus chose to show the world, and on the cross it’s the face he shows us. These are the true riches; these are the true rewards. Love that is stronger than our shame, forgiveness that is stronger than our sin, a home that is stronger than our wandering, a life that is stronger than death. “Your father will reward you” Jesus says here again and again. And he lays down on a cross to supply it.
Jesus the Christ meets us in the places where we go and hide, as this Sermon on the Mount suggests about our secret and hidden places. Through Christ, God hears our prayer. Through Christ, the hidden place where we give our alms, hidden even from ourselves, is where God blesses our gifts. Through Christ, the silent and messy places where we carry the aches and pains of our fasting are where God sees us. Listen to Jesus teach us to pray. A God with a holy name, a powerful kingdom, and an unstoppable will meets us in our daily needs, our sins and the sins of others, and our helplessness in the face of temptation and evil. This is a God big enough to not only withstand our weakness but also to bless us in the midst of it.
Step 5: Advanced Prognosis (Internal Solution): Treasure Where the Heart Is
Our perennial temptation is to work rewards and blessings from the outside in. But Jesus teaches here that God works from the inside out. The gifts we seek and pile up all fade and fall prey to moths, thieves, and rust. What God gives us instead is a treasure that cannot fall away – himself. Instead of a mask to wear God gives us a new heart, a new life, a new identity. He has no use for our masks. He has given us new hearts instead. The tragedy of our hypocrisy is not that we get honor we don’t deserve, it’s that we receive much less than our crucified God has to offer, indeed a paltry sum compared to what He has given.
When Jesus says, “Where your heart is your treasure will be also” what he also means is “where the treasure is there your heart will be also.” He isn’t just talking about ordering your loves here. He’s talking about the work he’s continually doing through baptism and the living gift of faith that is working in us rather than in our works.
Step 6: Final Prognosis (External Solution): The Curtain Comes Down; We Come Up
One saint (now in the church triumphant) I won’t forget used to make himself very visible at church events. He would announce his prayer intentions loudly, he would play and sing old show-tunes on an old piano in the fellowship hall whether circumstances called for it or not, and he would regale you for long periods with impressions of famous movie stars like Humphrey Bogart. People loved him but at times he could feel like a little much. Over dinner he shared with me, almost in passing, about how hard his life was, how his father was alternately distant and abusive. Church and the movies were places where he discovered joy. I began to see his personality less as an “act” and more like one long hymn of gratitude singing out of his wounds in places he felt safe and loved. Whenever the prayers of the people come around, I still hear his voice. The mask came off, the redeemed heart shone through. Around his neck he wore this gigantic wooden and weirdly slanted cross. His life made it visible.
Like my old parishioner this is the cross shaped life we live to others. Revealing our redemption in their midst. Becoming “little Christs” to them as Luther had it. We aren’t like the hypocrites who worry about what they can gain from the people they meet. We relate to them only in what we can lose and give away. And we do it with the sheer risk to be flawed, honest and broken people that we are. The opposite of hypocrites who cover a less than perfect interior with a manufactured exterior, we wear our fractured and imperfect exteriors as a way for people to meet the one who is perfect in the heart within them. There’s a smear on our foreheads, but a promise etched on our hearts for all to see.
