Sermon on the Mount
--- Discipleship ABC
Matthew Chapter 6
Giving to the Needy (1-4) --- In chapter 5 the Lord
pronounced to his disciples of his expectation to them, their new life, their
new mindset, and their good works and deeds. They carry the hallmark of the
citizens of heavenly kingdom and the birthmark of the Holy Spirit. All these
will be looked afresh to the conservative social environment and everyone’s
attention drawn.
The
Lord warns them about the potential danger: this is not done for just surprises
to attract people and to boost your fame.
“Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be
seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” A
simple truth, but people are often ignorant about this. Working for one’s own
fame, you might earn but what you want, sooner or later what you’ve earned will
fade away. But if our good work is for the glory of our heavenly Father, He
will surely reward us. It may not be instant. Sooner or later, regardless, for
sure it will bestow to us. The Lord tells us to choose to latter.
He uses
giving to the poor to illustrate (This is associated with “blessed are the
merciful” in the Beatitudes.) He points our such a social phenomime that the
hypocrites also give. For their fame and people’s praise they announce what
they are doing with trumpets in the populated locations. “They have received
their reward in full.” The Lord declares. (Perhaps we have seen that names of
financial donors were engraved on the walls, pathways, and courtyard of some
grand-looking cathedrals, I personally consider that things like this should be
discouraged.) The heavenly wisdom is: “But when you give to the needy, do not
let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may
be in secret.” Here, “secret” is in
comparison with the boastful “doing with trumpets”. The Lord teaches us to do
these things for the heavenly Father in lieu of the general public. As for the
“right hand” and “left hand”, we know that the right hand is stronger and
handling work load. To do things using the right hand demonstrates that we do
this naturally and normally without even needing the assistance from the left
hand, we do not need to make the giving to the needy a big deal because this is
the natural out flow of a merciful new life. For such a life, “Then your
Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
Prayer (6:5-15) --- There are totally 34 verses in chapter
6, out of them the Lord’s teaching in prayer occupies almost half. Moreover,
this section is physically located in the middle of chapters 5, 6, and 7
combined. Not a coincident, note that the original readers of the Gospel are
Jewish, and the Jewish literature arranges the summit of the writings in the
middle part of it. Therefore, the teaching of prayer is arranged as the center
of all the teachings in Sermon on the Mount, remining us that as disciples, the
center of our spiritual life is: PRAYER.
Once again hypocrites are taken as the negative examples.
These dudes “love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners
to be seen by men.” Then we wonder, does the Lord discourages public prayer?
Nay. The prophets, apostles, and even the Lord himself have records of that.
The problem of the hypocrites is, their purposely standout “to be seen by men.”
Do not be mistaken that we must go into inner room and close the door for our
prayer to be heard. The two key verbs of the verse are “go (into)” and “pray
(to your Father)” verse the Pharisees’ “go (out)” and “to be seen”. Personal
prayer is a sweet moment for us to be with God. It is so precious that for this
we have to commit our full attention solely to nothing else but our heavenly
Father.
Now the topic turns to the gentile style. The gentiles do
not know the kingdom of God. They too pray to their gods focusing on material
benefits. At that time the gentiles imagine that the more and the longer they
pray, the more their gods will value their inquiries. The Lord commands the
disciples: “Do not be like them.” Because our heavenly Father is such a Father,
that “for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” What a
difference between our true God and all other gentile artificial gods.
Question again is: can we make long prayer? The answer is
“yes”, so long as we are touched by the Holy Spirit to ceaselessly pray. The
point hers is: “do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will
be heard because of their many words.”
Verses 9-13
is labeled as The Lord’s Prayer. This label is unfortunately off what it really
is. According to the content, this
should have been called “The Lord Teaches Us in the Topic of Prayer”, or
something alike. One is advised to pay attention to the coordinate conjunction
“therefore” which starts the teaching on the topic of prayer. This shows us
that our Lord’s teaching is against the main stream culture，in which prayer is for personal show
off and the practice of the pagan theology (5-8) The two main persons are: the
Father, and us, and the Father is always the center of our prayer. Therefore,
we must be careful to not put ourselves to be the focal point.
“Our
Father in heaven, hallowed be your name”. The most important is to set the
positions correctly. By this we are assure who is listening and praying. The
correct positions are set with such that the Father in on high, but we are low;
He is omnipotent, but we are ignorant; He is almighty, but we are incapable; He
is holy, but I am sinful. Even with our humble position, we have the privilege
to come to Him and pray, for this certainly we praise Him. By the way, the
original Greek for “heaven” is the plural noun uvranoi/j.
We are speechless. The knowledge of the scientists about something in one
heaven, and they build pride upon this. But the heavens declare the glory of
God!
After
the positions are set, our Father in heaven is pleased. Also, our faith is
built, for the great God is our Father. In Acts, prayers with such a
relationship brings forth earth quake, filling of the Spirit, encouragement in
preaching, unification, grace bestowed… Today we need prayers like these.
“your
kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This is a prayer
to express our complete submission to God in heaven. The kingdom of God
features the complete sovereignty of God, now God’s sovereignty is in complete
charge of every single aspect of our personal lives, and we are willing to be
the King’s servant. Thus pray, we invite the King’s will be done on his
servants as it is in heaven.
“Give
us today our daily bread.” Does it mean now we pray for our physical daily
bread and butter? The earlier church fathers interpreted this as the word of
God, the holy communion, etc. In his first Latin translation of Scripture St.
Jerome rendered “panem nostrum supersubstantialem”, meaning heavenly food,
somewhat like the manna in Exodus. The Reformed theologian John Calvin rebuked
the above interpretations as “exceedingly absurd”. Martin Luther the reformer
believed that this is talking about food, sunshine, air, health, housing,
family, and event a sound government and peace in environment, inclusive.
“Forgive
us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” This has a certain
correlation to 5:44-48, which addresses the topic of loving the enemies. All
enemies are our debtors. However, because we love them and pray for them, we
forgive their debts, same as that Jesus forgive our debts (Rom 5:8). To forgive
debts is the character of the saints. We notice that the Lord teaches us to
pray for the Father to forgive us… as we have forgiven the others. Are we
forgiven the first and then we can forgive? Yes. We are forgiven and given new
life. With our new life we are required to forgive. The prayer is talking about
us being disciples. The Lord requires us to “love your enemies and pray for
those who persecute you.” (5:44) In 6:14-15 he explicitly says: “For if you
forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive
you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive
your sins.” The indication is unambiguous, we forgive the first, then we will
be forgiven. For we are no longer of the world but of the heavenly kingdom.
“And
lead us not into temptation…”. This is quoted from the NIV. The English
translations in various versions coincides with the Greek original “kai. mh. eivsene,gkh|j h`ma/j eivj peirasmo,n”.
However, I personally am more in favor of that which in the Chinese Union
Version. The English translation may induce question: “Does one choice of God
is to lead us into temptation? Didn’t
the apostle James say that ”God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt
anyone”? (Jam 1:13)
A
better understanding of the first part of 6:13 demands reading together with
the second part “but deliver us from the evil one.” The duality of the
literature compensates each other and makes the meaning of the sentence whole.
Jesus has raised a list of worldly malpractices in the name of religion. He now
urges the disciples to pray fervently for protection from God, so that they can
be shielded from temptation and delivered if temptation from the evil does
launch attack. The Chinese Union Version appropriately renders as: “Do not let
us come across temptation, rescue us from the hook of evil.” This tends to
better reveal the intention of the prayer. God does have the mighty power, “For
thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. Amen.” The Lord teaches us to utter the
highest praise as the ending of the prayer.
Fasting (16-18) --- Not often churches today practice
fasting. Why do we fast? Fasting helps us to lay aside our natural physical
needs which petition us to satisfy. In that relationship we are slaves. Now
with fasting, we become masters. In turn we are the slaves of our heavenly
Master and we focus on him while we pray.
The
Pharisees fast twice every week and the days are chosen to be the second and
the fifth days of the week. These are the market days. Human activities
increase because they come to the market to buy and sell. More people can see
the hypocritical performance of the fasting Pharisees. The Pharisees will
powder their faces with ashes to make them look bad and sat, pretending that
they are so “spiritual” and in fasting. Holding them as the negative examples,
the Lord teaches the disciples: “When you fast, do not look somber as the
hypocrites do.” One again he assures that these dudes “have received their
reward in full.” i.e. nothing is from heaven. This reminds us the promise in
Beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure in heart.”
Treasures in Heaven (19-24) --- Nowadays the world often
provokes the so-called win-win strategy, not knowing that the clever Jewish
knew about this strategy in the N.T. period. The Lord, however, rebukes it. “No
one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or
he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God
and Money.” Now who are so clever to setup the win-win strategy? The Pharisees
again. In Luke’s same account of Jesus’ teaching, he jots note on the Pharisees
response: “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at
Jesus.” (luk 16:14) On the seats being religious elites they gain their high
social status and fame. In the same time, they are also money lovers. Jesus
states: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” He
admonishes the disciples to not imitate the hypocrites. Instead, “But store up
for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and
where thieves do not break in and steal.” Also, when we open our treasury
account in heaven, our hearts will also be there. So let’s work hard to earn,
and work hard to give to the Lord. Our treasures in heaven will increase.
Do not Worry (25-34) --- Notice the “therefore” in v.25,
this makes the teaching an expansion of the previous. To store up treasures on
earth reflects one’s worry.
Lord
Jesus, being the One who created and upholding the universe, directs us to not
worry about our life and what to eat or drink. This time he uses the birds and
the lilies as examples. These creatures are worry-free, they completely obey
their Creator. Entirely with and by the grace of God they show to the world the
beauty as the heavenly gift, and this gift is more splendid than king Solomon’s
earthly fine lenient. Now their obedience makes them living testimonies for the
heavenly Father. Out of all, humanity is the only creature that is good at
worrying. If we as disciples of Christ join this parade, we would be not even
comparable to the birds and the flowers. The Lord concludes: “But seek first
his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as
well.”
What is
the kingdom of God? Macroscopically, we maintain that represents God’s
sovereignty and in charge of the physical heaven and earth and the metaphysical
eras in human history. From its context, we may shrink our observation focusing
on Sermon on the Mount itself in the attempt to find more precisely what the
kingdom of God is. The Lord starts his teaching with such promise as “the
kingdom of Heaven” to comfort the poor in spirit. Remember this peculiarly is
in gnomic present tense. Then in 6:9-13, he teaches to pray for “your kingdom
come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Expressing that we are
completely obedient to God.
What is
the righteousness of God? Macroscopically, the absolute righteousness is one of
the infinitely many perfect attributes of God. From the context we are aware that
in the studies on Sermon on the Mount so far, Jesus has promised fulfillment to
his disciples who “hunger and thirst for righteousness”. Likewise, he promises
the same blessing to the “poor in spirit” and “persecuted because of
righteousness.”
We are
now shown a clear picture. We are called to be the citizens of the heavenly
kingdom and live in the eternal richness and righteousness of it. Our words and
deeds shine with heavenly radiances. Also, we are citizens of the earthly
kingdoms for a time, we are pilgrims. In such complex environment, out of the
worrisome attitudes render by all earthly residents, Jesus again takes this as
a negative example: “So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What
shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these
things.” Because “your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” And in 6:8,
he also maintains: “Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need
before you ask him.” The duality once again affirms the rock-stable promise.
Therefore, in God’s kingdom and righteousness, we adore him by “Love the Lord
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength
and with all your mind.” We do not do what the pagans do.
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