Daily Lesson for September 24, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Matthew chapter 6 verses 1 through 4:

 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. 2 Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you."

I am thinking now of one of those giant checks we see in photographs when some business is making a donation to some charitable organization or school. You can see those checks from the moon; and I always wonder how large the drive through teller machine must be where you can deposit it.

Those giant checks everybody can see are just fine for businesses trying to let the community know they are investing in the community; but Jesus was not at all impressed with those walking around with them in their back pockets and trying to drop them into the plate at the house of God. It's not that the house of God won't accept it -- I guarantee that the church will take it.  But the deal, Jesus says, is that's the reward -- the satisfaction of having everyone know you gave it.

And what's wrong with that?  Well, first of all in the end it ain't very much.  It evaporates like cotton candy. As soon as it's tasted it's gone. Our picture with that big check in tote shows up for one day in the printed news and even less on social media.  Then what?  It's gone. Cotton candy in the mouth.

But there's another, deeper thing too; and that is that in choosing others' perceptions of us our reward we end up choosing to put all our self worth into the eyes of people who are neither capable nor fit to behold and judge such a thing rightly.  The word we have for that is idolatry -- that is, the bowing down before something or someone made in the image of God but without the eyes of wisdom which allows God to see into the heart and know where there is pride, manipulation, and phonyism.

So what is the reward our Father who sees in secret will reward us with?  Not outer adulation, which can be spun and manipulated by our personal P.R. professional known as the ego, but instead something much more intrinsic, lasting, unalloyed, and true.  Just this, a thing we call: character.