Whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and the streets....

We can almost see the people in the crowd leaning forward as they try to hear these things Jesus was saying that afternoon on the hillside. He had been talking for a while now, and although he started out talking about things that were theological, he was now getting to things that actually made sense to everyone. It was nice to hear him say how the poor are actually blessed, and the weak will one day inherit the earth, but while those ideas are comforting, they are really kind of hard to make any real sense of in the day-to-day things that go on.

He was talking about things that were real, like praying, giving, and fasting. These are things that everyone deals with and of…