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Matthew 6:1-4 · Giving to the Needy
Heaven's Applause
Matthew 6:1-4
Sermon
by Robert Noblett
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Some words fall into the mud puddle, are never cleaned off, and become permanently tarnished by the mud that was never removed. Piety is such a word. Think about the way you have heard it used. Usually it has a pejorative taint to it. 

Bishop Spong of the Episcopal Church has certainly caught religious people's attention. The bishop was interviewed recently and spoke of how he didn't much like religious people. He went on to say that he often finds them petty, small-minded, and prejudiced. Those are precisely the kind of people who come to mind when we think of folks who are pious. You have met them and so have I. Thomas Merton once referred to them as "plaster saints."  Happily, not all church people are like that, but enough of them are, enough of the time, to warrant attention. Obviously that has always been so because Matthew takes note of them. 

Please note that Matthew is talking not about piety per se, but a particular kind of piety. So let's first get out the hose and clean off the caked mud that has gathered around this word. 

The word comes from Latin roots that mean dutifulness and dutiful. Synonyms would include devoutness, devotion, godliness, reverence, and humility. So a person of piety, or a pious person, is one who is dedicated to the things of God. We get a flavor for the essence of piety, in contrast to a besmirched variety, in some lines from Wordsworth:

My heart leaps up when I behold
a rainbow in the sky;
So it was when my life began;
So it is now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.1 

A pious person, then, is a person who takes God seriously. Henry Ward Beecher said it like this: "The strength of a man consists in finding out which way God is going, and going that way too."2 We could alter that just slightly and say the word piety is "finding out which way God is going, and going that way too." 

What concerns Jesus, by contrast, is a piety that is misused and therefore becomes misshapen. 

People occasionally use a tool for a purpose other than its stated one. For example, if one uses a screwdriver as a crowbar, it is highly likely that the screwdriver will become bent. When that happens, it cannot be used for its intended purpose unless it is first straightened out. 

Likewise with piety. Matthew tells us about people who practice it "before others in order to be seen by them," and that's not piety, but misshapen piety that comes out as spiritual exhibitionism, a form of religious immaturity. 

One of the dangers of wearing a cordless microphone is that you will forget to turn it off, with the unfortunate consequence that everything you think you are saying privately is being broadcast. People who suffer from a misshapen piety make a conscious decision to leave the mike on because they want other people to know what they are doing. You may remember that old line from Mark Twain to the effect that when some people discharge their responsibilities, you can hear the report for miles around. That's what misshapen piety is all about. 

Jesus discusses this issue as it relates to three aspects of faith --  giving, praying, and fasting -- and in each instance the misshapen piety comes -- like cereal boxes used to -- with a little prize. In each context Jesus' comment is the same: "Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward." And what's the reward? Of course, it's the adulation of others. We all want to be appropriately saluted for doing a good job, but require that salute too much and the tail begins to wag the dog -- good things being done for wrong reasons. After a time, our needfulness undermines and threatens the good we have set out to do. 

Performers usually bow at the end their performances and the bowing, of course, is intended to be an acknowledgment of the audience's applause. It's the gracious thing to do. But I find myself wondering whether it is more than that. What if the performer stood there bolt upright and let the applause hit him squarely in the face, treating the applause as his due? Would not that be vainglory of the highest order? Therefore the bowing not only acknowledges the applause, but even more importantly, it physically and symbolically signals to ourselves and others that we are derived and indebted, recipients of far more than we can ever give back. 

What John Flavel once said of ministers is true for every calling: "Ministers are like trumpets, which make no sound if breath be not breathed into them. Or like Ezekial's wheels, which move not unless the Spirit move them. Or like Elisha's servants whose presence does no good unless Elisha's spirit be there also."3 

True piety acknowledges its indebtedness. 

And finally, let it be said that such piety does have its just reward. Jesus says that those with a misshapen piety will "have no reward from your Father in heaven" (Matthew 6:1). The truly pious do. 

What kind of reward do you suppose that is? Clearly it is not a reward after the fashion of a carrot enticingly dangled in the hope that we will do what we should be doing anyway. Rather, it is that sense of satisfaction and quiet delight that follows in the wake of doing something that we know, in our heart of hearts, to be in sync with what is ultimately in keeping with the wishes of God. What's more, it is a satisfaction and delight that is all the sweeter and purer because it is between us and God. The longer I live the surer I am that God sees the heart for what it holds and grants the heart that sense of well-being we awkwardly refer to as a reward. 

Ultimately it does not matter whether what we do is acknowledged in a plaque, or written on a piece of paper, or covered in the press, or carried on the Internet, or announced on the evening news. The only applause that really matters -- and really lasts -- is the applause of heaven. When you feel that applause, you'll really know you did "good."

1. John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1955), p. 406.

2. Margaret Pepper, The Harper Religious & Inspirational Quotation Companion (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1989), p. 318.

3. John W. Doberstein, The Minister's Prayer Book (London: Collins, 1964), p. 196. 

CSS Publishing Company, Sermons for Sundays in Lent and Easter, by Robert Noblett