Zoom
Matthew 6:1-4 · Giving to the Needy
The Problem with "Fawneys"
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
Sermon
by King Duncan
Loading...

Webb Garrison tells us about a common ruse among con artists in Ireland many years ago. These con artists would place a ring which looked expensive, but was in effect virtually worthless, in a public place where someone was sure to find it. This ring in the Irish dialect was called a “fawney.”

Sure enough, sooner or later someone would come along and discover the ring thinking they had found something quite valuable. Invariably this person would look around fearing that the real owner might see their find and come to claim it. Then, suddenly from nowhere, the con artist would appear. He would then persuade or frighten his victim into paying him to keep quiet about their find.  Making off with hush money, the con artist would leave the sucker holding this practically worthless ring.

So many persons were defrauded in this way that anything fake came to be called fawney.  This was later Americanized to the word phony. (1)

Nobody likes a fawney, or a phony—someone who looks like the real thing but is, in truth simply an imitation. There is a fascinating story about the death of the former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Stalin, of course, was known as a cruel and vindictive man. He is reputed to have suffered a seizure at a meeting of the Presidium, the Communist party executive committee.  Someone had made a proposal with which Stalin was in violent disagreement. Livid with fury, Stalin leaped from his seat, only to crash to the floor unconscious. 

While other Presidium members froze and blankly stared at the prone figure, a certain scheming bureaucrat named Laverenti Beria jumped up and danced around Stalin’s body shouting, “We’re free at last!  Free at last!” 

But as Stalin’s daughter forced her way into the room and fell on her knees by her father, the dictator stirred and opened one eye.  Beria at once dropped down beside Stalin, seized his hand, and covered it with kisses. (2)

No use taking any chances in case the dictator was alive after all. I believe that Laverenti Beria would qualify as a “fawney.”

Nobody likes a phony. Even Jesus disliked phonies. We’re often reminded that Jesus never called anyone a sinner, and that’s true. He looked pass the sin to the person caught in a misdeed. Still, even Jesus had no sympathy for phonies. The word he used to describe them most often was “hypocrites.” Nobody likes a hypocrite.

In tonight’s lesson from Matthew, Jesus says, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 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. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

Later in this same chapter he adds, “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

It is clear Jesus didn’t like phonies. And the question is, who does?

Author Mark Twain certainly didn’t. There was a certain acquaintance of Twain’s who had managed somehow to combine the appearance of piety with several unsavory practices in his business life. Somehow he was blind to the incongruity.

“Before I die,” this crooked man proclaimed publicly, “I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There I will climb to the top of Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud.”

“I have a better idea,” Mark Twain remarked. “Why don’t you stay right at home in Boston and keep them.” Twain knew the man’s heart. Phony. Hypocrite.

Robert J. Morgan tells about the disgust many Americans felt when transcripts of the famous Watergate tapes were released. Many Americans were stunned to read of the unrestrained filthiness of language used in the Oval Office by President Richard Nixon and his associates. Nixon’s every sentence seemed soiled with both profanities and obscenities of the rawest kind.

“It seems all the more ironic, then,” says Morgan, “to watch videotapes of the televised campaign debate between Nixon and John F. Kennedy on October 13, 1960, when Nixon sanctimoniously criticized the crusty language of Harry Truman.” Listen to Nixon’s own words. I quote, “It makes you realize that whoever is President is going to be a man that all the children of America will either look up to or will look down to. And I can only say that I’m very proud that President Eisenhower restored dignity and decency and, frankly, good language to the conduct of the presidency of the United States. And I only hope that should I win this election, that I could [see] to it that whenever any mother or father talks to his child, he can look at the man in the White House and say: Well, there is a man who maintains the kind of standards personally that I would want my child to follow.” But, as they say, “the truth will out,” and secret tapes from the Oval Office showed that Mr. Nixon was not the kind of man we all hoped he would be. (3) 

Now, friends, we are all sinners. And many otherwise fine people today use quite crude language. But there is something particularly offensive about someone who so misrepresents his or her own behavior—who says one thing but does something entirely different.

Phoniness is particularly deadly when it comes to the business of following Jesus. So many people have been turned off to Christ because they have had an encounter with a blatantly phony Christian.

Years ago in Germany there was a young Jewish boy who admired his father and sought to imitate his father’s acts of piety and devotion as prescribed by the Jewish religion. This father was zealous in attending worship and religious instruction and demanded the same from his children. While the boy was a teenager the family was forced to move to another town in Germany. After the move this Jewish father announced to the family that they were going to join the local Lutheran church. When the stunned family asked why, the father explained that all the leading families in the community belonged to the Lutheran church and it was good for business to also join. The youngster, of course, was bewildered and confused. His deep disappointment soon gave way to anger and a kind of intense bitterness that plagued him throughout his life.

This same young man eventually left Germany and went to England to study. He sat daily at the British Museum formulating his ideas and composing a book. In that book he conceived of a movement that was designed to change the world. In the book he dismissed religion as an “opiate for the masses” which the world is better off without. The man’s name was Karl Marx and the system was, of course, Communism. (4)

Who could blame him for his anger and intense bitterness? He watched his father give up his faith because it was good for business. Phony. Wouldn’t you agree that hypocrisy is particularly deadly when it is practiced by religious people?

The most painful example of that kind of hypocrisy is the old, old story of two men who meet on the street.  One says to the other, “Have you heard about Harry?  He embezzled the company out of half a million dollars.” 

The other man says, “That’s terrible; I never did trust Harry.” 

The first man says, “Not only that, he left town and he took Tom’s wife with him.” 

The other man says, “That’s awful; Harry has always been a ne’er‑do‑well.” 

The first man says, “Not only that, he stole a car to make his getaway.” 

The other man says, “That’s scandalous; I always did think Harry had a bad streak in him.” 

The first man said, “Not only that, they think he was drunk when he pulled out of town.” 

The other man says, “Harry’s no good all right.  But what really bothers me is, who’s going to teach his Sunday School Class this week?” (5)

Of course, anyone can be a phony. A pastor was preaching an impassioned sermon on the evils of television. “It steals away precious time that could be better spent on other things,” he said, advising the congregation to do what he and his family had done. “We put our TV away in the closet.”

“That’s right,” his wife mumbled, “and it gets awfully crowded in there.”

Good for her. It’s fine to protest what’s being shown on television. But not when you are a closet viewer yourself.

Jesus doesn’t want us to make a show of our faith. Jesus wants us to be authentic in our commitment to him. That’s what Ash Wednesday is all about. That’s what Lent is all about. It’s about dropping the pretense. It’s about living the Christ life to the best of our ability and not worrying about what the rest of the world thinks. Even though we are in this treasured fellowship, in a sense it’s just us and God. We are humbling ourselves in the presence of complete holiness and praying with the Psalmist, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (139:23-24)

Our focus this night is not upon ourselves, but on the cross of Christ, he who “made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” There was nothing phony about the Master. There was no desire to impress others by seeming to be something he was not. He was real to the end, even as he reached out in love to the thief who hung next to him and forgave the soldiers who taunted him and ultimately crucified him. And that’s what he wants from us. Be real, for Christ’s sake. Be genuine as Christ was genuine. As you come to the altar this evening examine your heart and ask if your actions are in conformity with your faith. If not, let your prayer be that Christ will give you a new heart that is as his heart. Never let it be said of you that you are a fawney.

1. Why You Say It (Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1992).

2. Moody Bible Institute’s Today in the Word, September, 1991, p. 16.

3. Preacher’s Sourcebook Creative Sermon Illustrations (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2007), pp. 639-640. 

4. Rev. Adrian Dieleman, http://www.trinitycrc.org/sermons/dan03v28.html.

5. Contributed. Source: Biblical Illustrator.

ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., Dynamic Preaching First Quarter Sermons, by King Duncan