So when you do good to other people, don’t hire a trumpeter to go in front of you – like those who play act in the synagogues and streets, who make sure that people admire them … No, when you (help someone out and do a good work) don’t even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be secret. Your Father who knows all secrets will reward you.
A paraphrase, based on the JB Philips translation of the Bible, of St Matthew Chapter 6 verses 1 to 7. This is one of the two Gospel readings appointed to be read at services on Ash Wednesday, which this year falls on 2nd March. Words which have been read at the start of Lent for many centuries, and which define the essence of Christian giving: that we do not give or act for reward or acclaim from others, but because our heavenly Father, ‘who is in secret and sees in secret’, calls us to act unselfishly, sacrificially and in love towards others.
We are today, however, living in a very changed culture. We live in a society where carefully staged photoshoots or timely written articles, can give an impression of good works taking place that simply does not align with reality: photos and statements, moreover, which are designed to impress, but which may in fact contain little of substance at all.
I fear that even we in the Church are in danger of buying into, or is it rather selling out to, this trend in society. Already we know that the Church of England nationally is increasingly seeking to define successful churches by the numbers attending on Sundays, by size and style of worship and by money in coffers, rather than celebrating the quiet and meaningful work that goes on faithfully week by week, in secret, up and down the country. Work that, as Jesus commands, is seen and celebrated only by our all-seeing heavenly Father. Indeed, it is perhaps even coming to be assumed in the Church that when one does not broadcast one’s good works, then one is in fact doing nothing at all; and this apparent doing nothing at all may consequently be classed as ‘failing’ – a total antithesis to Jesus’ words as reported in Matthew Chapter 6.
Broadcasting to the world proof of one’s value: that is certainly not the Jesus way. For centuries Biblical Scholars and Theologians have struggled over what, in St Mark’s Gospel, has been classed as ‘The Messianic Secret’. Why did Jesus, time and time again, after he had performed a miracle or a good deed, tell those present to tell no one about it? Yet it is true Jesus did speak passionately about the Kingdom of God and his very identity and being made real that kingdom to others. Many years ago, at a wedding reception, as I was about to start training for ministry, I was asked, over drinks at the evening do, by somebody who was a total stranger to me, ‘Why do you want to be a vicar.’ I gave him an answer. Much to my surprise he came back at me, ‘That’s not why you want to be a vicar.’ I tried again with a different answer. It still didn’t satisfy him, ‘That’s not why you want to be a vicar.’ Finally, I realised there was no way out: I had to tell him my true story, and I did so rather reluctantly: a serious conversation at a wedding reception. At the end he said to me, ‘I can see now why you feel called to be a vicar.’
It is absolutely true that if we do not tell, then people cannot hear. As we read in chapter 8 of the Acts of Apostles in the encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, Philip asks, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ and the reply comes, ‘How can I understand unless someone guides me?’
I suppose at the end of the day the key issue here is how we judge, and how we judge one another. Just because one person choses to work in a quiet and unostentatious way with consequences that are known only to the recipients, does not mean that the work is of any less value than that which is performed and then proclaimed to the wider audience. The Myers-Briggs Personality-Type Indicator, so popular in the Church of England twenty-five years ago, highlights that there are many ways in which people prefer to operate. The important thing is that we value all styles of working, and do not in the end, lose the very real gifts and benefits of those who work quietly and conscientiously, simply because these are not broadcast and published in a way that those of a more extrovert persuasion might expect.
Rectory Ramblings 