Faith Matters - Unnatural Acts
It is a standing mystery why some things I hear or read stick to my brain as if they were written on flypaper while others slide off as if scratched on Teflon. Typically the sticking and the sliding are in a perverse relationship of my need or desire to remember. In my case, the slippery things I would truly love to retain include the names of the twelve Apostles, the Seven Deadly Sins, the spelling of Habakkuk, and my cell phone num-ber. Unfortunately, what does adhere are wisecrack one-liners by Groucho Marx, the secret words to keep Gort from destroying the world in The Day the Earth Stood Still, and the tire pressure for my first bicycle. Synapses have a mischievous life of their own.
Waiting for a piano lesson in my teacher’s living room, reading the jokes in a coffee table issue of Readers Digest, I stumbled upon an article with the approximate title, “The Pleasure of Doing Good Secretly.” The author went on about the joy of doing good deeds anonymously. Do the deed, he gushed, and then stand back and watch from behind the curtain, smiling inwardly at your little conspiracy while the recipient ponders the identity of his or her benefactor. All this was a few minutes one Saturday afternoon more than a half-century ago. In any case, the article was printed on contact paper.
Re-surfacing from some subterranean archive, it comes visiting half a century later as I am reading Matthew 6. Jesus instructs his disciples about a higher righteousness that includes, among other things, revenge, anger, lust, divorce, forgiveness and enemies. He then proceeds to meddle further with our comfortable piety by denying us the pleasure of getting what we think we deserve from our generosity. He says, “But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” We can’t get even, we can’t indulge our anger, lust, or hate and now we can’t bask in the admiration of our neighbors at our beneficence.
As far as I can tell, Jesus had two basic things to say about our atti-tude toward our possessions. He urged both that we give generously on the one hand and anonymously on the other. They are both challenging and, on any given day, equally so. They are two sides of the same coin, as it were. As we should come to expect by now, his admonition flies squarely in the face of all of our natural inclinations. This is no surprise because Matthew 6 has all along been telling us things that we do not want to hear. The chap-ter is an unrelenting list of unnatural acts.
It is an ethic for the Kingdom of God, of course, an ethic of excess, reflective of the prodigality of God. Give as God gives, good measure pressed down running over on the one hand and secretly on the other. It is as rigorous a test of our going-on-to-perfection as any.
Surprised by occasional moments of interior candor, I wonder if I really trust that God will notice my giving and record it in the appropriate celestial ledger. I seem to prefer basking in my neighbor’s appreciation here and now rather than risk God’s failure to notice and reward later. I want to hedge my bets and take my testimonial dinner in full view of the largest audience I can assemble in utter humility. It is no great stretch for me to imagine that the same word applies to my time and talent as well as my treasure. I want assurance that my service will be as noticed, praised and appreciated as my largess. My checkbook and calendar stand at mute attention awaiting conversion.
Admittedly, it is radical giving: generously and secretly. At root such discipleship asks me to take Jesus at his word that God knows what I need and will provide it. If I really trusted that promise, it would make me ready to give in such a way that it would be known only to God. It might even make me ready to give it all away.
I guess there was some truth in that sticky article on the coffee table that I needed to learn. It turns out to be one variation on a theme in the larger symphony of Matthew 6. Now and again a few bars get to humming in one of my practice rooms. I am still trying to learn how to play that tune.
We can give away what God has given us because, in God’s economy, there is always more where that came from.
God’s peace.
Chuck Johns