[AI translation] In Jesus' day, it was the custom that at the end of the synagogue service, the donors would stand up one by one and announce the amount they wanted to give to the synagogue's collection box. If someone offered a large amount, they would be called to the platform and awarded a seat next to the rabbi. Sometimes even the horn was blown, as if to warn the heavenly authorities that someone was doing a special charity here. The more charity one practised, the more alms one gave, the greater the spectacle in the synagogue and then in the street. The size of the donation indicated the degree of piety of the donor. It was against this spectacular charity that Jesus spoke out so strongly, as we heard in the passage we read. It is indeed repulsive when someone so boasts of his own goodness, his own mercy, his own sacrifice, when someone so flaunts his own generosity. It is repulsive, but let us beware of judgement, for it easily finds us, ourselves. Jesus does speak of "alms", but that is not all that is at issue here. Alms is a collective term. It includes all the good deeds that a believer owes to his neighbour, especially if he is in need of help, if he is in a state of distress, deprivation or sorrow. It includes all the acts of participating and helping charity in which a person's faith in God is realised, which is the practical consequence of our faith in general: the gesture, the caress, the living and the witnessing of charity. This is the concept of almsgiving. It is what we say in short: a good deed, or a Christian good deed.So Jesus is talking here about almost the deepest motifs of Christian ethics. The danger of Christian good works. That is why he says: beware! Here he is not saying: you who believe in me, do good to others! Demonstrate your love for people by your deeds, be ready to help, to sacrifice, to give alms, but he says: beware of your good deeds, your sacrifices, your alms! That you do good is self-evident. That you stand by your fellow human beings in need and help them is something that does not need to be commanded. For here Jesus is speaking to people who already know the riches of God's grace, who themselves live out of God's compassionate love, and so know that they can only live out of that compassionate love if they allow that same love to flow through them to other people. For such a person, then, it can no longer be a problem whether or not to sacrifice for another person. Luther once said that the stone that is in the sun does not need to be specially commanded to be warm, because it is warm anyway. Well, that's why Jesus does not give a moral command here that people should help the needy, give them alms, give them a helping hand, because that is a natural consequence of faith.
This is a different matter. It's about the fact that doing good to other people is not enough in itself. A good deed, however great the sacrifice involved, can in itself be worthless, even hateful. "Watch out!" It's like someone walking down the street and someone shouts at you: watch out, there's a hole in front of you, don't fall in! "Beware", Jesus says in the same warning way, because you can fall not only in your sins, but also in their good works! Yes, even in the practice of Christian ethics, one's feet can stumble and one can get badly hurt. So the problem is not whether to do good, but the good deed itself is the problem now. So be careful! But what should we be careful of? That "you do not distribute your alms before men, so that they may see you" (v.1) The duty of Christian good works is not yet done by the fact that we have finally made a sacrifice of our own for some good cause, or that we have taken a homeless person into our home, or shared what little we have with someone, or that we have made time out of what little time we have for someone who needed it. The real danger is still lurking there, as our so-called good deeds are rendered completely worthless by the belief that we have just done something great. That this sacrificial good deed now lifts us high before men: What a man, what a good man! Yes! We are moved almost to tears by our own goodness. Jesus hears the trumpet of moral vanity in our actions and smells the smoke of our self-congratulation. And then even the "alms", however great, have lost their value in Jesus' eyes, they have become detestable.
And does not this danger constantly haunt the believer? Our basic nature is a bit of acting, of playing some kind of pleasing role. We're acting. And because we are Christian people, we play the good part, the part with a sacrificial heart, because it is a pleasing part. And we are actors who are also an audience for ourselves. We applaud ourselves and we think others are applauding us. And it feels good. Because at heart we are all vain people, and we want to adorn ourselves with Christian virtues. Just look at what we do with the often not so conscious aim that Jesus says: let people see us! Or at least to see ourselves, to see ourselves as a little better than we really are. This is the danger of our good deeds.
And there is an even more subtle danger of our good deeds. Here, it is really only believers who are threatened by this danger. That is, to do good in the hope of divine reward. That, if not people, at least God should take into account how good we are! Is there not hidden behind our desire to do good the idea that if I am good, God must be good to me? So, the suspicious speculation is that I am bribing God with my goodness, my "alms". Don't we all live a little in a secret thought pattern of reward/punishment? Oh, how common it is for someone in serious adversity to almost ask God for an answer: how can he do this to her! Is this the reward for having done this and that? Is this the way God rewards his goodness, his faithfulness, his helping many, many people? Is there not a secret behind our striving to do good that we expect God to reward us for it? If not here, then at least in the next world. So what is wrong with our good deeds is that even in doing them we are serving ourselves, we are doing them selfishly, for our own sake. Our self is also at the centre of our good deeds. That's what's hateful about it.
I heard an apt example of this once. Someone was lying in hospital and it struck him that one of the nurses was doing her duty around him with extreme precision and cordiality. For 20 years she had always been on night duty in the hospital. Once this person asked the nurse why she was doing this, did she not tire herself out? And she replied with a beaming face: "Every night I stay up all night will mean a pearl in my heavenly crown, and to date I have 7,175 of them! The patient felt that all his gratitude to that sister had evaporated from his heart and he could no longer believe in her love. And she was right. This nurse was not serving the patients with her kindness, but herself. She was collecting her heavenly bank deposit. Abominable! You can see why Jesus calls such things hypocrisy, can't you? Hypocrisy, acting, showing off before men, or before God - but mostly before herself.
That is why Jesus goes on to say, "But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing" (Mt 6,3). Do not even notice yourself when you do good, so natural should it be. Because if you do register it, you can only conclude one thing: that it is little, miserably little. It's nothing to brag about. And therein lies the significance of the word "alms". Because what does alms mean? It means a donation that you give to someone from the top down. Alms are the crumbs that fall from our table. There is something humiliating about it. At least for the person who receives it. It expresses the idea that the other person who receives it is a beggar compared to me, that I should throw him something, that he should be content with it, and even thank me for receiving it. And such alms are all our good deeds. Nothing. At least compared to what we owe the other person - nothing. And compared to what we have received from God in grace, goodness, love, blessing - nothing. Alms. Insignificant nothing. Nothingness. We should give much more, we should love much more, we should do this good much more intensely!
Do you think being kind and cordial to an unpleasant person is something? No. Nothing. Or helping even a useless, antipathetic person is something? No. Nothing. A pittance compared to what God did to you. Or is it not a pittance what we give to God's cause, for example, as a church maintenance contribution or an offering to the bushel? Yes, if you think about it: alms. Even if it were twice as much, it would still be a pittance compared to what we owe. Or our love for people is but a tiny fraction of what we owe them. A pittance. Shamefully little. It's really nothing to brag about. It would be ridiculous to boast of it, to imagine that we have just done something great. Virtually nothing. It really counts for nothing in the sight of God or man. There is no praise, no reward, no salvation. I should be ashamed that this is all I have, all I have of faith. God points to Jesus on the cross of Calvary and says: Look, I did this for you! And he asks, "What do you do for me?" and what do you do and what do I do, compared to the sacrifice on Calvary? It is like the flame of a candle in the sunshine.
That's why Jesus says: "Your alms shall be kept secret" (Mt 6,4a). It is not something to be enjoyed. And yet, how wonderful, Jesus goes on to say, "and your Father who looks on you in secret will reward you openly." (Mt 6.4b) Is there a reward? Yes! Let me illustrate with an example: long ago, when my children were small, I had to bring home a basket of apples from somewhere. It was heavy, it pulled on my hand. I had one of my little boys with me. He's a small, weak child. He was so excited by my carrying him that he said: and he took the basket by the ear, as if he were helping me, even though he was hindering me. It was even harder. But the love with which he wanted to help me felt good, and when we got home, I said to him: thank you for your help, now you will be rewarded with the most beautiful apple! Somehow this is our good deed, and somehow this is the reward that Jesus is talking about. Not the equivalent of performance, not a merit-based payment that one can rightly expect, but an abundance of God's fatherly love that flows out even more! For if I "help" carry the basket not because I love my Father, but for anything else: praise, reward, recognition, business gain - then it is no longer a Christian good deed.
The wonderful thing is that even though we really deserve nothing for our alms, we could really only be ashamed, God "sees" and "pays". God is not indebted to anyone. Let us leave here now with the good feeling that, however pitifully small a handout it is, we are still allowed to do good in thanksgiving for God's even greater good deed: Jesus!
Amen
Date: 25 October 1964.
Lesson
Ef 2,4-10