THE MOTIVE OF THE CITIZENS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
WHEN we were considering the way in which our Lord deepens the law of
love, while abrogating the law of revenge, we were obliged to notice
that what He gives us is not literal enactments, but rather principles
or motives for action. He expresses Himself indeed proverbially, in
the form of particular injunctions or prohibitions. But the proverbial
nature of these directions is apparent, in part because they are
sometimes mutually contradictory; and they must be taken, like
proverbs generally, as embodying in extreme concrete instances general
principles or motives for action.
We may truly say that the Sermon on the Mount gives us a social law for
Christians. That is true in this sense: the Sermon on the Mount gives
us principles of action which every Christian must apply and re-apply
in his social conduct. But just because it embodies motives and
principles and does not give legal enactments, it must appeal in the
first instance to the individual, to his heart and conscience; and it
is only as the character thus formed must set itself to remodel social
life on a fresh basis, that the Sermon on the Mount can become a social
law for Christians. You cannot take any one of its prescriptions,
and apply it as a social law at once. You cannot take the maxim “If
a man smite thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other also,” or
“If a man take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also,” and make
it obligatory on Christians as a rule of external conduct, without
upsetting the whole basis of society and without ignoring a contrary
maxim which our Lord gives us in another connexion.
But each of the maxims can be taken to the heart and conscience of
the individual, to become a principle of each man’s own character
and conduct, and then to reappear, retranslated into social action,
according to the wisdom of the time or the wisdom of the man or the
wisdom of the Church.
This truth――that our Lord is giving us principles, not laws――will
appear only more conspicuously now, when we pass to the next great
section of the Sermon; because it will be obvious that our Lord
can only be dealing with motives of action――motives such as belong
to the secret heart of the individual. He proceeds to inculcate
the abandonment of a worldly temper by prohibiting, literally, such
religious actions as other men can see. But His own example, His own
institution of a corporate religion, His special promises to common
worship, His countermaxim “Let your light so shine before men, that
they may see your good works,” force us to recognize the proverbial
character of these prohibitions, and to look for the principle rather
than the law.
And indeed this sixth chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel has one
subject throughout. It teaches us one great principle――that the new
righteousness, the righteousness of the citizens of the kingdom, looks
throughout towards God. God is its motive, God is its aim, God is its
object; God, and nothing lower than God. No man is truly a citizen who
is not in all his conduct and life looking directly God-ward.
We will attend first to verses 1‒18, omitting the positive directions
about prayer. Their theme does not vary: The Christian righteousness,
in all its departments, looks for divine praise; never for human
praise. Our Lord lays this down first of righteousness generally, then
of its different branches. Thus, in the first place, of righteousness
generally:
“Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men, to be
seen of them: else ye have no reward with your Father which is
in heaven.”
We may observe here, once for all, that our Lord in no way disparages
the seeking a reward, only the seeking it in a wrong place. There are
“altruists” who regard the seeking of even an eternal reward from God
as ignoble; they would find the true religious motive only in such
an utterance as that of St. Francis Xavier, “My God, I love Thee, not
because I hope for heaven thereby,” and would recall the mediæval story
of the man who would quench with water the flames of hell and burn
up with fire the joys of heaven, that men might seek God for His own
sake. But indeed these philosophers ignore indestructible and necessary
instincts in human nature. We cannot separate love for God from a
desire to find our own happiness in God. This is inseparable from
personality. We must crave for ultimate satisfaction, recognition,
approval. The point is that we should seek it in the right place, that
is from God. For coming from Him it can never involve any spoiling
of our own capacity for usefulness to others, or narrowing of our
own selves. Thus there is a true self-love: and a true self-love
seeks satisfaction in the fellowship of God in the eternal world. If
“other-worldliness” or the seeking of the divine reward has done harm
in religion, that is because the character of the God whom we seek,
as revealed in the character and teaching of Jesus Christ, has not
been attended to. Granted that we seek God as He is, there can be no
possible peril of our undervaluing this world or the bodies of men,
nor of our tolerating selfishness in religion. He that said “What is
a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own life
(soul)?” said also, “He that saveth his life (soul) shall lose it.”
Then our Lord applies the general principle of seeking only God’s
approval to the three great branches of human conduct. Christian, and
indeed human conduct generally, looks in three directions. There is a
duty to God, there is a duty to one’s neighbour, and there is a duty
to one’s self. And each of these great departments of human conduct has
one typical form of action, one form of action in which it specially
expresses itself. Our duty to God expresses itself particularly
in prayer. Our duty to man expresses itself in works of mercy, or
alms. Our duty towards ourselves expresses itself in self-subdual,
self-mastery――that is, fasting. And so our Lord applies the general
principle to each of these typical duties. In your prayers, in your
alms, in your fastings――in each case you are to look to nothing lower
than the praise of God.
And, before we study these passages, let me ask you to notice how
simply our Lord does always regard human life as bound to move in these
three directions. There is our duty to God. That He puts first, not
to be merged in our duty to our neighbour. There is our personal duty
to God as a person, and it is the first and chief commandment to love
the Lord our God. Then there is our duty towards our neighbour; and
then, also, there is our duty towards ourselves. “Thou shalt love thy
neighbour――as thyself!” Our duty towards ourselves is, in a word, to
make the best of ourselves. Each one is an instrument, divinely created
by God, with that sum total of faculties which the Bible calls his
life or soul. Well, he is to make the best of himself. Considered as
a spiritual being, capable of right spiritual activity, each man is
to love himself and his neighbour and God; himself, by bringing his
whole being into good order and efficiency, which cannot be without
fasting or the subdual of the flesh to the spirit: his neighbour, by
considering his true interests like his own, which cannot be without
almsgiving or actual gifts out of his substance to supply the other’s
needs: and God, which cannot be unless he deal with Him as a person by
way of actual personal requests in prayer. And in each direction he is
to seek only the praise of God.
ALMSGIVING
“When therefore thou doest alms, sound not a trumpet before thee,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that
they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have
received their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy
left hand know what thy right hand doeth: that thine alms may be
in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense
thee.”
Our Lord is clearly using a metaphor. We cannot suppose that the Jews,
when they went to give alms, caused their own trumpet to be blown in
a literal sense; and in the same way, when our Lord speaks of the left
hand not knowing what the right hand doeth, it is clearly a metaphor;
but a metaphor vividly descriptive. For what our Lord is here
forbidding is obviously ostentation in doing good.
Here is a matter upon which it is for each man to examine himself. We
are to find out what our _motive_ is. We are not to be troubled because,
when we are trying to do good, there comes across us the temptation to
think that people are looking at us. We shall often be tempted in this
way: but the point is, what is our motive? We can find that out. When
people are not looking at us, do we stop doing the good action? When we
cannot be seen, do we omit it? If not, let us not be worried because we
may be tempted with thoughts of vainglory. You know what an old saint
said to Satan: “Not for thy sake did I begin this; and not for thy sake
shall I leave it off.” But on the other hand, if you give a half-crown
in a collection when there is a plate, and a penny when there is a bag
and your gift cannot be seen; or if you put yourself down for a larger
sum in a subscription list in order to be brought into association with
a duchess, then you have the gravest possible reason to doubt your
motive.
And let me add this: there are many charitable people who desire to
collect money for good objects; let them take care that in order to do
so they do not encourage people in bad motives. If they play upon bad
motives to get money, assuredly they are partakers of other men’s sins:
and the money is not to the glory of God or for the good of His work.
PRAYER
“And when ye pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites: for they
love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of
the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you,
They have received their reward. But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray
to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in
secret shall recompense thee.”
The same principle of seeking only divine praise is here applied to
our approach to God. It seems to require no further notice, but we
may consider here a subordinate principle which is applied also to
almsgiving and fasting――the principle of recompense――“they have their
reward.”
Every kind of conduct gets its reward on the plane of its motive. If
you look out for human praise, on the whole you get it. If you aim
vigorously at getting on and winning a good position, the chances are
you will succeed. On the whole, then, you get the reward on the plane
of your motive. And our Lord recognizes these lower motives and their
proper reward; and you find that in the Old Testament, in many passages,
God is represented as being, as it were, careful to distribute rewards
on the lower plane. See, for instance, how (in Ezek. xxix. 18‒20) God
notes that Nebuchadnezzar’s army served against Tyre and got no wages;
therefore He will give Egypt for their wages.
So then if your motive is earthly, your reward is earthly. You “have
out” your reward to the full, and must not imagine there is anything
over and above which still appeals to God. When John Henry Newman
was made a Cardinal, he――a devout, religious man, one of those who
apparently without vanity have the power of talking about their own
state of feeling――said he trembled to take this great honour, lest
he should be taking out his reward here on earth; because he could
not think that anything he had tried to do in his life was such that
it would not have its reward exhausted by his receiving so great a
position.
We need not scrutinize such an expression of fear too closely, but
only notice that a real Christian, instead of being anxious to obtain
recognition, is on the other hand rather alarmed if he always seems
to get full credit for all that he tries to do. He believes that he
is aiming only at the approval of God, and finds too liberal a reward
in this world even disquieting, as though it were a sign that he was
mistaken as to his motive.
FASTING
“Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad
countenance: for they disfigure[66] their faces, that they
may be seen of men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have
received their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy
head, and wash thy face; that thou be not seen of men to fast,
but of thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father which seeth
in secret, shall recompense thee.”
Here, under the head of fasting, we may notice again――what applies
equally to prayer or almsgiving――that our Lord is passing no slight
on “common” or public religious actions. St. Paul tells us (1 Cor.
xvi. 2) that we are to have church collections; and our Lord (St. Matt.
xviii. 19‒20) tells us we are to pray together; and He instituted
the Eucharist, which is the Church’s chief social or public act of
communion with God and mutual fellowship. So that it is ridiculous to
suppose that our Lord is here slighting social religious acts――acts
which are performed by the Church as a body, and in the performance of
which we have the encouragement which comes of co-operation and the
sense of responsibility to the community as well as to God. And most
of all it is ridiculous to suppose that our Lord is discouraging common
fasts, but not common prayer or almsgiving. In no case is our Lord
undervaluing the common religious acts. But He is indicating the new
motive of religious action, whether it be prayer or almsgiving or
fasting. Its motive is to be God, and not man.
Once more, our Lord is not here saying anything against the
manifestation of our religion by outward acts. We cannot pray
properly――speaking generally――without adopting a fit attitude in
prayer, that is on the regular occasions of public and private prayer.
We should pray in an attitude which befits our relation to God, on our
knees, humbly, devoutly, because we are creatures of soul and body, and
we cannot express the religious feeling of the soul properly without
its influencing the gesture of the body also. We are made up of soul
and body, and a “spiritual” act of worship is one in which the spirit,
that is the will, heart, and intelligence is engaged; not one in which
the body takes no part. Then if we learn to pray aright, kneeling
upon our knees, we can carry the habit of prayer into our common life.
In the same way, if we are to fast, the act must have a definite and
methodical outward expression. Do not let us be afraid of outward
expressions of religion. Our Lord is emphasizing this, and this only,
namely, the motive which we should have in all kinds of righteousness,
whether it be worship or charity or self-subdual.
Thirdly, we shall do well to consider, what is the principle and
meaning of fasting. Our Lord says less about it in the New Testament
than about prayer; and you notice in the Revised Version that the
mention of it has vanished from a good many of those passages where
in the Authorized Version it stood side by side with prayer.[67] It
is quite true, then, to say that our Lord says less about fasting than
about prayer. It is quite true that fasting may be abused, and was
in our Lord’s time abused, more easily than prayer; but it is a great
mistake, because you have got a certain truth, therefore to exaggerate
it. Our Lord Himself fasted, as He prayed; He fasted forty days
and forty nights. Our Lord said the disciples should fast; that it
would betoken the time when He was taken from them. St. Paul mentions
fasting as part of his own practice――“in fastings often,” and he bids
Christians “distress”[68] their bodies in order to reduce them to
subjection. So again the Church from the first has fasted. And the
great authors of religious revivals in our own Church――Simeon, and
Pusey, and Maurice alike――practised and encouraged fasting. We may then
depend upon it that we are foolish if we neglect it. And the object
of it is this: it is the bringing the body under the spirit, whereas
without it the body is apt to have the upper hand. It is not because
our body is evil that we are to fast; but because our body is, or is
meant to be, holy, and the effective instrument of the spirit. People
sometimes talk about their body as if it were merely animal, and the
spirit were only attached to it. That is not true. Our whole being
is meant to be spiritual, as governed by the spirit. Just as when the
principle of life takes hold on the inorganic world, it makes the whole
nature organic of living; so when the spirit takes hold of the animal
body, its work is to make the whole body spiritual.
It is worth while dwelling on this. People often justify sensual sin
by saying it is “natural;” and the fallacy in this excuse lies in
supposing that our body can be treated apart from our spirit. Nothing
is natural to man in which his spiritual nature is not brought into
play. This is the reason why Christian marriage is truly natural. It
gives to the bodily relation of the sexes a spiritual purpose, and
makes it serve high ends of the home and family. Thus in the same way
eating and drinking is to serve spiritual ends. Everything that the
true Christian does is part of a great spiritual whole; and it is, I
say, because our body has grown lawless, and is apt to trample upon the
spirit instead of being subordinate to it, that we have, as it were,
to take revenges on the body and from time to time to harass it, as
St. Paul says, and to hold it as a slave.
For the same reason we are foolish and un-Christian if we fast in
such a way, either excessively or unwisely, as to unfit the body for
spiritual activities. If you fast so that you cannot work, you are
violating your duty. But many people eat and drink and sleep too well;
their bodies have the upper hand; and they ought to fast, and to take
the opportunity of Lent to fast, that their bodies may be brought under
their spirits.
“The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church says, now:
Give to thy Mother what thou wouldst allow
To ev’ry corporation.”
Now we must return to consider the parenthesis about prayer which is to
be found in chapter vi. 7‒15, and which teaches us something more than
that its motive is to be not vainglory, but God.
First, we are taught that prayer is not to be measured by length, but
intensity:
“And in praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do:
for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.”
If you were to go into a Buddhist country at the present time, you
would find prayer there reduced to something so formal and mechanical
that people do not need to say it themselves, but have prayer wheels
and prayer flags to wind or spread out their prayers before the holy
one. And I am afraid there has been a good deal of a like mechanical
praying in the Christian Church. But the value of prayer, our Lord
warns us, is not to be measured by its length, but the amount of will
and intention we put into it. There is always need that we should
remember this. There is always a danger that in praying dutifully and
according to some rule our praying should be becoming mechanical, and
that we should find ourselves measuring its value by its length.
Secondly, Christian prayer is not for the sake of informing God:
“Be not therefore like unto them [the Gentiles]: for your Father
knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”
Why is it, then, that God requires of us to pray? The answer is a
quite simple one. It is because God is our Father, and He wishes us to
be trained in habits of conscious intercourse with Him. Therefore, just
as many blessings which God wishes to give us are made dependent on
our working for them, so many other blessings are made dependent on our
regular and systematic asking. God wills to give them, but He wills to
give them only if we ask Him; and this in order that the very necessity
of continually holding intercourse with a personal God and making
requests to Him may train us in the habit of realizing that we are sons
of our heavenly Father. The wisdom of this provision is best realized
if we reflect how easily, when the practice of prayer is abandoned,
the sense of a personal relation to God fades out of our human life.
We are to pray then not to inform God, but to train ourselves in habits
of personal intercourse with our Father who is in heaven.