PREVIEW

In the section of the Gospel which begins at 4:17, Matthew sketches the shape of Jesus' mission in Galilee. It is clear from the opening account in 4:17-25 that this mission consists of both words and deeds. Matthew illustrates these two facets of Jesus' work in the two collections of material which follow. First comes the discourse called the Sermon on the Mount (5:1—7:29), the first of five such discourses in Matthew's Gospel. There the reader discovers that Jesus teaches with authority that far exceeds that of other teachers. Then, with hardly a break at all, we move into a collection of stories featuring Jesus' miracles (8:1—9:34). Here it is evident that Jesus acts with special authority as well, restoring life and health in accord with God's purposes. In short, Jesus exhibits his messianic power both in the message he proclaims and in the wonders he performs. Both are integral to his mission and to the story about that mission.

No less significant is the way Matthew weaves the theme of discipleship into his picture of Jesus' mission. In the middle of his opening account of Jesus' work, we find a story of the calling of the first disciples (4:18-22). This allows disciples to be present when Jesus teaches on the mountain (5:1-2), the core of the community that will remember and observe his teaching (5:13-16; 7:24-27).

Especially striking is the way Matthew organizes the material on Jesus' messianic deeds, dividing the three groups of miracle stories with interludes on discipleship (8:18-22; 9:9-17). All this leads up to the commissioning of the twelve (9:35—10:42), who will extend Jesus' mission throughout all of Israel. From beginning to end, therefore, 4:17—10:42 is an account both of Jesus' messianic mission and of the preparation of disciples to share in that mission.

OUTLINE

Jesus Launches His Ministry,     4:17-25
Jesus Teaches with Authority,     5:1—7:29
     5:1-16     Heirs of the Kingdom
     5:17-48     A Greater Righteousness
     6:1-18     True Piety and False
     6:19—7:12     A Focused Life
     7:13-29     A Critical Choice
Jesus Acts with Authority,     8:1—9:34
     8:1-17     Mighty Works, Cycle 1
     8:18-22     Following Jesus, Interlude 1
     8:23—9:8     Mighty Works, Cycle 2
     9:9-17     Following Jesus, Interlude 2
     9:18-34     Mighty Works, Cycle 3
Jesus Commissions His Disciples,     9:35—10:42
     9:35—10:4     Laborers for the Harvest
     10:5-15     The Mission of the Twelve
     10:16-42     The Cost of Discipleship
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True Piety and False

Matthew 6:1-18

PREVIEW

In Matthew 6:1-18 Jesus continues to talk about a righteousness which exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. Up to this point the focus has been on acting rightly in our relationships with fellow humans. Now the focus shifts to right actions in our relationship with God, to pious deeds or practices. The specific practices Jesus mentions include almsgiving (vv. 2-4), prayer (vv. 5-15), and fasting (vv. 16-18). All three were customary expressions of piety in Judaism (cf. Tobit 12:8; Sirach 7:10; Acts 10:2). At issue is the right way to engage in these practices or disciplines, which Matthew assumes will still be observed by Jesus' followers.

Once again Jesus contrasts an old way and a new way, using a set pattern to frame his comments on each practice:

When you ________,
Do not do it, as some do, to be seen in public.
Truly, they get what they seek.
But when you ________,
Do it privately (for God alone to see).
And God who sees in secret will give you your reward.

Of primary importance here is the Lord's Prayer in verses 9-13, for which we find a parallel in Luke 11:2-4. Whatever its form in the underlying source, it is likely that the Matthean church used the prayer in teaching and worship long before it found its present setting in Matthew 6. In any case, Matthew's inclusion of the Lord's Prayer guaranteed its future role in teaching and worship in churches using his Gospel (cf. Did. 8:1-3). With the several additional sayings on prayer, the topic of prayer receives special emphasis in the unit.

OUTLINE
Public or Private Piety,     6:1
The Practice of Giving Alms,     6:2-4
The Practice of Prayer,     6:5-15
     6:5-6     The Manner of Prayer
     6:7-13     The Language of Prayer
     6:14-15     Forgiveness and Prayer
The Practice of Fasting,     6:16-18

EXPLANATORY NOTES

Public or Private Piety  6:1

To introduce the admonitions on almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, Matthew warns his readers about the wrong way to practice piety. The opening word, beware, occurs six times in Matthew and stresses the need to pay attention and be on guard (cf. 7:15; 16:6). The danger Matthew wants to avert is using the forms of religious piety to gain human admiration (cf. 6:1-2, 5, 16; 23:5). Although this public show of piety leads to a reward of sorts, it does nothing to enhance one's relationship with God.

By contrast, true acts of piety are intended for God's eyes only and seek a blessing that God alone can give. It is important to note that the word translated piety in 6:1 is the same word translated righteousness in 5:20 and elsewhere. This is a clue that Jesus is ready to develop further the proposition of the Sermon announced in 5:17-20. The sayings in 6:1-18 will give us yet another picture of a righteousness that fulfills and exceeds.

The Practice of Giving Alms  6:2-4

The first practice Jesus addresses is that of almsgiving. The phrase give alms translates a Greek expression which reads literally do kindly deeds, but which is used here with the more specific meaning of contributing to the poor and needy. Among the settings in which alms were given were public gatherings such as festivals and synagogue services. Sometimes this was done in a quiet, unpretentious way (as the rabbis encouraged). At other times those eager to impress others with their generosity might make a public announcement of their gift.

With colorful hyperbole, Jesus describes such persons as those who sound a trumpet before them and labels them hypocrites. The latter term, which Matthew frequently uses for the scribes and Pharisees (cf. 15:7; 22:18; 23:13ff.), refers literally to actors in a play. It thus suggests persons who are doing something for show, performing for an audience, and whose deeds may be little more than playacting. Those who practice piety in this way, Jesus says, have already been paid in full (GNB). Their reward is the public acclaim they seek. Beyond that, they receive nothing.

Jesus goes on then in verses 3-4 to depict the right way to give alms. With yet another hyperbole, he states that one should not let the left hand know what the right hand is doing! The point of the expression is that we should practice charity as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. As verse 4 puts it, we are to give alms in secret.

This does not imply that we are to go out of our way to hide what we are doing. It simply underscores the fact that charitable deeds should be done for God alone to see and recognize, not to enhance our public image. When we give alms in the right way, as a genuine act of piety, then the one who sees our innermost thoughts and motives will acknowledge our deeds. This too Jesus calls a reward, although it is really more of a gift than a payment. It is a gift that comes from one we know as our Father, who seeks and values a close relationship with us.
 

The Practice of Prayer  6:5-15

6:5-6  The Manner of Prayer

As noted above, Matthew devotes special attention to the practice of prayer. The extended section on this topic begins with a commentary on the manner of prayer, parallel in form and content to the sayings on almsgiving and fasting (cf. Preview). Prayer played a significant role in Jewish life, both in the worship of the community in the synagogue and temple and in the practice of devout individuals. Some prayers were committed to memory and used at fixed times during the day. The Eighteen Benedictions, for example, were to be prayed three times a day, in the morning, afternoon, and evening.

Whether at fixed times of prayer or more generally, some persons chose to call attention to themselves by praying in public places, such as an intersection of major streets (street corners). Again, Jesus rejects the attempt to parade one's piety before others. Whenever you pray, Jesus says, go into your room and shut the door (cf. Isaiah 26:20, LXX). The Greek word for room refers to a small interior room without windows, used for storage (cf. KJV, closet). The point of this vivid metaphor is not that we should confine our praying to dark, private places, but that we should pray with the sole intent of communion with God, whose presence is hardly a public phenomenon. Only then can we receive the true reward of prayer.

6:7-13  The Language of Prayer

Having dealt with the manner of prayer, Matthew turns to another issue, the language of prayer. Once again the discussion gets underway with a negative example (vv. 7-8). Here, however, it is the prayer habits of the Gentiles that we are to avoid, in particular the tendency to heap up empty phrases. The words quoted refer to the practice of babbling on and on in prayer, using endless divine names and special prayer formulas to ensure that one's petition is heard (cf. 1 Kings 18:26-29). With fitting sarcasm, the philosopher Seneca describes such a practice as "fatiguing the gods" (Epistulae Morales 31.5).

Jesus' critique of such prayers is based on his view of God. Unlike the Gentiles, Jesus says, you have no need to be anxious about whether God will hear you. God is aware of your needs even before you list them (cf. 6:32). Thus, it is unnecessary to bombard heaven with words to get God's attention.

To illustrate the right way to speak when we pray, Jesus offers us a sample prayer (vv. 9-13), which we know as the Lord's Prayer. It is likely intended both as a prayer for us to pray and as a model for other prayers. As noted above, the prayer also appears in Luke's Gospel, in a briefer and perhaps earlier version (cf. Luke 11:2-4). There too, the context is one of instruction on how to pray (11:1-13). In Matthew's version of the Lord's Prayer, the prayer consists of an address (Our Father. . .), three petitions which ask God to act on his agenda (vv. 9c-10), and three petitions which ask God to care for our needs (vv. 11-13).

Older translations sometimes conclude the prayer with a doxology: For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. Since it does not appear in our best Greek manuscripts, the doxology was probably a later addition to Matthew's text. It is, nonetheless, a fitting way to end the prayer. Doxologies were common in Jewish prayers, and this doxology may be based on one we find in the OT (cf. 1 Chronicles 29:10-13).

In Luke's version of the prayer, Jesus addresses God simply as Father, which was an unusually intimate way of speaking to God. The corresponding Aramaic word Abba was the term a Jewish child would use in addressing his or her father. It apparently was customary for Jesus to pray to God in this way (cf. Mark 14:36; Matthew 11:25), which in turn influenced the prayer language of the early church (cf. Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:15-16).

In the text before us, Jesus addresses God with a somewhat fuller formula, more common in the Jewish world: Our Father in heaven. On Jesus' lips, however, the words Our Father are more than a traditional Jewish formula. Jesus has a special relationship with God as Father and enables his followers to enter into that familial relationship (cf. Matthew 11:27; 12:50). This for Matthew is why Jesus can invite us to pray, Our Father. The additional words, in heaven, serve to distinguish this Father from other fathers and to identify him as God. The phrase also points to God's sovereignty. It does not, however, imply that God is distant from us.

The first three requests directed to God in the Lord's Prayer are often labeled you-petitions:

Let your name be hallowed.
Let your kingdom come.
Let your will be done.

In both the Kaddish and the Lord's Prayer, the petitions to God have an eschatological flavor. They ask God to usher in the endtime era of salvation in which all of life will reflect God's purposes. For Jesus' followers, such petitions for the future are closely linked to what is already happening. They beseech God to complete the work of salvation inaugurated in Jesus' ministry (cf. Harner: 80).

As a closer look at the you-petitions reveals, the topics of the three requests are much interrelated. The first petition speaks of God's name, which represents God's person or being. God's name is hallowed when people acknowledge God's holiness and live accordingly (cf. Isaiah 29:23), or when God himself acts to vindicate his holy nature (cf. Ezekiel 36:22-23). In the petition before us, we likely are praying for both things to happen: "Act in such a way, O God, that the world sees your greatness and praises you for who you are!"

The divine act that will accomplish this is spelled out in the second petition: "Let your kingdom come. Manifest your reign in its fullness. Take control of life and history in every way." When God's rule is fully established, then the request of the third petition will also be granted: The will of God will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God's will can refer either to God's purpose for history (cf. Isaiah 46:10,13; Revelation 3:60; Matthew 26:42) or to God's will for our lives in an ethical sense (cf. Psalm 40:8; Matthew 12:50). Here again it is likely that both meanings are intended: "So rule in our midst, O God, that your redemptive purpose is accomplished, and that our lives exhibit the righteousness you desire."

Having prayed first for God's agenda, we may then offer petitions to God concerning our own needs. These are the focus of the three "we-petitions" in verses 11-13:

Give us our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts.
Do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us.

The first we-petition is for bread, which refers primarily to food or nourishment, but may suggest other basic provisions for life as well. Modifying the word bread is a rare term (epiousios) found only in the Lord's Prayer and in one or two other obscure, ancient texts. It could mean necessary, for today, for the future, or for the morrow (cf. NRSV footnotes), the latter meaning being the most probable. Eduard Schweizer picks up that meaning in his paraphrase of the bread-petition: "Grant that we may lie down to sleep, not with a sense of abundance or surety against hard times, but simply without despair, knowing the coming day has been provided for" (154).

No less important than bread for our bodies is forgiveness for our sins, the subject of the next petition. The metaphor Jesus uses for sins is that of debts, which suggests unmet obligations in our relationship with God. Here as elsewhere (cf. Matthew 5:7; 18:21-35; Sirach 28:2), God's forgiveness is linked to forgiveness at the human level. When we ask God to forgive our indebtedness, we are to do so as those who have already forgiven the unmet obligations of others.

The final petition is a double request, one which seeks God's help in facing evil yet before us: Do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one (or from evil). Here (as in similar petitions in Jewish evening and morning prayers found in the Talmud) trial and evil are equivalent terms and refer to everything that could endanger our relationship with God. In praying the final petition, we ask God to protect this relationship: Do not bring us into situations that might overwhelm our faith, but rather deliver us from every peril that awaits us (cf. 2 Timothy 4:18; 2 Peter 2:9; Sirach 33:1).

6:14-15  Forgiveness and Prayer

The saying that concludes the section on prayer returns to the theme of the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer. Using a form sometimes labelled a sentence of holy law, Jesus correlates God's forgiveness and human forgiveness in precise terms:

If you forgive, God will forgive.
If you do not forgive, God will not forgive.

The Practice of Fasting  6:16-18

The final saying in 6:1-18 deals with the practice of fasting. Like prayer, fasting played an important part in Jewish life—and was sometimes viewed as an auxiliary to prayer. In addition to major fasts in which the whole nation took part, such as the Day of Atonement, fasting was observed as an individual discipline by various persons and groups. The Pharisees fasted twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays (cf. Luke 18:12; Did. 8:1).

Fasting could be an expression of grief or mourning, a mark of remorse and penitence, or simply a sign of humility before God. Because of these associations, persons fasting would often simulate mourners in their appearance. They would wear sackcloth, sprinkle ashes over their heads, go unbathed without anointing the head or body, and look generally sad. Needless to say, this provided yet another opportunity to call attention to one's piety in public. And once again Jesus is sharply critical of those who do so. With a play on words, Jesus remarks that such persons make their faces unrecognizable (aphanizousin), in order that they might be recognized (phanËsin)!

Although fasting apparently was not part of the lifestyle of Jesus and his disciples (cf. Mark 2:18ff.; Matthew 11:18-19), Jesus does not reject the practice as such. The saying before us assumes that there will be appropriate times for Jesus' followers to fast, and that fasting has value as a spiritual discipline. Jesus insists, however, that we engage in fasting in the same unpretentious way in which we are to give alms and pray. Instead of looking like dismal mourners, Jesus says, look like normal persons: Anoint your head and wash your face, as anyone else would (cf. the actions of David when he breaks a fast of mourning in 2 Samuel 12:20). Jesus' counsel here concludes on the same note that it does in verses 2-4 and 5-6: Let your fasting be something that takes place between you and God. Then God can receive and acknowledge it as a righteous deed, a genuine act of piety.

THE TEXT IN BIBLICAL CONTEXT

In its critique of the public piety of hypocrites, Matthew 6:1-18 works at an issue that other biblical writers address as well: What kind of piety and worship is appropriate for God's people? Not surprisingly, the issue often surfaces in the context of a problem with faulty practice. Isaiah 58 condemns those who make a big production out of national days of fasting, but who are unwilling to alter their lifestyles to feed the hungry, give workers a decent wage, or provide shelter for the homeless.

In the New Testament, Luke 18:9-14 relates the story of a religious leader who prays privately enough, but who engages in prayer as an exercise in self-congratulation rather than approaching God with a humble spirit. Acts 5:1-11 reports the judgment that befalls a couple who seek to impress the community with the magnitude of their charitable gift, all the while stashing away a part of that gift for their private use. And 1 Corinthians 14 speaks of persons who are so eager to parade their spiritual gifts before others in worship that the celebration turns into sheer chaos.

Common to all of these problem situations is a preoccupation with self or self-image, which inevitably distorts the practice of piety. By contrast, true acts of piety take us outside ourselves. They focus our attention on God, expand our vision of righteousness, and seek the good of the larger community.

Within the discussion of piety in 6:1-18, a particular name for God is used no less than ten times. That name is Father, a familial metaphor of which Matthew is especially fond. References to my Father and your Father occur repeatedly throughout the Gospel (cf. 7:21; 18:19; 25:34; 6:26; 10:20; 23:9 and numerous other passages). Here Matthew reflects a linguistic phenomenon that is widespread in early Christian literature (see especially the writings of John and Paul).

This use of Father as a name for God is rooted in earlier biblical language but goes beyond it in two respects: First, the image of Father is only one of many ways of referring to God in the OT, and a relatively infrequent one at that. In Matthew and most of the NT, however, Father has clearly become a primary name for God.

Second, there is a shift in the meaning of knowing God as Father. The Hebrew Scriptures generally use the image to express God's covenantal relationship with Israel as a people (cf. Isaiah 64:8-9; Jeremiah 31:9; Hosea 11:1-2; Jub. 1:24-25). For the Christian community, however, Father suggests not only One to whom we belong as a people, but One whom we know in an intimate, familial way through Jesus Christ. Paul states it succinctly in Romans: "When we cry `Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God" (8:15-16; cf. 8:9-17; Galatians 3:25—4:7).

THE TEXT IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH

Matthew 6:1ff. has influenced the practice of Christian piety in a number of ways (cf. Luz: 360-61, 366, 372-74, 387-88). As one would expect, it has encouraged a highly personal and private approach to religious piety, which has both its strengths and its weaknesses. Thus the Pietists found support for worshiping in small house groups in Jesus' counsel to withdraw into an inner room for prayer. Another point at which the text has played a role is in the critique it offers of heaping up empty phrases in prayer. More than one group has seized on this saying as a basis for criticizing Christian prayers that run on and on with this formula or that.

Most important of all, however, is the influence of the Lord's Prayer in 6:9-13, which is certainly the most-used prayer in the Christian world. A writing from the beginning of the second century urges believers to pray this prayer three times a day (Did. 8:3), and it became a regular part of the Christian liturgy at an early period. Beyond its use in worship, it has served as a significant resource for spiritual nurture. Many Christians would concur with Martin Luther when he writes: "To this day I suckle at the Lord's Prayer like a child, and as an old man eat and drink from it, and can never get my fill" (cited by Luz: 374).

As we wrestle with the meaning and practice of prayer in our own lives, the text raises at least three issues for us:

(1) What is the true purpose of prayer? The correct answer to that question, on the basis of Matthew 6, is communion with God. Prayer that has another agenda, whether it be showing off our skill with language or trying to preach to our fellow worshipers, fails to qualify as real prayer.

(2) What is the right way to address God in prayer? Jesus invited his hearers to pray to God as Father, because that name conveyed loving and open access to God. For many Christians today, it still does. For others, however, an exclusively male image of God as Father actually gets in the way of feeling near to God in prayer. How might we overcome that stumbling-block as we name God in corporate prayer?

(3) What is the appropriate focus for prayer? All too often, the prayers we pray bear a striking resemblance to birthday want-lists and thank-you notes. In the Lord's Prayer, however, we pray for God's agenda before our own, and we speak of our needs rather than my needs. At both points this model prayer has much to teach us.