Why
Didn’t It Make Any Difference?
“And
when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their
faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have
received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that
your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And
your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Matthew
6:13
It
was Sunday morning. A father sat in his easy chair reading the Sunday
newspaper. Then he said to his boy, “Put down that funny paper. Get ready for
Sunday School. “Daddy aren’t you going with me?” “No, I’m not going with you,
but I want you to hurry up and get ready.” “Daddy, did you go to Sunday School
when you were a little boy like me?” “Certainly, I did. I went every Sunday,”
said the father. Said the little fellow as he walked sadly away, “I bet it won’t
do me any good, either!”
Children
are the best judge when it comes to knowing if we travel in the same boat in
our public and personal life. Jesus here in these verses is again reminding us
of our tendency to appear more than we are. We all have a tendency to play and
do things, to gain the approval of the people watching.
Jesus
here says that if we are doing some act of piety, it should be for the Lord.
Often it’s done in a way that looks like it’s for the Lord, but is really to
impress others who we think would admire our acts of piety.
When
we observe our lives we can say that all religious act started with a genuine
desire to do the right thing. Then we realize how others don’t do the right
things and could possibly benefit by knowing how we do the right thing. Maybe
they could join us. Maybe our example would be instructive. So we let them in a
little bit and we experience a measure of praise and gratitude from them. We like
it. We crave more of it.
There’s
no doubt that we like being noticed. Our motives start to mix and pretty soon
we are no longer doing the right thing for the right reason. Somewhere along
the way, the goal of pleasing men supplants the goal of pleasing God.
Fasting
is one of those practices that most Christians know very little about and have
even less experience with. Simply put, “fasting refers to abstaining from food
for spiritual purposes.” It is not, as is popularly thought, a means to
manipulate God into give us what we want. Nor is it a biblical approach to
healthy dieting. Fasting was an expression of mourning or repentance. The point
of fasting is to draw closer to God.
John
Piper in his book Hunger for God: Desiring God Through Fasting and Prayer says,
“Fasting reveals the measure of food’s mastery over us, or television, or
computers, or whatever we submit to again and again to conceal the weakness of
our hunger for God.”
Jesus
here doesn’t criticize fasting as such, but fasting to be ‘seen by others’. Watchman
Nee in his sermon on this passage says, “What pained Jesus was that the
Pharisees were taking a sacred moment and transforming it into a ‘theatrical
performance’ to make much of themselves. “
We
seriously need to ask ourselves, ‘who am I doing this for? Whose glory am I seeking?’
If we are seeking God’s glory, then we will keep Him as our audience and we
will live for His notice alone. If we are seeking our own glory, then our
audience will not be God. Instead, our audience will be the world. Whose
approval are we seeking? Who we find sitting in the theater determines the
value of the act.
Let
us pray – Dear Lord, when it comes to spiritual disciplines and acts of piety,
may we don’t just do them because of some religious tradition. May we not look
for receiving praise from the world which is temporal but seek out for the
eternal.
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