Chapter VI: 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.