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To be seen or not to be seen

10 Jan

How do you reconcile the following two passages from the Sermon on the Mount?

Matthew 5

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 6

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

I’ve thought the difference here was about who gets the glory – are my good works seen to give God the glory, or am I seeking (or accepting) people’s glory for myself.

What do you think?

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7 Comments

Posted in Spirituality

 
  • mia engel

    it is possible to shine your light and not flaunt the good works you do for God. I think it is easy to be deceived into believing you are doing something good for God’s glory but in the end you glorify yourself. i do it on a daily basis. i believe it’s James that says faith without works is dead, but that doesn’t mean you go around saying all the good things you’re doing for God. if you truly are living out your faith then your good works will be obvious to nonbelievers because your life will show that you are marching to the beat of a different drum.

    If this is in regards to No Spend February, i will give you my opinions because you asked for them on Sunday. The dollar amount isn’t necessary to know. Say the entire church as a whole only raises 5,000 dollars but one family donated 1500. they are going to be tempted to say “Well clearly i’m better than these other people because i raised 1500 and the rest of the church only raised 1500”. Sure it’s nice to think that people wouldn’t do that, but we are sinful and it would happen. I don’t think success in this event should be determined by dollar amount but by participation amount. If people participate then quite obviously it was successful. It means that God was working in the hearts of the people at SGC and that they felt called to save their extra money and to donate it to those less fortunate. That is success in my eyes, but i’m not even participating because i don’t even tithe regularly so i don’t think it’s right for me to be donating my money to an organization when i’m not even giving God the money that is his. So February for me is going to be a month of tithing so that i can get in the habit of doing it whenever i get paid.

    also, when i say “you” i don’t mean you personally but like the general sense of the word.

    • I totally agree that dollar amount isn’t a measure of success. The goal is not to be a fund raiser, but to make us more generous.

    • What is interesting is that Jesus saw it as necessary to command us to not hide our light, the good works that we do. He also had to say don’t be seeking self recognition… this seems obvious to us, because we see pride all the time, even in seeking recognition as being great for telling other people to stop seeking recognition (the old joke “I’m more humble than you are”).

      But it seems we go too far the other way if we are trying to hide what we are doing. Maybe the solution is to be purposeful about dealing with pride, but not hiding God’s work because it’s possibly someone would want credit for it, and pointing the glory to God constantly, rather than ourselves.

  • mia engel

    but isn’t doing the “fundraiser” to begin with showing the glory of God?

    • Definitely good questions to be asking Mia. My question is more general than about a specific event (which doesn’t have it’s purpose as a fundraiser, which I think is a big part of the misunderstanding, the goal is spiritual transformation – clearly we need to do a better job of communicating), but about the biblical principle.

      I wonder if we’re so eager to point out pride in ourselves and others that we end up hiding our light under a basket, refusing to let any of our good works be seen. Is it possible that for fear of the negative reactions of some people, we’re willing to hide what God has done through us (our good works) and therefore not invite people to give God glory for what he has done through us?

      If we hide our good works, we’re violating Jesus’ commands just as we would be if we are doing them to be seen. It seems a very fine line to walk: To let your good deeds be seen, not hidden, but not to do it to be impressing people with yourself.

      I’m sure everyone involved in this conversation is asking themselves if we’ve been encouraging each other to hide our good works when instead they could be used to encourage people to glorify God, or whether we’ve encouraged each other to pridefully flaunt their good works.

      Neither is right, at least per my read of these passages.

      Until we understand what Jesus is saying, we won’t know how that ought to impact any specific thing like the generosity-raiser we’re talking about (accurate interpretation precedes proper application).

      I’m not comfortable writing-off Jesus’ command to let our good works be seen. At the same time, he says “BE CAREFUL!”

      Perhaps instead of writing off one command or the other, we need to be careful to do our best to walk to “straight and narrow,” without falling into the ditch on either side of hiding our good works on one side and flaunting them on the other.

      I’m very glad that there’s an ongoing brainstorm as to how this looks and how our plans for the event can be changed to be more in line with both of these teachings of Jesus.

  • mia engel

    i know it’s not a fundraiser but i couldn’t think of a better word. if the ultimate goal is spiritual transformation then people participating in it will show that. ergo, the glory of God will be shown because people will be participating.

  • For some reason this made me think of the difference between fruit and flowers. Flowers are pretty and showy and smell nice, but they dont really serve any deeper purpose (except to benefit the plant). Fruit on the other hand can also be pretty and smell nice, but unlike a flower,a fruit also provides nourishment. A fruit also takes longer to grow and ripen then a flower does, and doesnt wilt as fast once its picked. Thats the analogy that came to me at work today anyway. 🙂