Left hand/Right hand

I was reminded of a challenging and troubling scripture as I did my Bible reading this week. I've sat on it for a few days, prayed about it, and even discussed it with the classes I lecture. It's still challenging and troubling. Matthew 6:2-4, 'So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do on the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 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. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.'


Can you see why it's so problematic, Jesus says that when we exercise charity and generosity we should do so in a way that doesn't bring attention to ourselves. Jesus modeled this also, many times when he had healed someone he told them not to tell others but to give thanks to God - or course they often ignored him, but still.....


This portion of scripture is a tough one for us as 21st century Christians, and Pastors, and churches. Most of us have no problem with the thought of quietly helping someone out, or other acts of personal charity (I hope we have no problem anyway), the problem comes with more corporate expressions of charity. In order to attract funds, resources, volunteers, the kind of publicity that enables us to go bigger and better, we have to advertise all that we are doing and how effective it is in meeting needs. That's just common sense. If you're doing something well and let people know, they can join with you and you can do more together! But does that break the spirit of these verses in Matthew?


In our search for funding, sponsors and partnerships are we missing a partnership with God that is inferred in verse four? Is our stated intention to express the goodness of God and make him famous through our outreach actually missing God's way of expressing his kingdom's presence and displaying his glory to our world? The nature of Jesus' ministry, and that of the early church, seems to have been subversive and counter-cultural, two elements that appear to be lacking in the way we go about our lives. I understand there are cultural differences between the first century and today, but I think that this scripture, if applied corporately as well as individually, still carries something of a not-so-common-sense-Jesus-way-of-doing-things than the marketing and promotion that is so important to our contemporary ministry.


Many of the scriptures that we use to validate our methods are drawn from the Old Testament and refer to national Israel. Let's not forget that as God's covenant people they were a nation that reflected the presence of God in the world, but that they were separated from those to whom they were displaying that God was present. In the New Testament the presence of God is found in every nation, not just one, through a scattered people who carry his presence wherever they go. The Queen of Sheba had to go to Israel to see the wonder of God's blessing and presence. If our neighbours have to go to church on Sunday to see God's goodness then we have not only failed to 'go' as witnesses, but also misunderstood our role as the convenant people of God centered on Jesus. The light that our community sees that causes them to understand God's goodness in Matthew 5 seems to be within the context of our difference to cultural norms, not embracing of them.


So this portion of Matthew troubles me. I don't want to be critical of any work or ministries that are reaching out to meet the needs of people, but at the same time as Christians we have to ask ourselves how consistent and biblical we are in our praxis. I am absolutely convinced that we are called to reach out in love and grace to the hurting, the lonely, the poor, the needy, the abused and the marginalised - that is Christianity. I guess my question, and it is pertinent both to me personally and the church I pastor, is whether we are fulfilling that call in a manner that is Jesus' way of doing it.


I will be giving more thought to this, and if I get any great insight I will be noting it on here. My persuasion at the moment is that whenever the church/christians have gone about expressing the faith in the counter-cultural-Jesus-way there has been a Spirit-empowerment sense of God displaying his kingdom and bringing transformation in unexpected ways. But when we have sought to do it our way with culturally acceptable methods, we miss that empowerment and might have an impressive organisation, but it doesn't look like the organic body of Christ.


What do you think?

The Fear of God

Ok, so this post isn't going to be about what the title might lead you to think it's going to be about. The fear of God used to be what kept us from misbehaving because he can see everything and would punish us 'be it ever so severely' for our disobedience. Then the phrase got a make-over and came to mean having an awe-filled respect for God in all his power, majesty and holiness. The phrase perhaps means a combination of the two, but certainly leaning towards the 'respect' meaning than craven fear. But that's not how I want to use the concept of the fear of God.


I recently read, and have no reason to doubt, that the most often repeated command in the Bible is to 'fear not.' Whether it is framed as, 'don't fear, be of good courage, be courageous, don't be afraid,' or any other wording, the command to Fear Not is throughout scripture from Genesis to Revelation. There are obviously many things that we can be afraid of, and the stories of the people we meet in the Bible give us examples. But it seems to me that as I pondered this idea recently that the thing we fear the most is actually God himself.


The fear of the Lord is a good and healthy attitude for human beings, yet it can too often lead to a withdrawing from the freedom that God has provided through Jesus Christ. Let me explain. God is big. God is beyond our comprehension or understanding. God reveals himself to us through the Bible, but even the scriptures cannot contain the immensity or totality of who God is. He is a God who defies definition and containment not because of any sense of randomness or inconsistency in his character, but because he is too big for definition.


This doesn't sit well with us. We, rightly, study the Bible to learn about God, write theologies and doctrine and creeds to frame what has been learned. And thank God for those things. But we then expect God to fit into the framework we have devised, because in that there is security and comfort. The problem comes when we discover that God doesn't fit. He won't be contained by our attempts to define him. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C S Lewis reminds us that 'he isn't tame, but he is good.' Perfect love casts out fear and releases us into being and enjoying and living because perfect love is to know and experience and interact with a God who is wild and creative and surprising. There is, at some level, a fear of a God like this because I can't control him and bend him to my will.


Theology, creeds and doctrine can teach us much about God, but they all fall short. Any attempt to put him into a framework that makes safe, logical sense for us distorts the majestic and uncontainable God of the Bible. The Bible teaches us to hold many things in tension, truths that defy reconciliation: justice and grace, election and freedom, transcendence and immanence, three-in-one, and so many more. These tensions help us to understand that God is beyond our comprehension - and wonderfully so! This a God I can trust my life to; a God who is worthy of worship; a God to serve and love and discover. The God of the Bible is no man-made deity to be controlled and manipulated and defined, but he is the Creator God, the self-existent sovereign who reveals himself to his creation, loves his creation, suffered and died for his creation, and works to redeem his creation.


We need not fear our God, for he is a righteous, covenant keeping God. He will do what he says he will do, he is for his people and his creation and will lovingly keep us and care for us. Life can be messy and unexpected and too often doesn't fit into a neat pattern that explains why. Thankfully my God isn't a neat, easily-explained God, he is sovereignly and gloriously beyond my expectations and conception. And though I might fear the freedom that comes from faith in such a God, I can enjoy the liberation and unanticipated possibility of knowing and being known by my heavenly Father. He isn't tame, he cannot be contained or easily defined, but he is safe, and he is good.