Matthew 6: 1-18                                                 Second Sunday of Lent

  Famous Harvard professor and Pulitzer Prize winning child psychiatrist Robert Coles did not believe in God. He was studying seven year old Ruby Bridges, and her uncanny ability in 1960 to walk through the angry mobs and get to school, smiling at the people who spat in her face and shouted obscenities at her. Coles asked her teacher, her family, her friends how she handled this. He learned that she prayed for those who hated her. Finally he asked her, “Why do you pray for them?” She said, “Because.” “But why, Ruby, when they are so mean to you?” Coles persisted. “Because they need praying for.” Robert Coles learned to pray from a little girl who had a heart full of forgiveness because her parents taught her to pray for her enemies.

 When have you prayed for Al-Qaida? Prayed for Iraq? Not just for our military service personnel in Iraq? Not just for an end to the war. But for the Iraqis? 1.2 million of them have died along with our 4000 soldiers. Have you prayed for all the depressed and angry teens in our own country who are gunning people down in classrooms before killing themselves? I know you’ve watched it or read about it on the news and bemoaned the state of our world, but have you prayed? For victims and their families and for perpetrators and their families.

 The Valentine’s Day shooting on the Northern Illinois campus, killing seven people, was the fourth such incident on a US campus over the past week. On February 8, a woman shot two fellow students before committing suicide at Louisiana Technical College, in Baton Rouge. In Memphis, Tennessee, a 17-year-old is accused of shooting and critically wounding a fellow student during a high school gym class on Monday. A 15-year-old victim of a shooting at a junior high school in California has been declared brain dead.  Last April, it was 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech. Can you watch CNN or read the newspaper online and pray at the same time?

 Today’s scripture is about fasting, giving, and praying. Doing them in secret. If you’re like most people, you pray, but not in a very disciplined way. You give to the poor, but perhaps only in ways that do not create any sacrifice on your part. And fasting, well, my guess is that most of you never fast except when having medical tests or surgery. The discipline of these activities is what we lack. That’s the calling of this scripture to engage ourselves in these actions more and more, knowing that God will indeed reward our discipline. And one more thing....forgiveness. As we read this scripture and you hear Jesus’s teaching on prayer, don’t miss the ending part on the power of forgiveness.
 

  ^NRS Matthew 6:1 "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.  ² "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.  ³ But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴ so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will  reward you. ⁵ "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
 ⁶ But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. ⁷ "When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.  ⁹ "Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  ¹⁰ Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  ¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread.  ¹² And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  ¹³ And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.  ¹⁴ For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; ¹⁵ but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.  ¹⁶ "And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.  ¹⁷ But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, ¹⁸ so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
 

 Today’s lesson assumes that we are practicing personal piety. Now piety is not a negative word. Being pious means being upright, righteous. It’s the same Greek word – that translates righteous. But we have often thought that being pious means being self-righteous - and proud of our spirituality. That’s the exact opposite of what Jesus talks about in this text. The question to us in this text is this: Are we practicing our faith in private? Or do we only do spiritual things when we’re with other people. Do you pray at mealtime all the time, or only when someone else is there? Do you pray in the morning and at bedtime or do you wait to do it with your friends at church on Sunday.?

  The three parts of piety in this passage are prayer – our relationship with God. Almsgiving or generosity towards those in need – our relationship with others. And fasting – our relationship with ourselves, our inner world.

 Prayer. Jesus gives us a model for prayer, a model we use every week in worship, (and yes, you’ll see some recognizable phrases from every version of the Lord’s Prayer you’ve ever said.) This model for prayer helps us see the spirit and the content of a pious prayer. It teaches us that we are not praying alone when we begin with the word “Our” Second word, “Father” means a relationship of intimacy, nurture, and protection. It does not mean that God is a man. Many of us have an inner image of a male God, because of the Father language and masculine pronouns used to speak about God, so it helps to keep reminding ourselves that God is without gender, but has maternal qualities, as well as paternal. God loves us more deeply than the sum total of the best mother-father love we can imagine. But the same God is not just close to you, but also is holy and beyond you, beyond any human relationship. This holy God knows what is right, so our prayer is for God’s will, even though we express our needs and desires to God.

 Yet we should not pray for more than we need. We simply ask for a daily supply of food. And we recognize the complexities of relationships, in that forgiveness is not something we demand when we have bitterness in our own hearts. We ask for something we are also willing to give to others. Not because God withholds forgiveness from us, but because God knows that to experience the freedom of forgiveness, we have also to forgive others. They are interrelated. The forgiveness of God in our lives becomes real as the forgiveness in our hearts is also a growing reality. There are many more parts of that prayer we could parse for meaning, but for today, let’s leave it at that. Prayer is a major part of a life of piety, of right living.

 So is giving to the needy. Does your left hand that manages your financial life always know what your right hand is doing? Jesus says that perhaps your right hand give away more money than your left hand would agree to give. “It’s just not fiscally responsible,” your left hand might say. Or your left hand might pat yourself on the back for being so generous. So do it quietly and generously. Almsgiving, the word comes from the root word that translates into pity or mercy. Christians are called to share possessions, out of charity, out of mercy, out of love. Giving to those who have need is an essential part of our Christian piety, not optional. It is loving our neighbor who is making $7000/year picking tomatoes. It is caring for a single mother, who works hard to provide for her family, realizing that things we consider basic and purchase without a thought might be luxuries for her. When lost jobs or medical bills force a family into foreclosure, it is having enough compassion that we work with Family Promise to be in the mess of homelessness with them and help them move on.

 Prayer – relationship to God. Almsgiving – relationship to others. Fasting – relationship to self. Your self does not function well when your passion are untamed and free. We can all observe that a preschooler with no boundaries is miserably unhappy. Just so a child, teen or adult, who thinks that he or she is free to do whatever...is unhappy too. That’s why there are so many miserable people in our world today. They are busy trying to please themselves. The great American pursuit of happiness. We should not pursue happiness but righteousness. “Eat, drink and be merry” is the slogan of our day. Actually, it is BUY, eat, drink, and be merry.” And if you’re not happy enough, it’s because you don’t have the right stuff. Go out and buy more, then you’ll be happy. If you’re not happy, it’s because you don’t have the right person loving you. Go out and find a person who will love you perfectly despite all your flaws. (Ha! Good luck.) If you’re not happy, then entertain yourself. Live into your passions. Go after whatever you love. Wrong. It’s not the way God planned for our joy.

 Joy is found in subduing our overgrown, selfish passions, just as a mother and father help a screaming toddler to learn that the passion of that moment is not going to win the moment. Joy is found in resisting the constant urges we have to consume and be entertained. Through fasting we practice putting God first and food second. Fast through breakfast and make it to lunch. Or fast through lunch and make it to dinner. Or cut out meat, an ancient Lenten practice. Put what you would have spent on lunch in the One Great Hour of Sharing Box. In so many areas of life, less is more.

 Yes, we need more practice, the practice of piety in loving God, loving neighbor, loving self by not indulging self. I’m not worried about us Presbyterians being pretentious or too noisy in public about our prayer, giving, and fasting. I’m more concerned that we’re simply not practicing these essential activities of the Christian life. Develop your secret life of intimacy with God. It will change the world.