“Beware of practicing your piety before men 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 alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
Matthew 6:1-4
This is a hard reflection to write. I’ve served as a Greek Orthodox priest for nearly twenty-eight years. And a big part of the work of the priest ends up being raising money just to keep the church open. There should be enough left over that church support charities outside of itself. Then there are the extras like a building program that the parish I serve is currently in. The church survives based on the generosity of its people. It is true that the generosity of people has been responsible for the erecting of many beautiful and exquisite church edifices. On the other hand, most churches need a Greek Festival in order to pay their bills. And many of the contributions of people towards buildings have come as a result of “naming rights” for buildings, icons and other furnishings. How does our giving and our generosity relate to these verses from the Sermon on the Mount? Let’s discuss.
As we have discussed in the past few reflections, Jesus is calling us to a higher standard, in the last verses of chapter five, He is calling on us to be perfect as God is perfect. God gave so generously that He gave His only Son to die for us. Jesus gave so generously that He willingly died for us. We are called to give and love in imitation of these standards, which seems impossible.
Jesus leads off chapter six by reminding us to “Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1) The “piety” that He is referring to includes three spiritual disciplines that will be discussed in chapter six—almsgiving, prayer and fasting. All three of these are part of the spiritual life, in addition to worshipping, reading Scripture and being obedient to the commandments of God. It is interesting that Jesus speaks first of almsgiving, before even prayer and fasting. He will answer that later in Matthew 6:21, when He says “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” In other words, our treasure leads the heart, and not the other way around. Many people forget that generosity, or almsgiving, is part of Orthodox spirituality. In making a plan for this upcoming Lenten season, many people set goals for prayer, worship and fasting but don’t set a goal for almsgiving. One idea is to figure out how much a family spends on a night out, and donate the equivalent of one night out as an extra gift this Lent to an agency who aids the poor and hungry. Because “alms” actually refers to giving to those in need as an act of charity. The intention was for almsgiving to be directly to people who are in need. In the sense of our parishes, a portion of all donations should go to “almsgiving,” not just maintaining the church paying for the budgeted items. If all we do in our parishes is raise enough to keep the doors open, it really becomes about church being for us. When the church is able to give away to charity, then church becomes about others as well.
Now we come to the part of this that is controversial, the “sound no trumpet before you” (Matthew 5:2) and let the alms “be in secret.” (Matthew 5:4) Is it possible to build a new building, or raise lots of money without giving some recognition? Is it wrong to give and put the name of a parent or loved one on something? Again, this is very hard to write, when I’m serving a parish and engaged in a capital campaign where there are the opportunities to name a room for a certain threshold of giving. If one is giving an amount in order to have a name on a room, is that charitable giving, or an exchange of money for a naming right? And if a person has been very generous, is it wrong for them to do something to honor their parents?
In the purest sense of giving, in the way that Christ is teaching us how to give, we should have no recognition of giving. Everything should be in secret, seen only by God, and rewarded accordingly by Him. Most of us are at some distance from the ideal regarding anything. Let’s look at this from another angle. When I was a child growing up in the late 1970s, hardly anyone received Holy Communion. We were taught that Holy Communion was almost to be feared, one had to fast for days (which is not true), and one should only approach very infrequently (which is also untrue). Now, decades later, the pendulum has swung the other way. Almost everyone receives Holy Communion every time it is offered. We’ve encouraged people to receive Holy Communion often, as a way to connect with Christ, and as a way for Christ to embrace us. The message for the last twenty years or so has been to invite people to receive. Are all the people receiving Holy Communion each Sunday properly fasting? Probably not. Are all the people receiving going to confession regularly? Definitely not! The pendulum has swung from one pole to the other. And it probably belongs somewhere in the middle. People should receive with better preparation. However, in my opinion, it is good that we have them receiving and now we can go back and teach them better.
It is the same way, again in my opinion, with giving. People should give without any reward or recognition. That is the ideal. However, we want people to give, because there is a need, and because people also feel intrinsically good when they give. If the pendulum swings from not giving, to giving with some recognition, then there is the opportunity for the pendulum to swing back into the middle, which is giving generously but without recognition.
Salvation is not just a destination, but a process of becoming. Theosis is an Orthodox term which describes a spiritual transformation where we become more and more Godly in our thinking and in our behavior. The literal translation is “deification”. Yet we cannot become God. We can only become more Godly. The place where I land spiritually and morally, as regards receiving Holy Communion as well as giving, is that we should begin by doing both, and as we grow in faith, we should become more Godly in what we are doing. We should prepare more appropriately and we should give more generously and anonymously. However, we begin anything in life by doing it in the less than ideal way and we grow in how we are doing things. And it is the same with almsgiving. Let’s get used to giving and then refine our giving so that it meets the standard of Christ, which is for it to be in secret.
Finally, giving should not be an amount but a percentage of what we have been blessed with. The biblical standard of giving is ten percent, or a tithe. This has been a foreign concept to the Orthodox, since in most Orthodox countries, the church is supported by the state and people pay taxes to support the church. When Orthodoxy comes to another country, where it is not the state religion, there isn’t a tradition of giving, let alone tithing. In considering our giving, we should strive to give joyfully, and sacrificially, we should give as a percentage, and we should give incrementally, meaning we should increase our giving by a small percentage each year until we reach the biblical standard of the tithe.
Give the king Thy justice, O God, and Thy righteousness to the royal son! May he judge Thy people with righteousness, and Thy poor with justice! Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness! May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush to oppressor! May he live while the sun endures, and as long as the moon, throughout all generation! May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth! In his days may righteousness flourish, and peace abound, till the moon be no more! May he have dominion from se to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth! May his foes bow down before him, and his enemies lick the dust! May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles render him tribute, may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts! May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him! For he delivers the needy when he calls, the poor and him who has no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and save the lives of the need. From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight. Long may he live, may gold of Sheba be given to him! May prayer be made for him continually, and blessings invoked for him all the day! May there be abundance of grain in the land; on the tops of the mountains may it wave; may its fruit be like Lebanon; and may men blossom forth from the cities like the grass of the field! May his name endure forever, his fame continue as long as the sun! May men bless themselves by him, all nations call him blessed! Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name forever; may his glory fill the whole earth! Amen and Amen! Psalm 72: 1-19
Point to ponder: How do you approach charitable giving? As a percentage of your income? With joy? For recognition? Spend some time setting some goals for charitable giving as a percentage of your income and then consider how you can increase incrementally (1/2 of a percent each year as an example) with the goal or reaching the tithe.
