Proper 3 A

Our reading for this Sunday concludes a section of the Sermon on the Mount focussing on hypocrisy which needs a brief overview in order to open up the “not to worry” business at the end of chapter 6. The section begins with a critique of the hypocritical giving that is more motivated by concern for the reputation of the giver than it is by any concern for those in need. Giving should be done in total secrecy: “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” J. J. Hunsecker, the corrupt, duplicitous gossip columnist played by Burt Lancaster in The Sweet Smell of Success, has an endearingly cynical variation on this: “My right hand hasn't seen my left hand in thirty years.”

Prayer can be equally hypocritical, done for show as the Gentiles do, heaping up phrases that, however poetic and artfully crafted, are empty. The model of prayer given here is not just prayer that is private, but prayer that seeks, primarily, to transform the life of the one praying, as opposed to seeking to manipulate the will of the deity.

Instruction on fasting follows a similar concern about hypocrisy. Fasting should not be done as a public display. Those who do fast in this way have already received their reward, Jesus says. I presume this means they have achieved the kind of recognition they have desired by drawing attention to themselves in a way that builds a public reputation. Fasting in secret ensures that the relationship will be between the one who fasts and God alone. The “reward” that comes from the Father then is that close relationship itself that makes possible the transformed heart, the proper intention of fasting, and a reward similar to the fruit of prayer in the will of God being done in the faithful disciple.

The next bit, concerning the storing up of earthly treasure, extends this exploration of hypocrisy to our relationship with material things and exposes the root of hypocrisy in the anxiety for the security of the self. The common wisdom is that the self will be made secure by the accumulation of things. Along with prayers and fasting that focus on the self, we engage in shopping therapy. The need to prevail that drives our game-theory economy and brings super bonuses to City executives reveals the raw spiritual nerve of hypocrisy. The focus on the self, the need to succeed and dominate one’s world, the fear of failure, the fear of death, all this interprets the life that finds its security in building up worldly treasure.

So when we come to this Sunday’s gospel reading, Matthew 6.25-34, we see the observation that one cannot serve two masters, God and Mammon, in the light of this warning against hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is defined as existential anxiety dressed in the clothing of the classic spiritual disciples. It won’t wash, though it probably defines the way an awful lot of Christians practise their faith. You can’t pursue a life of faith with the goal of security for the self. That’s what the wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount teaches.

Our reading is a summary of the concerns that have come before. Hypocrisy as a form of human behaviour is like irony in literature—saying or doing one thing and meaning another. Here in this Sunday’s reading the story of hypocrisy hints at an undercurrent of social criticism. That Solomon in all this glory was not clothed as magnificently as the lilies of the field is no simple comparison between manufactured and natural beauty. This is what we know about Solomon:

1 Kings 4.22: Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty cors of choice flour, and sixty cors of meal, ten fat oxen, and twenty pasture-fed cattle, one hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks and fatted fowl.

How about that for a cure of existential anxiety? And at what human cost did Solomon live in such luxury? Read on:

1 Kings 9.15: This is the account of the forced labour that King Solomon conscripted to build the House of the Lord . . . . and whatever [he] desired to build, in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and in all the land of his dominion. All the people who were left of the Ammorites, the Hitites, the Perissites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, who were not of the people of Israel—their descendeants who were left in the land, whom Israel were unable to destroy completely—these Solomon conscripted for slave labour and so they are to this day.

So “Solomon in all his glory” is no ordinary citation of your standard manufactured, as opposed to natural beauty. Solomon comes laden with all the prophetic critique of his reign implied in the Deuteronomic history of 1 Kings.

Moreover, this Sermon on the Mount is revisionist wisdom literature, still following here, I think, the spirit of “You have heard it said to those of ancient times . . . . But I say to you. . . ” Solomon was noted for his wisdom as well as his wealth (1 Kings 4.29: “God gave Solomon very great wisdom . . ..so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed all the wisdom of the east, and all the wisdom of Egypt”). IN contrast to the observations of natural history and human behaviour, the kind of lore that was the substance of aristocratic education throughout the ancient Near East, the wisdom of Jesus will not necessarily enable you to rule or even get a job. What Jesus offers is something far more fundamental: the wisdom of a godly life. In contrast, the entire cultural foundation of Solomon’s world, and ours, looks like hypocrisy.

The Gentiles, says Jesus, seek the kind of wisdom that enables them to pile up earthly treasure, food, drink, clothing, things, in the manner of Solomon. This only leads to further anxiety, and, ultimately, to the kind of defeat and exile described in the Deuteronomic history as it unfolds from the story of Solomon to the end of 2 Kings.

The true voice of wisdom in the Sermon on the Mount is defined by the voices of those who are celebrated in the Beatitudes that set the foundation of the Sermon on the Mount. In the Beatitudes, it is the meek who will inherit the earth (this verse is actually paired with the teaching here on possessions in the chiastic structure of the Sermon on the Mount). This verse of the Beatitudes is quoting Psalm 37.11, “The meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace” where the word for “meek” in Hebrew is “anawim”, the poor, the weak, the afflicted—the word Jesus would have used in in the Beatitudes in its Aramaic form. Those who will inherit the kingdom are the “poor in spirit”, more properly those who are “crushed” in spirit, those who are forced to beg—the opposite of the Solomons of this world who inhabit lists like the Fortune 500.

Probably the most important development of this line of thinking has been in Korean Minjung theology that emerged in South Korea in the 1970s, and, according to its authors, is "a development of the political hermeneutics of the Gospel in terms of the Korean reality," not easily exported as its contextualisation arises from specific Korean experiences of suffering. But a Korean hymn we will be singing this Sunday opens up its story for the ordinary British Christian:

Look and learn from the birds of the air,
Flying high above worry and fear;
Neither sowing nor harvesting seed,
Yet they're given whatever they need.
If the God of earth and heaven cares for birds such as this,
Won't he care much more for you when you put your trust in him?

Look and learn from the flowers of the field,
Bringing beauty and colour to life;
Neither sewing nor tailoring cloth,
Yet they're dressed in the finest attire.
If the God of earth and heaven
Cares for flowers as much as this,
Won't he care much more for you when you put your trust in Him?

What God wants should be our will;
Where God calls should be our goal.
When we seek the kingdom first,
All we've lost is ours again.
Let's be done with anxious thoughts,
Set aside tomorrow's cares,
Live each day that God provides putting all your trust in him.

Words: Nah Young Soo.

Another lovely song, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” can lead disastrously in the wrong direction. Like the anthems of a lot of contemporary piety, it seems to encourage the practice of praying for a wish list and a model of faith that is geared to health and wealth. Keep in mind what happens if we reverse the terms of the hymn. If we seek first “all these things”—will the kingdom of God be added unto us? What exactly is our attitude to “all these things” to be? The key is that seeking first the kingdom of God creates a proper understanding of what actually is needed in a life that is not centred on the self and its security, but on God.