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must impress God alone. In all three examples Jesus warns his followers not
to be like the hypocrites (6:2, 5, 16; also 15:7; 22:18; 23:13-29; 24:51). This
term originally designated actors in the theater, though both Greek and Jewish texts had
long before come to apply it figuratively.
One of human religion's greatest temptations is to act piously to elicit the praise of
others. A secret atheist could practice religion in that form without the slightest
element of faith (compare 23:5). Such temptations were part and parcel of ancient
religion; for instance, when some first-century Jewish leaders called a fast for
unrighteous reasons, others feared not to observe it, lest anyone question their piety
(Jos. Life 290-91). Yet the same temptation is no less real today. Jesus reminds us
that true piety means impressing God alone-living our lives in the recognition that God
knows every thought and deed, and it is his approval alone that matters. Matthew again
praises the meek, whose only hope is in God, not in others' opinions of them. Those of us
who are "religious professionals," making our living from public ministry,
should take special heed: if we value the approval or pay of our congregations more than
what God has called us to do, we will have no reward left when we stand before him.
 Jesus again employs hyperbole
in his descriptions (as in 5:19, 29-30), thereby adding graphic force to his warnings.
Although some scholars have argued that people actually blew trumpets during
giving in the synagogues, Jesus probably simply uses rhetorical exaggeration to
reinforce his point, as when picturing the Pharisees who swallow a camel whole but strain
out a mere gnat (23:24). Jesus adds to this stark image still another: we should be so
secretive in giving that we should not let our left hand know what our right hand is doing
(6:3; 1 Cor 4:3-5). He challenges us about the danger of public piety with such forceful
language precisely "because our assurance that such hypocrisy is no great problem
with us is a major part of the problem" (Tannehill 1975:85).
Jesus emphasizes future reward for those who forgo present honor. He promises
something better than a charitable deduction on one's income tax, nice as that may be (vv.
1, 2, 4). Many of his contemporaries believed that charity delivers the giver from death
and stores up treasure in heaven (Tobit 4:10; 12:8; 14:10; t. Pe'a 4:21; Pes.
Rab. 25:2); Jesus likewise emphasizes heavenly reward for serving those truly in need
(6:19-21). In contrast to nineteenth-century evangelicalism, much of today's church is
divided between those who emphasize personal intimacy with God in prayer and those who
emphasize justice for the true poor (see Sider 1993). Like the prophets of old, however,
Jesus demanded both (6:2-13; Mk 12:40); he also recognized that without keeping God
himself in view, we can pervert either form of piety.
 Jesus exhorts us not to value
possessions enough to seek them (6:19-24), quite in contrast to today's
prosperity preachers and most of Western society. Yet he also exhorts us not to value
possessions enough to worry about them (vv. 25-34), a fault shared by most believers who
rightly reject the prosperity teaching. Jesus' words strike at the core of human
selfishness, challenging both the well-to-do who have possessions to guard and the poor
who wish they could acquire them. His words are so uncomfortable that even those of us who
say we love him and fight to defend Scripture's authority find ourselves looking for ways
around what he says.
We should care for the poor. The phrase when you give to the
needy implies the expectation, standard in Judaism, that one would care for the needs
of the poor (Tobit 4:7), just as the phrase when you pray (6:5) takes for granted
that the hearer will pray (m. 'Abot 2:10). Jesus' Jewish contemporaries emphasized
that one must give charity from the right kind of heart (m. 'Abot 5:13) and
sometimes objected to ostentation in charity (Test. Job 9:7-8; m.
À°Àeqalim 5:6).
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