Word to the Wise
Wednesday, June 18, 2008 - Wednesday in the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
[2 Kings 2:1, 6-14 and Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18]Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.
The three righteous deeds that Jesus selects for his teaching are almsgiving, prayer and fasting. He does not change those but rather warns about doing them with improper motives - i.e. in order to be seen doing them. The implication is that the deeds done from this motivation would not occur unless there is an audience to admire and compliment the actor! Therefore Jesus recommends that the deeds be done without an audience to applaud! A question we might ask ourselves is this. Regardless of the motivation, do we give alms, pray or fast at all, anyhow? What do we give? How do we pray? Is there any asceticism to our consumption patterns at all? When we do these things (if we do them), are we interested in whether or not anyone in particular knows about it? We can take these questions home with us from Jesus' class today and give them some serious thought. The answers might surprise us. The changes in our lives might be rewarding as well! AMEN
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