Sermon OTM – Matthew 6:16-18

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Welcome and Prayer: Jim Calhoun

Come Lord join us here today.
Tender Lord, make us tender.
Dropping our defenses
Open to you
Your voice
Your moving toward us
Around us
Among
and through us.
Make us tender,
Willing
Receptive
Even broken a little
Even craving you a little
Even just openly acknowledging
our great need for you.

And make us tender to those you bring in our lives this week
Welcoming
Accepting
Feeling their hurts
Their pain and their fears
Let us share them
With them.
Be present with them

And Lord,
Help us to be tender with ourselves
To forego our inclination to judge ourselves
To condemn ourselves
To dishonor ourselves
Help us to hold on
To trust
To rely upon Your affection for us
As we make our way
Through our day
Amen

Morning Talk: chuck smith, jr.

And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:16-18

Intro: This week I met with Harry Robinson – a few of you may know him

He is a man of God and a visionary, and for awhile we worked together
– he is also someone I love and respect
• during our long, rambling conversation, Harry said something that woke me up
• he said, “I’ve been finding beauty lately–everywhere”
– it seems I need to be awakened to beauty
• friends do this for me – though they don’t always know it
◦ maybe, I’ve been trudging through too much muck, concerned with
◦ the condition of our nation and disappointed with obnoxious Christians
• but since our meeting on Tuesday, I’ve been seeing more beauty

I’ll tell you why we begin with beauty today

Because Jesus has been warning us away from behavior
– we could describe as “ugly religion,”
• and it has been spreading through our culture in recent years
◦ it’s always been here: people who enjoy heated arguments
◦ who assume it’s their job to pronounce judgments,
◦ who will always act like they’re more righteous than others
• it’s possible you’ve seen your share of ugly religion
Through Isaiah, God addressed religious people like this:
“I spread out my hands all the day
to a rebellious people
who walk in a way that is not good,
following their own devices . . .
who say, ‘Keep to your self,
do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.
These are a smoke in my nostrils,
a fire that burns all the day” (Isa. 65:2-5)
– in this passage Jesus describes people,
• who make themselves ugly to appear righteous
“for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others”

My granddaughter, Addy, is now taking classes at Saddleback College

One morning she was telling me about an essay she was writing
– the first step was to create an outline, and give it to her professor
• I explained that I wrote outlines for every talk I give
◦ that surprised her, and she was duly impressed
• if we had an outline of the Sermon On the Mount,
◦ we would see that we’ve come to the end of a subheading
◦ this block of the Sermon began in v. 1,
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven”
– this is Jesus’ third example of displaying piety to impress others
• first charity, then prayer, and now Jesus moves on to fasting
• he could have made a longer list of ways people show off their piety
◦ for example: how many Bible verses they’ve memorized, how many missions trips they’ve been on
◦ all the Christian celebrities they’ve met, and all the Bible studies they’ve attended
◦ but three examples are enough to make his point
Jonathan Pennington, “The desire to have others reward one with praise for piety is a powerful drug.”
◦ the implication is that it can also become addictive

Jesus says, “When you fast”

Jesus assumes that there may be a time when his disciples fast
– he is not telling them that they have to do this,
• nor is he giving instructions for when to fast or how to fast
• but if they decide to fast, they must not advertise it
◦ like other spiritual disciplines, fasting is between them and God
– believers fast for a number of different reasons
• to clear their minds to listen to God, to clear a space to meet with God
◦ to increase their concentration on prayer – they both prayed and fasted in Acts 13
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off (Acts 13:2-3)
◦ fasting can be an act of humility, an expression of repentance, or simply setting one’s own needs aside
• fasting does not add power to our prayers, or twist God’s arm
◦ like a child who refuses to eat because they can’t get their way

More than once in the Old Testament, God criticized Israel’s fasting

“Is such the fast that I choose,
a day for a person to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a reed,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call that a fast,
and a day acceptable to the LORD?

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free?
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house . . . ?” (Isa. 58:3-12; this looks a lot like “woke” fasting)
– and then in God’s word to the prophet Zechariah:
“When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh month, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted?” (Zech. 7:4)
– a question about fasting comes up later on in Matthew and it’s worth looking at
Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. (Mt. 9:14-15)
• John’s disciples and the Pharisees fasted “religiously”
◦ perhaps they saw it as a necessary discipline, that it kept them on the right path
• there’s value in developing righteous habits
◦ but there’s also the danger those will become only habits, repeated mindlessly
– Jesus indicates that fasting is connected to loss and sadness
• it’s true, in the deepest experiences of grief, our bodies shut down
◦ we don’t want to eat – we, literally, cannot eat
• in those situations, fasting isn’t specifically spiritual (though we may feel God near)
◦ yet there are moments when we feel God near
◦ but the point is, fasting was not appropriate while Jesus was with them

Fasting can take different forms

Certain health conditions do not allow some people to not eat
– they might be able to abstain from one particular food (avoid a favorite treat, perhaps)
• or they may choose to take a break from television, the news, or contemporary music
• whatever the form, there must be some element of self-denial
– a strict fast from eating would include food and water–but it’s not wise to do this for too long
• or to fast food only, but still drink water
• Israel sometimes fasted specific foods–or ingredients
◦ no yeast could be used in baking breads the week before Passover
◦ a vow might require a person to avoid grapes, or wine, or any produce of the vine
– fasting for us may be one meal at a time
• perhaps most of us are used to skipping meals
◦ when it is a sacrifice we make for someone else’s benefit, consider making that loss an offering of love

Jesus stresses a point that is hinted at in the Psalms and hammered on in the Prophets

The effectiveness of Israel’s ritual sacrifices was conditional
– when I was young and first read Psalm 51, what David wrote shocked me
“For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering” (v. 16)
◦ I thought, “But God required those sacrifices!” I read on,
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (v. 17)
◦ David discerned the critical role that the heart plays in worship
• God’s word to Isaiah is much harsher regarding sacrificial rituals
“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?” says the LORD . . . .
When you come to appear before me,
who has required of you this trampling of my courts?” (Isa. 1:10-13)
◦ the answer, of course, is “You did!” But Israel’s faith and practice had gone off the rails
◦ God goes on to tell his people the service he wants
“cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless
plead the widow’s cause” (Isa. 1:16-17)
– the poets and prophets realized, if the heart doesn’t belong to God, the ritual doesn’t work
• worship wasn’t magical, it was covenantal
• Jesus says hypocrites have lost sight of true fasting
Jonathan Pennington, “They are hypocrites because they are not unified in heart and action; they actually do the right things, but they are not the right kind of people because their hearts are wrong.”

Conclusion: In his three examples, Jesus has emphasized the fact that we have a secret life

We share it only with God, our Father who is in heaven,
and is also encountered in secret
If we try to cash-out our religion in this life, we will have nothing in the next

“One thing have I asked of the LORD,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD” (Ps. 27:4)

When we leave that sacred space of encounter,
we discover that beauty is everywhere,
Our souls inhale the experience beauty and are refreshed
Beauty gives us a rest from the dark effects of human behavior
It flushes the gunk our of our brains, and expands our souls
We become larger than our thoughts and feelings
And our awareness of God is renewed – again and again