Matt 6:1-5
From Feast upon the Word (http://feastupontheword.org). Copyright, Feast upon the Word.
The New Testament > Matthew > Chapter 6
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Questions
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Lexical notes
Verse 2
- "Trumpet." The reference to a trumpet here might have to do with what some scholars speculate was an ancient practice of sounding trumpets when generous gifts were made. Another view is that this was not an ancient practice, but a bit a faceitious statement that Jesus is making. Another view is that this might simply be an ironic expression to be taken as hyperbole or simply as a metaphor. Also, there may be a reference here to money-chests at the temple that were trumpet-shaped (the narrow neck presumably made it difficult for would-be thieves to steal donations).
- "Hypocrites." The Greek word hupokrites means "an actor" and in Jewish religious circles seemed to have the connotation of one who only pretends to do something righteous but is in fact unrighteous. See this blog post for more.
Exegesis
Verse 3
"Let not they left hand know what thy right hand doeth." This seems to advocate not only giving that is not to be seen of others, but a giving that is unself-conscious and non-self-congratulatory.
Verse 5
There seems to be a fundamental tension between verse 5 and scriptures like D&C 23:6, where Joseph Knight is commanded to pray "vocally before the world" and, in the end, "in all places" (cf. D&C 19:28). This tension is felt only stronger with the following verse, when Jesus commands that prayer be offered only in one's closet and that only when the door has been shut! Perhaps less remotely, though not as directly, there is a tension between this commandment and what Jesus says at the beginning of this same sermon in Matt 5:16: "Let your light so shine before the world." The implication, in that verse, is that one is to perform one's good works before the whole world. In fact, when Jesus was visiting the Nephites, and after He had quoted this verse from Matt 5 exactly, He went on to clarify that the light to be set before the world was precisely prayer: "Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—-that which ye have seen me do. Behold ye see that I have prayed unto the Father, and ye all have witnessed" (3 Ne 18:24). Quite clearly, prayer is to be offered before the world, as made explicit in at least four passages elsewhere in scripture.
These four passages, taken over and against the present passage, suggest that there is some difficulty of interpretation here and not there (and there and there and there: four against one). In other words, there seems to be a sort of consensus that prayer can--and even should--be performed before the world. But this makes it rather difficult to know how to interpret the present passage. But then, perhaps interpretation is not quite so difficult: the tension is felt between the obvious message of the other passages and a rather narrow reading of this one. If the injunction to private prayer here is taken in the broader context of verses 1-18, then it is less a question of how one ought to pray than it is a question of what hypocrisy means (see verses 2, 5, and 16). In other words, these verses (1-18) should be understood first as a discourse on hypocrisy and only thereafter should verses 5-13 be understood as a shorter discourse on prayer. This amounts to saying that verses 5-13 are an application, of sorts, of the broader theme of hypocrisy. Or rather, since Jesus never announces that He desires to speak on the subject of hypocrisy specifically, the theme is only to be approached through a series of applications or instantiations of hypocritical action.
The broader passage (verses 1-18) might be taken up, in fact, within a still broader discourse: the theme of the sermon on the mount is the introduction of a radical new logic (what Paul Ricoeur calls a "logic of superabundance"), meant to outstrip the Law. This outstripping is plainly obvious throughout the last half of chapter 5, and it may be that the chapter break (a "late" addition, obviously) too easily disrupts for the reader the thematic continuity between chapters 5 and 6. The continuity, however, is there in the text, and the question of hypocrisy arises precisely as a facet or an aspect of the new and higher logic of the Christian life. The injunction especially to pray only in one's closet, to retreat from the world in speaking with God, is a manifestation of this new and higher logic: as radical and impossible as loving one's enemy, praying only within one's closet and in complete solitude is a sort of "regulative ideal," the spirit--not the letter--of which is the key. In other words, and in short, Jesus is not here laying down rules for prayer, but exploring the spirit--the Spirit--of the logic of Christian love through the task of prayer. Since the present verse is so profoundly negative ("thou shalt not"), the nature of the Spirit of Christian prayer can only be worked out in the commentary on the following verses (see verses 6-13).
Related links
- In General Conference from May 1983 Elder Monson discusses the blessings that come from anonymous giving in relation to verses 1 and 3 (Anonymous).
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