Text: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon Ash Wed.10 “Treasure in Heaven” Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21

Lots of ways to mess up when you’re practicing your righteousness. Lots of ways. Jesus goes through them for us this evening.

First off, you mess up the whole deal if you go practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them as a righteous person. And before we consider what that looks like, maybe we need to ask a more basic question first: “What is practicing your righteousness?” Yes, maybe we should start there, just so we’re clear. Well, “practicing your righteousness” would be acts that show your love and your kindness to others. It would be good works. It would be a life of piety and devotion to God and service to your neighbor. Ten Commandments, Golden Rule kind of stuff. Nothing too exotic, or difficult to understand.

In fact most all of Christendom today makes practicing our righteousness the be-all and end-all of Christianity. We get very knotted up, different groups in Christendom today, about what kind of righteousness is most important for us to practice. Generally, the argument divides people into one of three camps: some think the most important righteousness we can practice is doing works that alleviate earthly needs for the poor, marginalized, dispossessed, or sick. This is the more “liberal” view of the so called mainline churches. So you help the earthquake victims in Haiti, you build homeless shelters, soup kitchens, clothing banks, and you work for social justice around the world.

The second view says the most important righteousness you can practice is bringing salvation to “the lost” souls of the world. So you pray for other people who don’t know Jesus, you witness to them at work and at the gym and in the malls. This is the more “conservative” view of the so called evangelical churches. It’s about being “mission minded” and winning souls for Jesus.

The third view of how you practice righteousness is to practice the righteousness that will save your own soul and move you closer to the kingdom through ascetic practices of self-denial. This is the more “catholic” view (small “c” or capital “C”) stuff found in some (old-school) Roman, Lutheran, Anglican, and Eastern orthodox churches (the so called “catholic” churches). For catholics, it’s important to fast, to mortify the flesh, to give up meat or chocolate for Lent, to curb our sinful thoughts and deeds, to engage in ascetic practices like daily readings in the fathers, meditating with icons or incense, or doing acts of penance, so that you become a more righteous person through such measures.

So, “practicing righteousness” can take three different forms. Which one is right? Which one should we follow? Hold your horses. We’ll get there, and don’t worry, Jesus addresses all three in our Gospel. We’ll answer that question too, controversial though it is. This sermon is going to be fun!

There is one way common to all three approaches of practicing righteousness that messes them up before you hardly get started on the project, according to Jesus. And that is to practice your righteousness before other people to be seen by them [as righteous]. It’s the old show-off problem. Whatever advantages or disadvantages there are to each of the three approaches to righteousness, they all run aground if they are done to show off to others, to prove ourselves to others. Jesus says if that’s the motive (a problem that plagued the Pharisees) then you have no reward from your Father in heaven at all, no matter how hard you practice. It counts for nothing. So be careful there, huh?

Then Jesus takes up each of our three approaches to practicing righteousness and shows how the show-off problem wrecks each one, and gives a little tip how not to go there [and, I think, shows which of the three is really best…]. For our liberal friends: when you give to the needy, make your mission trip to Haiti or go work at the food bank, leave the trumpet at home, man, okay? This is the hypocrite’s mistake. They write up in their blog a daily log of all the good things they do for those poor Haitians, or they send a newsletter asking for money for their mission trip, and in this way they sound the digital trumpet (so much more effective than the old fashioned air-powered variety of the old hypocrites) and have their reward in the good publicity and warm internal feeling of sanctity they generate for themselves.

Jesus says when you give to the needy, keep it dark! Don’t even let your left hand know what the right is doing. Do some sort of Zen-hypnosis thing when you give to the needy so that you actually feel afterwards that you haven’t slogged eight hours in the soup kitchen, but feel like you’ve been fishing or golfing all day. Okay? Good. You’ve got the picture.

Now for our more conservative friends: when you pray for the soul of your lost neighbor who carouses all Saturday night and sleeps in every Sunday: don’t pray in church for him. Don’t stand on the corner in front of his house so he can see you praying for his miserable soul. Because when you display your mission mindedness so openly you have your reward and your neighbor just thinks you’re an idiot anyway. If you want to pray for people, keep it dark! Go in your room, shut the door, wean yourself off the prayer chain, so that only your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

And for our catholic friends: when you fast before the Sacrament, don’t look all gaunt and gloomy. That never worked out well for the medieval monks. Whatever ascetic practice you engage in, like applying ashes on Ash Wednesday, go wash your face right away afterwards (it wouldn’t kill you to smile a little too, okay), so your aren’t displaying your piety to the world, but only to your Father who is in secret.

See, Jesus addresses the three main ways of practicing righteousness and has good tips for each. So which one is the right way to practice righteousness? Well… [drum roll please…] none of them. The correct choice here is “D”: none of the above! Now, don’t get me wrong. Jesus says “when” you give to the needy, pray, fast, all three. He definitely holds open the possibility of helping the needy, praying, and fasting. Three good things. But you won’t do such things to practice your righteousness. And this is the key, though it’s not an easy thing to see.

It’s choice D: don’t lay up any treasure at all for yourself on earth. The liberal, conservative, or catholic practices we mentioned are laying up earthly treasure. Don’t go there at all. Lay up treasure instead in heaven. And we go: “Hmmm… how would I do that?”

And the answer is you can’t do it. Christ gives it by faith. Here is the fourth way of righteousness. Righteousness isn’t something of yours to practice. Righteousness is something of Jesus, given to all by faith alone, through His Word and Sacrament alone!

All our righteous acts are filthy rags, Isaiah saw and said. Practice all you want, you’ll never get better. The righteousness that is truly rewarded is that of Christ Jesus, laid down for all on the cross, distributed by the Word and Sacraments of His ministry. When we think righteousness comes from our practice, we kill it. When we receive righteousness as a beggar’s banquet thrown by Christ, heaven itself is living in us.

Here you receive the ultimate Gift: by Christ’s Word, His Supper, His Absolution He gives you forgiveness, His own righteousness and life, secure, for you, in heaven where no one and nothing can take it away from you. Just so heaven’s treasure is stashed for you, in you; and through you Jesus will be always sharing Himself with the world, giving to the needy, praying, fasting—not your practice, but His gift, to delight us all, giving the peace that surpasses all understanding, guarding your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Pastor Kevin W. Martin