“Don’t do good-deeds just so other people may see them…”

“Jesus said to his disciples:"Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.” Matthew 6:1

This passage in Matthew has stuck with me for the last few weeks. It was the Ash Wednesday Gospel reading to begin the season of Lent. I believe it resonated with me for two reasons. 

First, the whole passage presents an extremely well written series of “if…then” statements. Most scholars believe that the Gospel of Matthew was written in approximately 85 AD in the Greek language, probably in the country of Syria. The style of “if-then” writing was common in the ancient world. In fact, the Code of Hammurabi, the world’s oldest surviving legal code from ancient Babylon, was written using “if–then” statements. The Gospel writer would have been aware of the power of this style of writing, and perhaps his audience would have read this passage as a “rules for living” discourse.  

The second reason that this Gospel stuck with me, is because it is so applicable to modern life, especially if we have a “people pleaser” tendency. If our goal in daily actions is to make people like us, we will always be working for some kind of external praise or reward. That is an exhausting way to live!  Jesus himself is pointing to the futility of this way of being in the Gospel passage below. 

Paraphrasing slightly, here are the statements of Jesus in Matthew 6: 1-21.

“When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you…to win the praise of others….They have received their reward.”

“When you pray, do not stand and pray… on the street corners so that others may see them. They have received their reward.”

“When you fast, do not look gloomy…so that they may appear to others to be fasting. They have received their reward.” 

Jesus points out that the religious elite (hypocrites in the full text), and pagans are only doing “good things,” such as almsgiving and fasting, to look good to the people around them. Jesus condemns acting good for the sake of winning “the praise of others”. He says clearly in this passage several times that the only reward they will receive from this “acting” is the praise of others. Thus, pretending to be good, without having true good intentions, will gain us nothing but empty praise from our peers. Simply put, according to Jesus, people-pleasing is futile. 

Jesus contrasts the people-pleasing behavior with the ideal, godly behavior:

“Let your almsgiving be secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you.”

“In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

“Do not appear to others to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.”

Jesus is telling the disciples, and us, that if we choose to do any kind of “good deed,” let it be because of a pure desire to be good, with no intention to receive anything back. In our modern world that is inundated with “score keeping” and “trading favors”, it is hard to break the habit. When we offer to help a friend, is it really to be helpful because we genuinely care about the person? Or are we only helping so that we can “cash-in” the favor at another time? Jesus is demonstrating in this passage that we don’t need to keep score in our interactions with other people: “your Father will repay you”. We may not know when or how, but any genuine good that we do, will come back to us in time. 

For true peace and happiness we need to follow the positive leading of our own hearts. If we stay connected to the Spirit of God through bible study; study in the writing of the Saints; and in the sacraments, we can trust our intuition. When we stay rooted in Christ, we are able to discern whether or not we are genuinely called to do a certain act of mercy or give alms to a particular cause. If it doesn't feel right in the soul to give to a particular cause, don’t give any money! Begrudgingly giving or doing anything just to make people happy, only causes friction in our relationships, and drains us of peace in our own spirits. After all, our Father knows what we need, even before we ask.