in secret

In the traditional Gospel reading for Ash Wednesday (Matthew 6), we hear Jesus saying, three times, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you”.

So much of life is related to what we are able to measure. What adds to the bottom line? Where is the visible result? What is the tangible outcome? This measurable, material world can have an effect on the life of the spirit. “How many members do you have?”, I’ll be asked at a pastor’s meeting? “How many giving units?”, a stewardship consultant wants to know.

And of course, we do want to measure things, count things, number them. We do want the praise, affirmation, and, if we are honest, the applause of others. But there is a dimension to the spiritual life for a disciple of Jesus that runs counter to that. The core of the spiritual life is laid out for us in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Jesus is responding to the Pharisees, who were doing the right things but for the wrong reasons, and he is speaking to our own judgmental natures. What does that person give? Have they been coming to Bible study? Are they really committed? Who appreciates what I do? Who recognizes all that I contribute?

These are our natural questions, our human needs even, but with them Jesus is not much help. When you give, he says, let it be in secret. When you pray, go into your closet. When you fast, don’t become self-righteous about it. Your Father, who is in secret, will see.

Some things are known only to God.

We observed Ash Wednesday yesterday. We pondered our own mortality, and began the journey from death to life. I have been thinking about this phrase, “in secret”. And I have asked myself a question: what is this in opposition to? The opposite of “in secret” is out in the open, for all to see. There is a part of us that wants everyone to see our good works: what we give, how we worship, how we are committed, the difference we make.

The reward, Jesus teaches, lies elsewhere. Much of life is “in secret”. As the “Hymn of Promise” reminds me,

“in the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see”.