On Saturday of this week, we read from Matthew 6:1-13: 

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“The Lord said, ‘Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.’” 

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Christ, during His ministry, often criticizes the Pharisees and the Scribes of his time for their hypocrisy. In Matthew 23:23, we see this hypocrisy laid out: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.” The Pharisees were a sect of Judaism which arose in late antiquity during the second temple period, whose teachings were focused on a strict understanding of and adherence to the law (they even created secondary sets of rules, which were meant to keep them from ever even getting close to transgressing the laws). The result of these teachings is that obedience to the law becomes a greater good for them than God. Christ rebukes their attitude, but not their actions. They tithe, but they forget “justice and mercy and faith.” They ought to do both things, they ought to tithe and be just, merciful, and faithful! We see the same injunction, that we must carry out the works, but with a proper spirit, in today’s reading as well. 

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Christ is speaking in this passage about “practicing your piety.” The Orthodox term for this would be askesis, a term that includes our practices of prayer, fasting, alms-giving, repentance, and so forth. We see Christ specifically talking about alms-giving, here, but in other places he speaks about fasting (Matthew 9:14, for example). These practices, which were important parts of the works of the law, are not done away with, they remain important parts of the Christian spiritual life. Our approach to askesis must be different than that of the Pharisees, however. If we pray, fast, give alms, in a performative way, then our reward is the reward of an actor, applause. By doing these things “in secret” we do not court applause and compliments but come at them from a place of “justice and mercy and faith.”  

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Doing these good things in secret is no easy thing. We enjoy the accolades of other people. Doing them in secret allows us to develop our own humility, since we do them for no reward. Humility, however, is the way that we find our way to repentance, and toward Christ.