Proclaimer Blog
Hypocrites and Pagans
I meet up with a fellow pastor every couple of weeks and we’ve been having a very challenging time reading through the Sermon on the Mount. We’ve got to know one another well and so there’s a level of honesty and accountability that we all need. Yesterday we got together and read Matthew 6.5-8 – not the Lord’s prayer itself but the section just before. There Jesus tackles two praying sins – hypocrisy and paganism. It quickly became clear that we suffer from both.
Hypocrisy is to do with the motive in our praying. I don’t think I’ve ever stood on a street corner to prayer, nor is Jesus’ hyperbole clearly meant to restrict all public praying. Rather it is getting at the heart of motive and challenging the hypocrites who “love to be seen by others.” We did some thinking and came up with quite a few examples – for instance, what about the quick “arrow” prayer so that we can text someone we know saying “I’ve just been praying for you…” Isn’t that the same thing? Ouch. Not that the praying is wrong, of course, but it is robbed of value when it is done for the wrong motive.
Paganism is emptying prayer of its meaning. Jesus calls this babbling. Some want to make this some kind of anti-charasmatic rant. Rather, Jesus is challenging the prayer of many words which lack any content. (There’s nothing wrong with praying all night – Jesus himself did it.) Once again, this is a cutting application. I can pray on auto-pilot, and to be honest, often find myself doing it. It’s characterised by the kind of praying which takes a list and says “please bless so and so, etc” repeating the same thing for each person. It’s empty. Ouch again.
On this basis, much of my prayer could easily be categorised as both hypoctirical and pagan. Those are hardly two descriptions I would choose myself, but they’re two my Master chose and which challenge me at the deepest level. Thankfully, there is a model. But for now, I must not move too quickly on to it, for I need to reflect and think, confess and plead. I neither want to be a hypocrite nor a pagan. God help me.