Trumpeting the brand
This week's verses are on Matthew 6:1-4:
A friend of mine was telling me a story about his church the other day that stuck with me, so I thought I'd share it. They were doing a food drive for the needy and the church was putting all of the food into custom-printed bags with a giant church logo on the one side and the name of the church in big letters on the other.
Being a bit of a troublemaker, my friend went and bought a bunch of plain brown paper bags and started taking food out of the expensive bags and putting the food into the plain ones instead. People started freaking out. "What are you doing?? It has to go in the church bags with our logo on them or people won't know where it's from!"
So he asked "Why do they need to know it's from you? They'll figure it out when you're dropping it off, right? And why spend money on these expensive bags in the first place, when cheap bags will do just as well? Maybe if you weren't busy buying expensive custom bags you wouldn't need to ask for money so much and maybe you could have bought even more food for the needy." They had no answer.
The ways of the world around us seep into the church and sometimes we have funny things that make the church look more like a multinational business than a community. (Questions for contemplation: Which church logo did the early church use? Which of the twelve disciples served as marketing director? Did they have handouts? Who was in charge of book sales?) The things themselves, like logos and nice paper, have no morality of their own, but the thing we need to watch for is that we keep our motives pure.
I don't say this to condemn any churches. The church my friend goes to is a good church with good people in it. But the people who were giving to the needy in Jesus' day were doing good things too. Back before social assistance and welfare and various NGO agencies, the needy were even needier than they are today. So giving to those in need, especially if you were rich and could give a lot, was a really big deal. You could be saving someone's life, not just making their holiday a bit nicer.
The problem Jesus had wasn't with the gift, but what they added to the gift. Do the trumpets, or the church-branded bags, or the press release sent to the local paper, or the phone call to try to get a spot on the evening news, add value for the recipient? Does the food taste sweeter knowing it came from denomination X? Does the funding grant buy more stuff because it was featured on the news? If not, then we have to ask ourselves why it is there.
The hypocrites trumpeted their donations, so that everyone would know where they came from. They did it for glory for themselves, to be honored by others. They wanted people to see that they were nice people, or that they gave a bit more than the other guy announcing himself with trumpets on the next street corner. So Jesus' point is that if you're going to do it that way, you're taking care of your own needs as much if not more as you are the person you're giving stuff to. So why reward someone for taking care of their own needs?
Jesus says not to practice our righteousness in front of others for show. That doesn't mean others can't see it, or that we have to hide our donations even from the IRS. In telling us that, he's asking us what our goal is. Are we doing it for love, or for "Likes" on social media? If nobody ever knew you did this, would you still do it?
The world around us tells us to be self-promoters. "Build your personal brand!" The office schmoozers are always the first to be promoted and the last to be fired. In the corporate world, we learn to make everyone look at us if we want to get ahead. We all probably have the work colleague who comes in for two hours on a Saturday to get work done and then spends all of Monday telling everyone over and over how they came in during the weekend on their own time to work. In terms of hours worked, it would have been better for the company if they'd stayed home during the weekend, but that's not why they came in. They weren't working for the company on Saturday as much as they were working for their scheme to being promoted. If you're promoting your acts of charity in front of other people, you're that work colleague. You're not on team Jesus anymore, but on team You.
But enough about how not to be, let's see how Jesus tells us how to be: "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret." When does your left hand not know what your right hand is doing? When what you're doing is something you do without having to think about it, your hands can seem to operate on their own. You're not thinking about how to make it look good on Social Media, or how to leverage it for a promotion, or any of that stuff. It doesn't even enter your mind. You're thinking about love.
If you're like Jesus, you're not thinking about how to make a program to solicit donations to give yourself a big salary to run the board of an organisation that you can publish press releases about to describe yourself giving food to the needy in such a way that people will feel good about giving even more money so that you don't have to give as much food to afford that nice yacht and retire on it. You're just thinking "hey those people are hungry. Let's get them some food."
When you're doing an act of charity, think about how you might be doing it if it was for someone you loved personally. If your mother, or your girlfriend, or your brother needed groceries for the week, would you be plastering your picture all over the bag, calling the newspaper, posting it on facebook, and then asking all of your friends to chip in? Or would you just bring them a bag of groceries? Love makes charity simple, even subconscious.
Jesus' point is that we should be thinking about love, not self-gain and branding, when we do acts of charity. It should happen without it even being a big deal for us, let alone everyone else. Instead of praying for more followers, pray for more love.
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
A friend of mine was telling me a story about his church the other day that stuck with me, so I thought I'd share it. They were doing a food drive for the needy and the church was putting all of the food into custom-printed bags with a giant church logo on the one side and the name of the church in big letters on the other.
Being a bit of a troublemaker, my friend went and bought a bunch of plain brown paper bags and started taking food out of the expensive bags and putting the food into the plain ones instead. People started freaking out. "What are you doing?? It has to go in the church bags with our logo on them or people won't know where it's from!"
So he asked "Why do they need to know it's from you? They'll figure it out when you're dropping it off, right? And why spend money on these expensive bags in the first place, when cheap bags will do just as well? Maybe if you weren't busy buying expensive custom bags you wouldn't need to ask for money so much and maybe you could have bought even more food for the needy." They had no answer.
The ways of the world around us seep into the church and sometimes we have funny things that make the church look more like a multinational business than a community. (Questions for contemplation: Which church logo did the early church use? Which of the twelve disciples served as marketing director? Did they have handouts? Who was in charge of book sales?) The things themselves, like logos and nice paper, have no morality of their own, but the thing we need to watch for is that we keep our motives pure.
I don't say this to condemn any churches. The church my friend goes to is a good church with good people in it. But the people who were giving to the needy in Jesus' day were doing good things too. Back before social assistance and welfare and various NGO agencies, the needy were even needier than they are today. So giving to those in need, especially if you were rich and could give a lot, was a really big deal. You could be saving someone's life, not just making their holiday a bit nicer.
The problem Jesus had wasn't with the gift, but what they added to the gift. Do the trumpets, or the church-branded bags, or the press release sent to the local paper, or the phone call to try to get a spot on the evening news, add value for the recipient? Does the food taste sweeter knowing it came from denomination X? Does the funding grant buy more stuff because it was featured on the news? If not, then we have to ask ourselves why it is there.
The hypocrites trumpeted their donations, so that everyone would know where they came from. They did it for glory for themselves, to be honored by others. They wanted people to see that they were nice people, or that they gave a bit more than the other guy announcing himself with trumpets on the next street corner. So Jesus' point is that if you're going to do it that way, you're taking care of your own needs as much if not more as you are the person you're giving stuff to. So why reward someone for taking care of their own needs?
Jesus says not to practice our righteousness in front of others for show. That doesn't mean others can't see it, or that we have to hide our donations even from the IRS. In telling us that, he's asking us what our goal is. Are we doing it for love, or for "Likes" on social media? If nobody ever knew you did this, would you still do it?
The world around us tells us to be self-promoters. "Build your personal brand!" The office schmoozers are always the first to be promoted and the last to be fired. In the corporate world, we learn to make everyone look at us if we want to get ahead. We all probably have the work colleague who comes in for two hours on a Saturday to get work done and then spends all of Monday telling everyone over and over how they came in during the weekend on their own time to work. In terms of hours worked, it would have been better for the company if they'd stayed home during the weekend, but that's not why they came in. They weren't working for the company on Saturday as much as they were working for their scheme to being promoted. If you're promoting your acts of charity in front of other people, you're that work colleague. You're not on team Jesus anymore, but on team You.
But enough about how not to be, let's see how Jesus tells us how to be: "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret." When does your left hand not know what your right hand is doing? When what you're doing is something you do without having to think about it, your hands can seem to operate on their own. You're not thinking about how to make it look good on Social Media, or how to leverage it for a promotion, or any of that stuff. It doesn't even enter your mind. You're thinking about love.
If you're like Jesus, you're not thinking about how to make a program to solicit donations to give yourself a big salary to run the board of an organisation that you can publish press releases about to describe yourself giving food to the needy in such a way that people will feel good about giving even more money so that you don't have to give as much food to afford that nice yacht and retire on it. You're just thinking "hey those people are hungry. Let's get them some food."
When you're doing an act of charity, think about how you might be doing it if it was for someone you loved personally. If your mother, or your girlfriend, or your brother needed groceries for the week, would you be plastering your picture all over the bag, calling the newspaper, posting it on facebook, and then asking all of your friends to chip in? Or would you just bring them a bag of groceries? Love makes charity simple, even subconscious.
Jesus' point is that we should be thinking about love, not self-gain and branding, when we do acts of charity. It should happen without it even being a big deal for us, let alone everyone else. Instead of praying for more followers, pray for more love.
Very timely...Our church has recently taken a look at some of these things and have cut back on a lot of the "extra things." The motivation may be money (we've had changes), but the side effect is the reduction in "glitter."
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