“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”
“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 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. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
– Matthew 6:1-4
Practicing Righteousness: The Ego and Authenticity
This “do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” hit me differently the other day. It came up in a sermon at a church I was visiting weeks ago. At the time, habit forming, CBT, stoicism, and dealing with my ego were all real themes in my life, while trying to build a marketing business and get serious about my faith, which included Drunk Pastor. This saying of Jesus is one of those sayings that seems like hyperbole and maybe even cliche. It seems to make sense in its context without much more exegesis or explanation. Still, something about it hit differently and I couldn’t unsee it.
In its context, Jesus’ words are pretty straightforward: Don’t let your good stuff (“righteousness”) be a show for others. He’ll say almost the same thing in the next stanza about how we pray – “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (v. 6). Meaning is pretty straight forward – don’t do things for one expressed purpose when you’re actually trying to get the validation and approval from others.
We all struggle with this. I have really struggled with it and it still comes up. It has flipped since alcohol wrecked me and now it takes every honest ounce of courage to try to get out there. Writing has provided a much-needed outlet and has also helped me personally more than I think I could ever realize. Before, when a comfortable imposter-syndrome equilibrium was maintained, I could be authentic and “free” in some ways. Now, it’s been a weird fine-tuning, constantly experimenting with ego, truth, love, my baggage, and humans. My daily struggle is an awkward one that I still catch myself spinning off feeling sorry for myself. I don’t have time for that when there are things to focus on and believe in now.
The Struggle of Authenticity: From Isolation to Connection
That part of me that still wants recognition for the bits of good I have done hangs on but I think I’ve smothered it to submission now. It was a little bit of Napoleon Dynamite’s uncle’s alter-ego. It makes sense how I developed that mental ego. When we want to do something for attention, it gets complicated with context, setting, and intent quickly. The latter is where I have gone from a typical human-level struggle to full-blown circus. It’s also where I had to press into and have found some freedom on the other side.
In the past, my “spiritual” experiences often were fake-feeling, like forced emotions, whether private or corporate. It’s not that there weren’t good times. There were plenty and good breakthroughs. God, some good memories. My alcoholism took dysfunctions and insecurities, things that were already screwed up and unhealthy, then amplified them. My drinking made it easier to fall into a false person, a shell that I constructed to guard behind. It’s a long walk home from the pig pens. A little yeast makes the whole loaf a drunk.
When I am not being a crappy person, it’s nice to know I’m not the worst person ever, and that I am “allowed to” have purpose and happiness right now. I think some of us resist change because something about it doesn’t feel permitted. It’s work making it a habit but to change it also means changing around and with other people. When I’ve done something halfway decent, I don’t mind if it’s noticed, but I cringe at attention and worry about criticism. I want everything to look perfect before anyone sees my stuff. I had a hard time thinking clearly in moments; being a hermit was much easier.
Yet, Jesus didn’t command us to hide in a damn closet.
Living Faith in Secrecy: The Impossible Challenge
Jesus’ challenge was to take steps to ensure that I don’t worry about it – not that I never do things or hide from people. It was also not that I do things for attention and validation. I took for granted the recovery process, just from the neuroscience and psychotherapeutic side of things alone, not to mention the relational damage that pulsed out from me for years. I’ve whined enough before about how the holidays last year broke me…and how much of my own BS I didn’t know I had to get through. Since then, the lessons have been many and I have a whole new appreciation for and view of time, work, and authenticity. Forgiveness, BTW, is everything. It was always in the “secret” that the change had to happen.
Jesus has a way with words to show where the problem is. He’ll do it when he talks about fasting – to “anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (v. 17-18). It’s the same thing about praying in secret and not mentioning it to others. Jesus suggested that the real change we want happens when we do it for the right reasons. This same kind of truth can be found in things like therapy, recovery, church ministry, marketing, and business. We can be tempted into “faking” it, into pretending to be something we are not. We fall into living vicariously through the others we work with. This is a dangerous habit to toy with since it’s our egos messing with our intents and looking for validation.
Do your deeds secretly, say your prayers in secret, and fast in secret. That’s all and it’s enough. Ensure that you take steps so your intent doesn’t become something else. And don’t allow it to become the inverse by hiding from people. It’s a closet, not a cage. Marcus Aurelius talked about not doing things for pity or pride, for validation or disruption. He’s touching on the same thing here. In recovery, one of the things that comes up a lot is acceptance and control. We talk about where the boundaries of control end and acceptance begin. The challenge is to live this beyond just alcohol or a chemical addiction. Again, it’s the same kind of thing.
The Impossible Standard: The Mind and the Hands
Jesus still goes a bit further with “Do not let your left hand know what your right is doing.” At least, my brain thinks he did. Of the other measures Jesus called you and me to take to ensure that we don’t mess it up, this one is pretty messed up and borderline impossible.
To do this, literally, you have to ensure that all the thoughts and thinking involved in moving your right hand don’t even cross to the other side of your brain. Our brains have two hemispheres, and each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body. These hemispheres are bridged through the corpus callosum, lobes, brainstem, cerebellum, and others. Our hemispheres, and the rest of the parts, do different types of jobs and collaborate. If you cut the two halves off (i.e. a corpus callosotomy), most people seem normal, but their brains act almost like two different people (we’ll come back to that.) When one side sees something, the other hemisphere isn’t aware of it. When they move their hand, their other side isn’t aware of it. These people may have been more able to meet Jesus’ standards here.
Jesus’ admonition is to make sure that when we are in our heads, we are also not saying things or doing things to be seen or heard by ourselves. It’s even more impossible than it seems since one of the connecting bridges for our two hemispheres is the cerebellum. Located at the back of the brain, the cerebellum is responsible for balance, posture, coordination, and fine motor skills. How do we lobotomize this? Not to mention the pineal gland. How do we stop ourselves from even allowing the narrative of what we’ve done with our left to reach the beginning nerve signal of our right?
I think it is possible, and there are well-documented practices for it. However, Jesus is going straight to the heart of the issue. Especially as an alcoholic, I loved convincing myself of narratives I already had so much practice believing in. Especially the self-destructive, completely hopeless narratives I will reinforce just to try and prove an inconsequential point to myself.
The Multiplicity Within: Finding Unity in Secrecy
When a person’s brain’s corpus callosum is cut, a corpus callosotomy reveals that our brains are like two people. Ignore that science factoid for a second and play with the idea: we all have more than one person in us. I had a terrified 12-year-old boy, and a much younger one screaming to not be let go of. There’s also the father, the failure, the partner, the son, the aspiring gifted side, the hero who wants to be there for others, the broken who wants a savior, and so forth. Those are just the “negative” ones. There are also the people we carry in our minds with us wherever we go: our family members, abusers, partners, parents, children, coworkers, whoever. It’s the people we “talk” to in our heads when they’re not there so we can rehearse our scripts and the case in our defense. It can be a lot of identities and narratives to juggle.
Jesus wanted to make sure his followers avoided hypocrisy and false pretenses weren’t things they aligned their lives around. It’s more complicated that way anyway. Instead, this practice ensures that we don’t find our identity in the show but rather find our identity facing ourselves and not fall for the temptation of vain approval. It forces us to let our actions speak for themselves and not to consider ourselves any longer than necessary to make our actions. We let our light shine through our deeds and speech, we don’t make our light shine with neon lights, tribal social media posts, and choreographed worship sets. It’s through our love that people realize we’re followers of Jesus, not through our rhetorical pomp and circumstance
Living the Gospel: The Challenge of Faith
Jesus seemed to know this about me when he told me to “not let your left hand know what your right is doing.” He’s aware that fragile egos can settle for human fluff when it’s the real thing we’re always searching for. If I am to do anything out of love and for the right reasons, I have to make sure that my ego doesn’t turn it into a play for its own approval. If my deeds are secret, and I take steps to ensure they stay secret, then I have done everything I can. If I fail, it’s not the end of the world. There are so many worse ideas out there and mistakes are human. As mentioned, hiding in a closet, keeping our light under a bushel, burying our talents, and keeping our good deeds unseen is not the call.
To ensure that the practices highly regarded by his followers are kept in their proper place and relationship—the “secret”—so we can align ourselves correctly. I worry some “churches” have become nothing more than decorated public closets, sometimes even with live feeds. We can get trapped in our communal stories, obsessing over whether we matter or not. But we shouldn’t be so concerned with the arbitrary and fleeting approval of others, even those who might disapprove of us. Of course, when our lives are already built around seeking such validation, it’s like trying to squeeze a heavy load through a narrow keyhole.
Our true reward is found in solitude, in that secret space, even when we’re in public. That’s what it means when it says our Father, who sees in secret, will reward us in secret. We find God in the stillness and the whisper, not in the noise or the flames. It’s not about the Facebook posts or hiding behind a political party or theological system. The question is: Do you, do I, genuinely want what we pray for? Are we willing to endure what we must to achieve it? Do I seek wholeness, health, peace, and love, or do I prefer the comfort of complaining about their absence? What kind of pain are we willing to face, and what kind of reward do we seek? What narrative are we choosing to write right now?
For Jesus’ followers today, I wonder what practices Jesus would tell us to do in more secret and more in public.
*If you’d like to read more about how our brain’s hemispheres work together, check out Who’s in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain, by Michael S. Gazzaniga: https://amzn.to/4dXXZxG
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