September 28, 2025 Matthew 6:1-7:12 REAL
Real
Matthew 6:1-7:12
Rev. Dr. Rhonda Abbott Blevins
September 28, 2025
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them, for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell 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 done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. ”And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever 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. “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. “Pray, then, in this way:
Our Father in heaven, may your name be revered as holy.
May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.
“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
“And whenever you fast, do not look somber, like the hypocrites, for they mark their faces to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If, then, the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
“No one can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the gentiles who seek all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you. ”Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for bread, would give a stone? Or if the child asked for a fish, would give a snake? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
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I’m so glad you didn’t know me in my supercilious phase.
When I was in my early 20’s, I was . . . let’s say . . . religious. I thought of myself as “Super Christian!” I was so good at performative Christianity that my Grandmother, who had quite a biting wit, dubbed me “The Holy One.” (Looking back, I’m not so sure that was a compliment!) Church every Sunday morning, every Sunday night, every Wednesday night. Campus ministry in between. I was leading Bible studies for my peers and getting paid $30 per week to be the “Youth Director” at a tiny little Baptist church outside my college town. I was a bonafide holy roller! Checking all the boxes for what a good Christian girl should be.
So one day, I decided to lean into my religiosity, and I bought a bumper sticker with the intent to place it on the bumper of my little red 1987 Dodge Daytona. The bumper sticker read: “I (Heart) Jesus.”
Later that day I went out to place the brand-new bumper sticker on my car when I had a sudden revelation: “You know, sometimes, it must be a genetic thing, but my right foot gets real heavy on the gas pedal. And sometimes, everybody does this, I cut people off in traffic. They shouldn’t be there in the first place! Maybe my driving isn’t the best representation of what a Christian should be. So I either need to correct my driving or maybe not put this bumper sticker on my car.”
Friends, would you like to guess which option I chose? I didn’t put the bumper sticker on my car. Oh I still “hearted” Jesus, but after giving it some thought, it seemed prudent to keep my Jesus love to myself since I was, er, hell on wheels.
When we get to this part of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, it’s all about living out an authentic, real kind of faith—not a bumper sticker kind of faith. Performance Christianity checks all the boxes but misses the heart. So in this most important series of teachings we call the sermon on the mount, Jesus blasts religiosity and those whose faith is less about practice and more about performance. Listen again to Jesus’ teachings about a performative faith:
· Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them.
· Whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do.
· Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.
· Whenever you fast, do not look somber, like the hypocrites, for they mark their faces to show others that they are fasting.
Are you starting to get the sense that Jesus abhors hypocrisy? If this section of the Sermon on the Mount doesn’t convince you how Jesus feels about hypocrisy, read Matthew 23 in which Jesus chastises the religious leaders of his day when he said, “Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness” (v. 28) and “You are so careful to clear the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence” (v. 25). Jesus points out how the hypocrisy of the religious leaders was a barrier to people finding a genuine faith: “What sorrow awaits you teachers of the religious law . . . hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.” (v. 13)
Jesus said that over 2,000 years ago, but hypocrisy is still keeping people from the faith. Research from the Barna group, for over 20 years or more, suggests that hypocrisy in the church consistently ranks as the number one barrier to faith among non-Christians.
So if Jesus hates hypocrisy, and it’s the number one impediment for people turning to Christianity, then we’d better make sure that when it comes to faith, we’d better be keeping it real.
And in 2025, in a world where it’s becoming increasingly difficult to discern the truth from lies, in a world where church isn’t the only game in town on a Sunday morning, in a world where lives are carefully curated and made to look shiny and perfect for social media—people are craving, they are desperate for something real, something true, something authentic.
With that, how do we continue to grow into the authenticity Jesus hopes for us?
First of all, we can practice secret service over public performance.
I learned this lesson the hard way during my “Holy One” phase. I was so focused on being seen as spiritual that I often missed the point. Jesus talks about giving alms without sounding a trumpet, praying in your closet instead of on street corners, and fasting without looking like you’re auditioning for a role in a biblical epic. The question that cuts right to the heart of authenticity is this: “Would I still do this if absolutely no one would ever know about it?”
I think about the people I know who quietly visit shut ins every week, who anonymously pay someone’s rent or electric bill, who pray for others without ever mentioning it. They’re not posting about their good deeds on social media or name-dropping their charitable activities in casual conversation. Their faith has moved from performance to practice, from being seen to simply serving. The irony is that this kind of authentic service often gets noticed anyway—but that’s not why they’re doing it.
Secondly, we can be vulnerable with one another, embracing our struggles instead of hiding them.
Here’s what my bumper sticker moment taught me: authentic faith sometimes means admitting you’re not ready to represent Jesus in certain areas of your life yet. And you know what? That’s more honest than slapping a Christian fish on your car while driving like you’re training for NASCAR.
The most refreshing people I know in the faith are the ones who say things like, “I’m really struggling with forgiveness right now,” or “I don’t understand why God allows suffering,” or “I’m having a hard time loving my neighbor when my neighbor is, well, difficult.” They’re not pretending to have it all figured out. They’re not offering easy answers to complex questions. They’re just being real about the fact that following Jesus is messy and complicated and sometimes really hard.
Vulnerability creates connection while perfectionism creates distance. People can smell fake spirituality from a mile away, but they’re drawn to authentic struggle like a moth to a flame. When we stop pretending we’ve arrived and start admitting we’re still on the journey, that’s when real ministry begins.
Thirdly, we can align our private lives with our public faith.
This one’s the kicker, isn’t it? It’s about becoming the same person whether we’re in church on Sunday or stuck in traffic on Tuesday. It’s about closing the gap between our public faith and our private reality—not by lowering our standards, but by raising our integrity.
We can think about how we treat the grocery store cashier when we’re running late, or how we respond to that person on social media who posts something that makes our blood boil. These are the moments when our real faith shows up—not when we’re singing hymns or reciting prayers, but when we’re faced with everyday irritations and disappointments.
The goal isn’t perfection—it’s consistency. It’s asking ourselves, “Would the person who knows me best recognize the person I am at church?” If there’s a huge disconnect there, that’s not necessarily something we should beat ourselves up about, but it’s definitely something to work on.
Authenticity isn’t about becoming perfect; it’s about becoming real. And in a world that’s starving for something genuine, that realness becomes its own kind of witness.
Jesus concludes this section of the Sermon on the Mount with teachings about worry and judgment . . . two things that seem to me to be inversely related to authenticity. The more authentic we are, the less judgmental we are, because we acknowledge our own human frailty and foibles. The more authentic we are, the less we worry, because we’re no longer trying to impress the world with our wealth or our intellect or our piety or our winning personality.
This section closes with a rule of life we call “The Golden Rule”:
In everything do to others as you would have them do to you,
for this is the Law and the Prophets.
This is the Law and the Prophets . . . in other words, Jesus is saying that the entirety of the Bible, can be summed up with this one Golden Rule. And this principle is universal, across all major world religions. If only we could live into this Golden Rule!
In perhaps his most famous quote, G.K. Chesterton said:
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found difficult; and left untried.
So here we are, back to that little red 1987 Dodge Daytona and a bumper sticker that never made it onto the bumper. That moment of self-awareness—a young Christian recognizing the gap between her public faith and her private driving habits. That moment, for me, was actually a gift. It was the beginning of my journey away from performance Christianity toward something a little more real. Friends, I’m still on that journey.
The truth is, most of us are still on that journey. We’re all recovering from our own “Holy One” phases in one way or another. We’re all learning to close the gap between who we are on Sunday and who we are the rest of the week. And maybe that’s exactly where we’re supposed to be—not perfect, but progressing. Not flawless, but authentic.
The Golden Rule isn’t just a nice saying to embroider on a pillow—it’s the measuring stick for authentic faith. In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you. It’s simple to understand and incredibly difficult to live. But when we do live it—even imperfectly—it becomes its own kind of witness.
People aren’t looking for perfect Christians. They’re looking for real ones. They want to see followers of Jesus who mess up and own it, who struggle and admit it, who are more interested in extending grace than displaying religiosity.
This week, I want you to take your own bumper sticker test. Ask yourself: “Is there an area of my life where I’m not ready to represent Jesus well?” Don’t beat yourself up about it. Just be honest about it. Then choose—will you work on aligning your behavior with your beliefs, or will you hold off on the public display until your private life catches up?
And here’s the beautiful thing: either choice can be an act of integrity. Sometimes the most authentic thing we can do is admit we’re not ready. Sometimes the most Christ-like response is to say, “I’m still working on this part.”
The world doesn’t need more “Holy Ones.” It needs more honest ones. It needs people who are willing to be real about their struggles, generous with their service, and consistent in their character.
So let’s put away the trumpets and the street corner prayers. Let’s stop curating our lives for spiritual social media. Let’s just be real—beautifully, messily, authentically real. Because in a world starving for something genuine, that realness might just be the most powerful witness we have.
Prayer: God, help us to be real. Not perfect, but real. Not performing, but authentic. Make us the same people in private that we claim to be in public. And when we fall short, give us the grace to admit it and the courage to keep growing. Amen.