Public and Private

Jesus gives two sets of instructions in the Sermon on the Mount. Some works, He says, are like lights on a lampstand, which shine before men to bring glory to the Father in heaven. Some works (fasting, prayer, alms), though, must be done in secret, before the Father alone, in the dark as it were. A student, Daniel Finley, notes this distinction and links it to the separation of day and night in the creation account. Jesus’ words are words of new creation, separating light and dark, lampstand-works and closet-works.

This has implications in many different directions.

First, though Jesus ultimately dismantles the system of graded holiness that constituted the Old Covenant order, He does establish boundaries of a New Covenant holiness system. This is mainly the boundary between the holy space of the church and the world, but Matthew 6 indicates that there is another sort of boundary in Jesus’ reconstituted holiness order.

Second, more specifically, the boundary described in Matthew 6 institutes a form of public/private distinction. I don’t believe that this is the same as the public/private distinction of liberal order, but it is not entirely different either. Certain kinds of actions necessarily take place in public, or at least in interpersonal space – legal disputes, divorce, oaths, suits and borrowing, many interactions between enemies. Christians cannot help but act publicly in these areas, and in these cases our actions should shine with the light of the kingdom. Other sorts of Christian duties must be done in secret. It would be a project to work out the similarities and differences between Jesus’ public/private distinction and that of modern liberalism.

Third, I wonder if Christians have properly observed this boundary of holiness. On the one hand, many Christians accept the liberal demand that we cover our lights with a bushel. On the other hand, I wonder if the Christians who assert themselves aggressively in public have done so in a way that is obedient to Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, the public light of disciples is a light of reconciliation, sexual purity, patient suffering of insult, overflowing generosity, love for enemies. Is that the public face that today’s Christians present? Have publicly-engaged Christians flaunted in public what Jesus commands us to keep secret?