NOTES for Mat 6:6

The context in which these words of the Savior are spoken is clear: Jesus sharply objects to the spirituality characteristic of the Pharisees, prayer, almsgiving, and fasting for show. Of course, it is important for us too to hear this, because we too care very much whether people notice how highly spiritual we are. But if we step back a little from this context, we can see two more typical cases when these words hit the mark exactly. One case is when we limit our prayer life to situations of common prayer. We carefully attend church services and other prayer meetings, but there is no personal, intimate prayer. We place the church, the community, as a mediator between ourselves and God, shielding ourselves from excessive closeness to Him. But in love there can be no mediators and no "excessive" closeness. Christ reminds us of this today. The second case is when we are so filled with our personal problems that we perceive any prayer situation as an occasion to lay all these problems before God at once. Then, coming to church, we do not listen to the service, do not try to pray together with everyone; we think only about our own things and ask only for our own things, destroying the prayerful unity of the assembly in our egoism. And again Jesus' words turn out to be a clue: there is a place for bringing all our problems to God, and that is our personal, "home" prayer. The Church, however, is built by our common standing before God.