The Good, Bad and Ugly of Secrets

My friend of thirty or more years has an odd rehearsal when making a cash offering.  He will fold the bill in a very tight square before placing it in the container.  I’ve noticed this over the years to be done in an inconspicuous but methodical, almost mechanical way. He takes the bill from his billfold, manipulating it so in his hand that I have never a clue of the denomination of the bill and proceeds to form it without ever looking at it as it is placed in his shirt pocket and places it in the offering plate or bag at the time of collection.  I’ve never exposed my curiosity to him nor will I, probably, ever. Some things are best left as a mystery.  But not always have I had that thought of “leaving it alone.”  For example: It really has always bothered me when a huddled group’s conversation become hushed whispers as I pass.  Sixty-five years later; three are still memories from childhood of school-yard whisper sessions between me and my best friend’s innocuous conversation of after-school activities or scenes of whispering classmates pointing and laughing in my direction. I learned early on that telling secrets can be mighty painful when I wasn’t in the game. Or times of embracement when my friend told me my "fly was open." 

On the other hand, I’ve often experienced the joy of surprise as a result of whispering and secrets keep? I can remember of a number of birthday parties as surprises. Whispers that were plans to extend a kindness to me without me knowing.  Whispers and secrets kept in a way to do good deeds in secret without the very human desire to be publicly rewarded for that good. I’ve found that holding or telling secrets can be good when the motivation is to practice the discipline of secrecy.

The other morning, I notice that Jesus talks a great deal about keeping things secret.  “Ah,” I said to myself, as I read these words of the Sermon on the Mount: “But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing…but when you pray, go into your inner room, and pray to your Father who is in secret… but you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that you may not be seen fasting by men, but by your Father who is in secret.” In Jesus’s kingdom, there seems to be something to be said for keeping secrets, especially when those secrets nurture humility and protect me from the pride that comes from public life of righteous living.

I thought I had remembered Dallas Willard saying in his book: The Spirit of the Disciplines is “One of the greatest fallacies of our faith, and actually one of the greatest acts of unbelief, is the thought that our spiritual acts and virtues need to be advertised to be known.  That secrecy, rightly practiced enables us to place our public relations department entirely in the hands of God. And that we allow him to decide when our deeds will be known and when our light will be noticed.” Then he goes on to say that if I will desire godly secrecy, that love and humility before God will develop to the point that I’ll not only see my friends, family, and associates in a better light, but I’ll also develop the very Christian virtue of desiring their good above my own. Paul expresses this very truth to the Philippian church when he told them in 2:3-4 to “do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”

Is this why Jesus urged many who He healed not to reveal his identity? Is this why Jesus avoided the crowds and would often go off to “lonely places” to pray? Is this why my friend folds his bill so tightly?

Father, God, thank You again for incite these past few days that I can follow Jesus more closely as His disciple by keeping secrets: secret piety, secret prayer, and secret giving. And remember that You Who sees in secret will repay me.  Amen