The Hiddenness of the Devout Life

At a glance

The chapter heading text (KJV)

“Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance… But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret.”

Matthew 6:16–18 KJV

Summary

This short chapter completes the triad of almsgiving, prayer and fasting, and Bonhoeffer treats fasting as a legitimate, even necessary, discipline rather than a legalistic extra Christians can dispense with. A will accustomed to having every desire satisfied immediately becomes, in his account, poorly equipped to obey Christ when obedience is costly; regular self-denial trains the disciple's body and will to serve rather than to rule.

Yet he immediately flags fasting as unusually vulnerable to exactly the corruption Matthew 6 has been tracking. Precisely because it is visibly demanding — more obviously effortful than quiet almsgiving or private prayer — fasting tempts the faster to let its difficulty be noticed, turning genuine self-denial into a fresh occasion for pride. The disfigured face and mournful appearance Jesus criticises are not really about fasting's severity but about its being put on display for credit.

Jesus' remedy — wash your face, anoint your head, look as though nothing unusual were happening — is read by Bonhoeffer as protecting the interior reality of the discipline from being converted into a public performance. The fasting itself does not become less real or less rigorous; what disappears is any outward sign that would let onlookers register it as an achievement.

Bonhoeffer's closing point widens beyond fasting to the whole ‘devout life’ the chapter title names: any spiritual practice, however sincerely begun, can degenerate into a subtler bid for self-glorification the moment its difficulty becomes something to be seen rather than simply lived. The safeguard, as throughout Matthew 6, is not less discipline but a discipline so thoroughly directed toward the Father alone that it no longer needs, or wants, a human audience at all.

Key points

• Bonhoeffer treats fasting as a genuine, necessary discipline that trains a self-indulgent will to be ready to obey Christ, not a legalistic extra to dispense with.
• Fasting is unusually vulnerable to self-display precisely because its difficulty is so visible — it can turn into a fresh occasion for pride even more easily than almsgiving or prayer.
• Jesus' instruction to appear normal while fasting protects the discipline's interior reality from being converted into public performance, without softening its actual rigour.
• The chapter's principle extends to the whole ‘devout life’: any spiritual practice can quietly become self-glorification once its cost is put on display.
• The safeguard throughout is not less discipline but discipline directed so completely toward God that it no longer seeks a human audience.

Related Scripture

• Isaiah 58:3–7
• Joel 2:12–13
• Colossians 2:20–23
• 1 Timothy 4:7–8

For reflection and discussion

1. Is there a spiritual discipline in your life that has ever become, even slightly, something you wanted others to notice you doing?
2. Bonhoeffer describes fasting as training a will too easily indulged. What is the equivalent discipline for you right now — the thing your will most needs practice refusing?
3. What would it look like to keep the difficulty of a current discipline entirely between you and God, with no outward sign at all?