No-Name Faith (Friday Devotional)

 

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

- Matthew 6:1

When Major League Baseball announced in 1977 that its newest franchise would go to the city of Seattle, the team’s ownership group chose a democratic way of picking the mascot: a “Name the Team” contest which anyone could enter and win. The prize would be a pair of season tickets and one all-expenses-paid trip to see the team play on the road during its inaugural season.

Roger Szmodis, a presumed fan from Bellevue, Washington, was the winner—in a short essay, he said the team should be called the Mariners “because of the natural association between the sea and Seattle and her people, who have been challenged and rewarded by it.” The team has kept that name for more than 40 years, with stars from Ken Griffey, Jr. to Ichiro Suzuki carrying on the legacy that Roger Szmodis set in motion.

But one mystery endures to this day—no one knows who Roger Szmodis is. He never came to claim his prize. He never picked up the phone when the Mariners’ front office called. No one answered the door when representatives came to his apartment. To this day, his achievement has endured even as his identity has remained clouded in mystery—for Roger Szmodis, it seems, it was never about the attention.

In Jesus’ famed Sermon on the Mount, he pointed out the human tendency, which he labeled hypocrisy, to carry out works of righteousness for the sake of attention. He talked about how easy it was to see people in the temple praying, fasting, and giving alms purely so others would notice them and fawn over their piety.

But Jesus said that true followers of God were more like Roger Szmodis, carrying out their work privately, not for the sake of attention but for the sake of the work itself—praying for the sake of praying, fasting for the sake of fasting, and giving for the sake of giving. For such disciples, faith is not about glorifying themselves, but about glorifying God.

In a world which says your worth is determined by your fame, the Bible calls us to anonymous righteousness, a faith where the only name that matters is Christ’s. May the work you do glorify him—and him alone.