Again, as in the previous analogies, one does not need to know "all about" God to be rich in "Piety." Piety in its earliest stages in the young, or early in an adult's spiritual renewal or conversion, is the strong desire to serve God and to pray, praise and worship him, yet one may not really feel they "know" God at all. This is why the gift of "Fear of the Lord" is such a great gift indeed, for it opens the door, like the door to school, and takes you "as you are," and allows your relationship with God to start, with the simple steps of Piety.
At first Piety feels like duty, or a little bit of a chore. Piety is often a young child's very first "chore," especially if God is introduced to the young child in the form of saying one's prayer before night time's going to bed. Often children first learn Piety by imitating their parents at prayer, for example in the daily call to prayers in the Islamic faith, or in the prayers during the day in the Orthodox Jewish faith. Christian children usually learn to fold their hands and pray from the parent who tucks them into bed at night. This is why it is such a dismal failure when parents who think they are liberal and allowing children to "decide to choose on their own when they are older" do not have a shared before bed prayer with their children. They are not laying the foundation of Piety and to be honest, a child who does not learn Piety as the form of their first "grown up chore" or "duty" often cannot find Piety at all when they are older. Even if they have a conversion experience, they are often confused by Piety and what it really means. This is where, for example, an adult who has a conversion experience decides that having fun in praise and worship of God in a kind of entertainment style is the same as having Piety. It is not.
Learning genuine Piety at a young age during good faith formation helps to ensure that as an adult, you don't find yourself "coincidentally" just happening to choose only the fun things that you enjoy doing to "offer up" to God in worship and service. If one has the gift of Piety, one is more likely to give to God the forms of worship and service that God desires from you, and not the ones that you find the most personally pleasurable. Piety is not only going to the "fun" church services, or doing service in countries that you wanted to visit anyway. Piety means that you discern what your duty to God and neighbor actually is, not what seems the most glorious or the most fun, or what you "feel like doing."
Thinking back to the example of the child who goes to school for the first time, Piety is like realizing that you have to keep going to school, on the fun days or not, when you have to memorize the addition and multiplication tables, or do something more interesting, and whether you feel good or not. Piety is not going to school only on the days you feel like it, only studying the lessons that you enjoy. Piety is being continually sensitive to the desire to worship and serve God the way God wants to be worshipped and served. Piety and Fear of the Lord together form the foundation of humility, which is essential to truly knowing God. Remember, Fear of the Lord does not require actually knowing anything about God (just like the baby does not know facts yet about his or her parents) and realize that Piety also does not require actual knowledge of God. Piety is the desire to worship and serve God the way God wants to be worshipped and served, and it is not motivated by "why" or "what I like to do" reasons of intellect or feelings.
Does that mean that Piety is not enjoyable? Not at all, but it is something that develops in enjoyment as the person matures. For example, we all know teenagers who are terrible about doing chores around the house, but when they have their own first home, they suddenly become interested in decorating, home improvement and home maintenance. What was a "chore" when one wants to only have fun, say as a teenager, suddenly does become fun when one "comes into one's own" in life. It is similar with genuine Piety. Piety becomes pleasurable when one begins to feel the love and satisfaction that comes from worshipping and serving God the way he wishes to be worshipped and served. Piety does not come from the mind; Piety comes from the heart. Piety does not come from the ego; Piety comes from the joy of modesty and genuine humility in the sight of the Lord God. Piety does not come from "depriving" one's self; Piety comes from the desire to "give" to God.
Much of the Bible describes the joy of genuine Piety that is based on a mature desire to please God, and not to please one's self as the highest priority and call that pleasing God. The classic example is the parable told by Jesus of the Pharisee and the Publican and his other teachings about worship.
Matthew 6:5-6
"When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you."
Luke 18:9-14
But he spoke this parable also to some who trusted in themselves as being just and despised others. "Two men went up to the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and began to pray thus within himself: 'O God, I thank thee that I am not like the rest of men, robbers, dishonest, adulterers, or even like this publican. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I possess.' But the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven, but kept striking his breast saying, 'O God, be merciful to me the sinner!'
"I tell you, this man went back to his home justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted."
You can see, therefore, that Piety is both internal and external, since Piety includes not only the prayers, rituals and services that you perform to worship and serve God, but also your mindset and attitude toward the external. Your internal Piety is how you actually feel about God and, by extension, your neighbor, your fellow believer. Your external Piety are the actions that you take when you worship or serve God.
This is why Jesus is very harsh about the hypocrites who pray loudly in the synagogue and on the street corner. Jesus is not condemning their external Piety, their form of visible prayer in public, not at all. Jesus is correctly identifying that their internal Piety is not directed toward God, but of showing off and looking superior to the others. Contrast this with in modern times, you see Orthodox Jews at the Wailing Wall who are visibly and loudly praying and that is pure and commendable prayer, since it is an outward manifestation of their internal Piety being directly solely toward God. When they pray at the Wall they are not doing so to look more holy than those around them; in fact, most would not even notice who else is there, as they are in fully within their internal moment of Piety in front of the symbol of their Lord. I mention this so that you do not misunderstand the scriptures to think that these two passages by Jesus are in any way saying not to be public or even fervent in one’s prayer. Rather, it is a way to measure the sincerity of one’s Piety if one would, in total secret and in private, with no “audience,” pray and worship the same with the same fervor. That is the point that Jesus is making with the first passage cited.
In the second passage Jesus is showing a second example of a problem with one’s internal Piety. Here the Pharisee is genuinely praying to God and not toward an audience (since he is praying silently, although probably making a bit of a pose out of his standing in prayer, knowing that at least one other person, the publican, is there). But the Pharisee is praying, basically, in a most impious internal stance, where he’s thanking God, yes he is, but thanking God for making him better than everyone else, including the poor guy praying next to him! So in the first example Jesus “outs the hypocrite” by demonstrating that God will make note of the dutifully person who prays, but does so with great showmanship and hypocrisy, but will amply reward the humble person who prays in totally pure internal Piety in privacy. In the second example Jesus demonstrates to the disciples that the Pharisee is not justified, despite his dutiful worship and his acts of charity, because he is doing so as a basis of thinking that makes him more justified and better than all others. The Pharisee is even insulting in his thoughts to God the poor man who is praying right next to him! This was one of the most powerful parables by Jesus and should resonate even more strongly in this “works” and “media mad” modern times of today.
To use a modern example, think of how one does exercise in order to stay fit. Every sit up that one does, for example, one is obviously doing for one’s self. In other words, your sit up doesn’t make someone else more fit. Further, you might not exercise in order to be healthy, but are exercising for the shallow but common reason to look more attractive to others. That is fine, and is very human. But what would it tell you of the character of the person exercising if with every sit up he or she thinks “Ha, this sit up is dedicated to making me look better than the slob over on the treadmill.” I would worry about the mental health of someone who exercised and with every single sit up was thinking how they are better looking or more fit than the person working out next to them, and that thus this made them a better and more successful human being. This is what Jesus demonstrates of how good deeds and good prayer, just like good exercise, can turn into something that is not praiseworthy and worse will risk being rejected by God because the internal Piety is self directed, and not directed toward God himself.
Children who are properly formed in their faith learn to pray because it is the right and good thing to do, not because “everyone else is doing it and they have to do it ‘better.’” Thus parents and religious instructors teach children through example that internal Piety comes first, that being the individual desire to worship and serve God. As the child becomes older he or she joins together with their family’s faith community in order to have public community worship, prayer, and to perform service to the Lord, often through charity toward neighbor. However, there is great danger in teaching only the external forms of Piety with the mentality that these are check-off lists of actions that earn future reward from God. Yes, Jesus states that even the hypocrite and the boastful Pharisee will have reward for their dutiful external Piety, but Jesus warns they are on a slippery slope because God is concerned more about internal Piety than the external. After all, the whole point of Piety is to please God and to have your first “baby steps” (no matter what your age) of relationship with him. If you are praying to God but thinking cruel thoughts of others, what Piety is that? What honor are you giving God if you are using his name and his ritual on the one hand, while thinking bad thoughts about others, others who God equally loves in ways that you can’t understand?
The final point is that as I’ve said, like “Fear of the Lord,” “Piety” requires no factual understanding of the Lord, as it is like that analogy of entering the school and showing up to learn, but not being expected to know any of the subjects before they have even been taught. Jesus demonstrates that in the parable by explaining that all the man in the first parable had to do to please God was to pray in the privacy of his room (in other words, no need to perform public ritual that requires knowledge) and even more to the point, the publican in the second parable needed only to repeatedly pray for God to have mercy on him. Jesus commends the publican in the parable not only as he serves as humble contrast to the Pharisee in his internal and external Piety, but also because he did not need to know facts about God, and to be fancy in his prayers. The Pharisee cites his knowledge of God in his prayer, checking off each requirement of the Law with satisfaction. But in the parable we have no way of knowing anything about the publican, if he follows the Law faithfully or not, if he is a sinner or not, or even if he is well versed. All that we know about him is his genuine Piety, expressed over and over as he asks God for mercy. Jesus underscores all that he is teaching in these parables when he shows people how to pray to God with the “Our Father,” also known as “The Lord’s Prayer.” Piety does not require understanding God, having knowledge of God and his laws, or even a structured prayer life. That is why genuine, true, pure Piety is a gift from the Holy Spirit, one that, like “Fear of the Lord” is foundational to all else, and one that must be cultivated in gratitude by everyone who seeks to know God.
I hope that you have found this helpful!
