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We have drawn from ‘The sermon on the Mount’ a strange bonding. We have taken a few verses that were intended to teach us a particular truth, but we have cut them apart so completely that they will never be together again. The passage is Matthew 6:5-13 wherein Jesus tells us to never make a big show of praying in public like the hypocrites who like to be noticed so they stand on street corners and in front of the synagogues when they pray. 

Instead, Jesus tells us, we should go into our room and shut the door so our praying is totally private , and then he gives an example of a prayer for that secret moment, a prayer that should always be our secret.  But now we have made that prayer the most widespread and public part of the Sermon, one that everyone knows and will never be secret. 

It is a strange and dangerous irony.