Chewin in the Chung

You know how sometimes you are reading something on the internet, and you open a new browser window to check some word of fact on the page, and the Google of the word or fact turns up something which requires another Google, and next thing you know you've got seven IE windows open, and you are seven degrees of logical separation from the original topic? No? You have no idea what I'm talking about? That's ok. Just take my word that this is how I operate. And it was such tangential research session that ended up with me reading Matthew, Chapter 6.

Now the only time I've ever read the Bible was when I was an eighteen year old college freshman and I wanted to find all the logical contradictions in it. Because I was so logical, you know. And I was a communist. Oh yes indeed. Do you remember the song by Oingo Boingo titled Capitalism? Yeah, that song was about me.

So anyway, I am reading Matthew Chapter 6, and I admit to some serious confusion here. Here are the verses that are for me problematic, followed by my boggle:

6:5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
What? Can I replace "synagogues" and "corners of the streets" with "television" and "university campuses"? How does this jibe with trying to get Christian prayer into schools and courts and every public place imaginable?

6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
What's all this about praying in closets?

6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.
Is there some other verse somewhere that says "get all the money you can and flaunt it"?

6:31-6:33 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Same boggle. The closest I have ever seen any Christian act in accordance with this verse is the gear (fifties dork style) and bicycles (30 pounds, 20 years old) of the Mormon missionaries here.

These verses sound downright new-age hippy-esque. Is there some greater context I need here?