Matthew 5: 13-20
Grace and peace this winter morning.
In the Church Year we are in a moment of interval. The space between the Super Bowl and the
First Pitch on Opening Day. Last Sunday: Candlemas and the 40th and last day of
Christmas. Next Sunday: Septuagesima and the first official “pre-lenten” Sunday
of preparation for Lent, the next great season on the calendar. This week, the “pause” button. What happens in years with a later Easter . .
. .
A friend of mine posted a lovely
quotation from the Roman Catholic priest and author Henri Nouwen. “Patience
is a hard discipline. It’s not just
waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of
the bus; the end of the rain; the return of a friend; the resolution of a
conflict. Patience is not a waiting passivity until someone else does
something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely
present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we
are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen
tomorrow, later, and somewhere else.” Then
he concludes, “Let’s be patient and trust
that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.”
For this morning and the next couple of Sundays the lectionary has for
us an appropriately pre-lenten opportunity for reflection on the fifth chapter
of St. Matthew, the first few sections of the Sermon on the Mount. Certainly a good way to get ready for Lent— reflecting
with a patient heart on this extended homily from Jesus himself on the
character and vocation of Christian discipleship.
Because Candlemas and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, with
the gospel reading from Luke Chapter 2, fell on a Sunday this year, we missed
last Sunday the first part of this Sermon on the Mount reading, the Beatitudes --and
so this week we begin a couple of paragraphs down the page, at Chapter 5,
verses 13-20. But just to set that familiar
background context for us. We remember
the opening of the Sermon, verses 1-10.
Jesus sees the crowd. He goes up
the side of this mountain with his disciples and begins to speak. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are
those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed
are the peacemakers, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’
sake . . . .
We hear these broad generalities.
Each a kind of benediction, opening a thematic vista for reflection on
Christian life and virtue. For
individuals, and with application to the life of the church. Sometimes we might think of this as an
outline to describe what “holy” life might be like. Each one a rich source for reflection, and
then to think about how these interact one with another.
Then as this opening come to an end, in a rhetorical shift of some
dramatic weight Jesus turns to the disciples and looks them in the eye, we
might say, and speaks to them directly. Getting
down to brass tacks. Not just talking
about general types. Verses 11 and 12,
what he says right before the beginning of our reading this morning: “Blessed
are you
when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you
falsely on my account. Rejoice and be
glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets
who were before you.”
He catches their attention and our attention too. After those broad generalities, the direction
of the wind changes. Stormy weather
seems to blow in out of nowhere. As the
saying goes, “up close and personal.” Notice
that Jesus doesn’t say that his disciples will be blessed “if” these hard
things happen. “When.”
When Jesus calls his disciples, they drop their nets and leave home and
family behind. Costly discipleship. The idea that that wasn’t just Peter and
Andrew and James and John, but that something like that call and response is
true for each and every follower of Jesus.
Remembering that haunting hymn that we often sing on St. Andrew’s
Day. “They cast their nets in
Galilee.” --“The peace of God it is no
peace, but strife closed in the sod.”
Read ahead to the 10th chapter of Matthew after this Sermon
comes to an end and Jesus and his disciples go out on their mission preaching
and healing and confronting evil spirits, and Jesus comes back to this same
theme with his disciples, as an inescapable theme, making our way down the
highway from Bethlehem and Christmas to Jerusalem and Holy Week, not letting us
rest with midnight angels and shepherds: “Beware of men, for they will deliver
you up to councils, and flog you in their synagogues . . . . Brother will deliver up brother to death, and
the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put
to death; and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake.” (And if we think this is all about ancient
days of Christians and lions in the coliseum we can pay attention next Sunday
afternoon at Evensong when we honor the life of the martyred Archbishop of
Uganda, Janani Luwum, who found himself on the wrong side of Idi Amin.) Or see what’s going on for Christians in
Syria, or Pakistan.
In any event, this is just what comes before as we get to the passage
in Matthew 5 this morning, framework and context, at verse 13. Beginning with two metaphors, drilling down
deeper into our thoughts and imaginations—to shape in a poetic way how we see
ourselves when we try to understand who we are as Christians, as disciples.
You are the salt of the earth. All kinds of associations, in the ancient
world and still for us. Salt as the essential
flavoring. To take what is bland and
tasteless and without character and to bring out a fullness of flavor. And of course salt as the essential
preservative. Without which food will
lose not only its flavor but also its wholesomeness. Especially vivid in a world without
refrigeration. Preventing rot and
decay. And not a thought from the first
century, but I heard a great sermon once talking about how salt works on roads
and sidewalks in the midst of a long winter like the one we are having this
year. Breaking up the ice, melting the
snow. The local news stories this week nervously
headline the question of whether the city and county and outlying communities
have enough salt on hand to deal with the challenges of this winter. What will be the consequences of a shortage of
salt? Perhaps a vivid extension of the
metaphor for us this winter . . . .
I’m not sure people in the wider world these days think this way about
Christians very often. How we might
think of our own lives as Christians as being salt-like. How we might think of what St. Andrew’s is as
a parish community in this neighborhood, in the wider world. Salt. How the followers of Jesus bring flavor to an
otherwise bland and tasteless world. How
the followers of Jesus work to make things that might be spoiled, rancid,
toxic, now new and fresh and healthful.
Or spread on the ground far and wide as a quiet yet powerful force,
breaking barriers and opening pathways.
Like any metaphor, a jumping off place for the imagination. If salt has
somehow lost its ability to do these things, it’s worthless. It may look like salt, but if it doesn’t do
what salt does, what is it?
Nothing. Worthless. Again, a jumping off place for the
imagination.
You are the light of the world. I love those photographs from the Space
Station as it orbits the earth—how from the vast distances of space you can see
these flickering lights down below, towns and cities, glittering in the
darkness like jewels. In a world that
can be so dark, and there is a lot of darkness.
You can read it in the newspaper, and you can find it closer to home,
sometimes even staring right back at you in the bathroom mirror. In a world covered in darkness, rolling back
to us the Christmas Eve reading from John: “in him was life and the life was
the light of men. The light shines in
the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” In a world that can be so dark, in Christ we
are each with the potential to be bright and brilliant jewels. Reflecting his perfect light. Dazzling.
A coastal lighthouse at the mouth of a safe harbor in the night of a
storm. A lot of folks have come to know
Christ because of great writers and teachers and preachers. But I think just as often, and actually
probably more often, they have come to know Christ because of the light that is
reflected in the lives of Christians.
The tenderness and love and mercy and forgiveness and that we would know
in Jesus shining through. My life seemed dark and hopeless, and then I
caught a glimpse of light.
It is Jesus of course and Jesus only who is the salt of the earth and
light of the world. “The treasure we are seeking is hidden in the ground on
which we stand.” And he tells us how
that happens, how in his presence death and darkness are overcome. Which we may hear as a roadmap and
direction—what it would mean to come close to him, to walk in his steps, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the
law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but fulfill.”
It’s more than we can unpack this morning, but we will see it unfold in
the coming sections of the Sermon on the Mount over the next few weeks. How Jesus says that to come close to him, to
be true salt and true light, is about not simply conforming outwardly with the formalities
and legalism of the scribes and the Pharisees, who are all about keeping score
and ordering the externals, but about exceeding their devotion, going farther,
in a deeper perfection, a deeper obedience, with a renewal of the heart in an
organic union of God’s Word, and of the Word made flesh. I think we might say a life grounded in
scripture and sacrament. Not as
observers at a distance, but as full participants in his witness, in his
suffering, in his death, and in his resurrection. Which is how we become salt and light.
Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering
and a sacrifice to God.
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