You are Salt and Light

Do you take Scripture seriously? In its earliest books, the Bible goes back at least eight centuries B.C. Its last book, Revelation, was written no later than the early second century A.D. So does this library, or the words of the God its books proclaim, offer us any meaningful teaching? Yes, Scripture is one of the three legs of the Anglican stool on which our faith rests – along with tradition, which we explored last week, and reason. But do we really live by it? More to the point, does what we hear on Sunday have any bearing on what we do on Monday and the rest of the week? Do we do anything on Sunday that changes how we live or how we treat others? Do we even think about our relationship with God during the rest of the week? Or have we completely separated our “spiritual life” from the rest of our life? Are these important and real questions for you? If so, today’s Scripture has startling answers to them, answers which might disturb us – or just might move us out of our comfort zone.

Our reading from the Gospel according to Matthew provides what might be the most startling passage of today’s four Scripture portions. We are in the first part of Jesus’ first great discourse in Matthew – altogether there are five. In this first discourse, the writer lays out what Jesus has to say about the new identity and way of life that characterize the community of Jesus’ disciples. The discourse begins after the calling of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, which we heard two weeks ago. As they follow after Jesus, watching him cure the sick and proclaim the good news of God’s reign, the crowds of Jesus’ followers begin to swell. Jesus stops on a hillside and begins what we have come to call the “Sermon on the Mount.” If we had not observed the feast of the Presentation last week, we would have heard the opening lines of the sermon. But you know them: this is the sermon that begins, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” In these opening lines, which we have come to call the Beatitudes, Jesus begins to describe the community of his disciples, and shows us how it contrasts with communities in the world around it.

Jesus then makes two very startling statements. “You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus says. “You are the light of the world.” “You are salt and light?” “Salt” and “light,” are two very potent metaphors for discipleship. Why would Jesus use these metaphors? More important, if we really want to take Scripture seriously, what are we hearing? I studied linguistics in another life. So let’s takes these statements apart.

“You.” Who is the “you” in these statements? At least three circles of hearers are included in this “you.” First, there are the inner circle, those first four whom we heard Jesus call, and, presumably some others, plus possibly some women followers whom this gospel does not name. Second, there are the crowds who looked to Jesus for healing and avidly attended to his words. And then there are all those who heard the gospel, its original audience, and all those who heard it down the centuries, including us. As we recognize ourselves included in this “you,” as we learn who we truly are and what our mission as Jesus’ followers is, we also learn that no one is excluded from this community of disciples. All of you are part of it.

“Are.” Jesus did not say “should be,” “might be,” or “will be.” Jesus did not command us to be something or hope that we might become something. He said that we are something, we are salt and light. We may not be sure where Jesus is leading us, any more than his first followers were. Even so, at the outset of his ministry, Jesus takes pains to tell his followers that, just by virtue of being his disciples, they are already members of a beloved community. That was certainly a startling statement to the first hearers of this gospel, to a community of believers that was small, weak, and persecuted by the surrounding religious and political leadership. Is it startling to us? Mainline Protestant churches have been steadily declining in membership for the last generation. Now it’s the turn of white Evangelical churches to suffer decline, as more and more people under the age of twenty-five declare that they are “nones,” i.e., they have no religious affiliation. We here at St. Peter’s are certainly part of that trend. As a congregation we are much smaller, weaker, and probably less influential than we were thirty years ago. Even so, Jesus doesn’t allow any of us to say, “Oh, poor us.” Instead, he reminds us that “you are.” He says to all of us, “If you profess to follow me, then you are.”

So what are you? “You are salt.” Sodium gets a bad rap these days, as the healthcare media tell us that we eat too much of it. However, in the ancient world, salt was a precious and necessary commodity. It was needed to preserve food. It was part of the commonly-used dung fuel, for which it was also necessary as a fire-starter. It was – and still is – essential to enhancing the taste of food, chiefly by intensifying other flavors. Salt has also been historically important. Roman soldiers were paid in salt, from which comes our word “salary.” Salt production was so important that it was often a government monopoly. Mahatma Gandhi began the Indian independence movement by marching his followers to the sea, in order to make salt from salt water, thus undoing the government monopoly. Perhaps this winter we’ve gained a little more respect for salt, as we’ve watched our road crews open the roads drawing on a now dwindling supply of road salt. “You are salt.” You, Jesus’ first disciples, Matthew’s first hearers, and you, you are precious and needed, especially to enhance the lives of others.

“You are light.” Does this need much explanation? We know that light is an essential element for all human life. Along with plants and other animals, we need sunlight for health. We need daylight for ordinary human activity. Before artificial life, people virtually hibernated during the winter months, sleeping during the long dark hours. With artificial light, we have extended our time for work, though when the power goes out, we gain an enhanced understanding of the necessity of light. Light also guides us safely to our various destinations. Viewing the “city on the hill” from afar, or the lighthouse on the beach, travelers and mariners know how to avoid danger.

So Jesus offers us two potent images for ourselves as his disciples. We are salt and light. We are, by God’s grace, precious and essential to God’s plan. And our role? To be life-giving for others.

Now the real question. How do you “let your light shine before others,” so that they might give glory to God? Actually, no one has to re-invent the wheel to answer this question. As they did for Jesus and the hearers of Matthew’s gospel, the prophetic books of Scripture, together with many of the psalms, offer us the guidance we need in how to live a salty and light-filled life.

Today’s reading from the last third of the prophecy attributed to Isaiah offers us especially good guidance. What do we hear? Worship is important, the prophet acknowledges. We are nourished by worship and hear God speaking to us through the words of Scripture. The spiritual practices that we undertake are also helpful in forming us to be God’s people. But neither worship nor pious practices are ends in themselves. We must not just hear God’s words and perform our rites. We must reach out to the poor and needy. We must share our bread. We must find clothing and shelter for those who lack these essentials of life, and we must recognize that we are kin to the entire human family. We must work to “loose the bonds of injustice.” Whatever that meant in Isaiah’s day, or Jesus’ day, in our day that means we are called to rescue women and children from trafficking. We are called to bring home our soldiers and care for those with PTSD. We are called to reduce our incarceration rates and do away with capital punishment. We are called to see that all have access to adequate food, healthcare and education. We are called to ensure that this country has just immigration policies, especially for those brought here as children. Clearly, we have no shortage of guidance as to how we can be a “light to the world.”

We’re a small parish, you’re thinking, what can we’re do? We feed the hungry. Have we ever asked why people are hungry? Have we asked our elected representatives to support the SNAP (food stamps) program? Thanks be to God, we are clothing the naked, through our offering of diapers, and winter hats, scarves, and gloves. We have a wonderful building. Can it be used for disaster relief, or for respite from extreme cold or heat? Do God’s commands inform your personal dealings? Try this. As you begin your day, pray that God may enable you to be salt and light for all those whom you encounter in your day.

In a church bulletin I saw recently, at the beginning of the service, it said, “Enter to worship.” At the end of the service, it said, “Depart to serve.” If you take Scripture seriously, as you depart from this place, “Go in peace, to love and serve God and God’s people.”

Where's the Good News?

It’s been a difficult few weeks in Lake Woebegone. We’ve heard of several deaths of members of our extended families and of former members of this parish. Some were perhaps expected and foreseen, and we had some chance to say goodbye to our loved ones. Others were perhaps sudden and unforeseen, even shocking. At the same time we’ve been confronting physical illness in our family members and friends. We know that many of our Loaves and Fishes diners confront various forms of illness, as do the people who come to me for help with groceries or electricity. The son of a close friend has a condition that seems to be getting worse rather than better from the prescribed treatment. We ourselves may struggle with chronic illnesses, whose flare-ups periodically send us to emergency rooms or doctors’ offices. Despite continued prayers for physical healing, nothing much seems to change.

Recently, another friend confided to me that he has a hard time with the healing stories in the Gospels. His spouse is now in a nursing home with a chronic debilitative illness. When he hears a healing story in one of the Gospels, he wonders why Jesus seems to heal some people but not others. When he hears today’s reading, he especially wonders why Jesus seems to have abandoned all those others at Capernaum who would have liked to come to him for physical healing. Most especially, my friend wonders why Jesus can’t heal his spouse. Do we ask these questions too? When we hear today’s reading or ones like it, do we too ask Jesus, “Where were you when my loved one got sick?” Perhaps we think, “You could cure Peter’s mother-in-law’s fever, and you could heal the blind, the lame, and the leprous. Why couldn’t you cure my child, my spouse, my friend?” And do we ask, “Why couldn’t he or she have lived longer?”

Scripture does give us some ways to answer these questions. But to hear what the Bible has tell us about illness, healing, and God’s role in healing, we may have to put aside some of our modern preconceptions. Initially, the Bible may even disconcert us and offer us scant consolation. To begin with, in our understanding of health, we moderns have generally focused on conditions affecting only our bodies. We ignore the psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions of health. However, the Biblical view, in both the Old and New Testaments, is that health does not equate to physical or bodily health alone. Rather, the Bible has a holistic view and constantly reminds us that health consists of wholeness of body, mind, community, and spirit all together. When sickness occurs, we must address all aspects of health. What is more important, in the Bible it is ultimately God who heals. Indeed, physicians were regarded in the ancient world as sorcerers and magicians. “I am the Lord who heals you,” God tells the people in Exodus. “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal,” God reiterates in Deuteronomy. Ezekiel tells us that God is the healer of the weak, the sick, and the lost. The psalms too consistently refer to God’s healing power. “O Lord my God, I cried out to you/ and you restored me to health,” the psalmist declares in Psalm 30, for example. In the Gospels, Jesus always heals as God’s agent, as the one who, as the Word made flesh, is able to do what God does. And similarly, when the disciples heal others, as they do when Jesus sends them out in pairs, and as they do in the Book of Acts, they always do so in the name of Jesus, i.e., they act as Jesus’ and ultimately God’s agent.

When we look more closely at the Gospels, we discover that the miracles – healing miracles and others – are never the point of Jesus’ actions. The miracles are always secondary. Nowhere in the Gospel according to Mark, or in any of the other Gospels, did Jesus proclaim that his ministry was about performing miracles. Jesus resisted “miracles on demand” and feared that they would give people the wrong idea about him. Rather, Jesus’ miracles are a by-product of his mission of the proclamation of God’s kingdom. They identify Jesus as the one having the authority to speak for God, and they signify that the reign of God has come near. They are signs of the coming victory of Jesus over sin and death and a promise of a kingdom in which illness and death are no more. As Jesus reminded the disciples in today’s reading, proclaiming the arrival of that kingdom “is what I came out to do.” For that reason, despite our most fervent prayers, it is not Jesus’ job to heal our physical ills. As Mark clearly reminds us, Jesus was not called to be the head of the Capernaum free clinic – nor of the Gallipolis free clinic.

Ultimately, who is physically healed in the Gospels and who is not is a mystery, as it still is today. Creation remains imperfect and unfinished, and we all still must undergo death, whenever it comes. Our physicians, counselors, pastors, parishes, and anonymous groups use their God-given skills as best they can. We continue to pray for own healing and the healing of others in body, mind, and soul. Even so, in the end why a person dies at five hours, five months, or five years, why another person lives past one hundred, why one person is cured of disease and another is not, why one person conquers his or her addiction and another does not, are all largely inexplicable.

At this point you might be thinking, “Where’s the good news? Is there any?” Of course there is, if we have ears to hear it. To begin with, our reading from the prophet Isaiah reminds us of God’s care for us. Even though, in God’s eyes we are comparable to grasshoppers, and “the rulers of the earth as nothing,” the creator of all that is cares deeply for us. Ultimately, God will sustain, renew, and restore us: “those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength … they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Today’s psalm reiterates Isaiah’s message. Even though God “counts the number of the stars/ and calls them all by their names,” even so God “heals the brokenhearted/ and binds up their wounds.” The Gospel of Mark reminds us that Jesus knows our brokenness of both soul and body, as he calls out both the demons and the fevers within us. What is more important, despite our brokenness, Jesus calls us into partnership with him and invites us to share in his mission. “Let us go on to the neighboring towns,” he tells the disciples, “so that I may proclaim the message there also.” As did his friends, in Jesus we too have a model for faithful discipleship, as we too are called to proclaim, pray, act, and trust that God is indeed bringing in God’s reign. And we also have Jesus’ promise that whatever happens to our physical bodies, the relationship that we have begun with him here will transcend the limitations of illness and death.

Beginning in the third century, in Egypt and other parts of the ancient world, men and women who wanted a more ascetic life left the opulent towns and congregated in small communities – the forerunners of today’s monasteries and convents. These early Desert Fathers and Mothers, as they came to be called, sought integrity and wholeness, personal experience of God rather than intellectual knowledge. However, they discovered that, even as they left behind the conspicuous consumption of their home communities, they nevertheless took with them into the desert all their personal demons and sicknesses of all kinds: wherever you go there you are, as Buddhist teachers say. The Desert Fathers and Mothers also came to understand that life is difficult wherever we live it. “Expect trials until your last breath,” Saint Anthony the Great said. Nevertheless, in their desert life they also demonstrated, as Daniel Clendinen reminds us, “confidence in God’s unconditional love.”1 They were patient with one another and refused to judge one another. And they understood that they were called to live out and proclaim God’s infinite care for all of us.

As Jesus cared for Peter’s mother-in-law, as he ministered to those who crowded around the door of Peter’s house, so Jesus cares deeply for us. More importantly, he calls us to work with him, whatever the physical, mental, or spiritual limitations of our lives. He knows that we finite human beings not angels. And he assures us and all whom we cherish, that his care for us will never end. As Paul reminded the Christian community in Rome, “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”

As Jesus’ faithful disciples, we press on, not expecting miracles, but trusting in Jesus’ promise of eternal life.

“’This is Why I have Come,’” Journey with Jesus, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml, accessed January 31, 2012.

Let Your Light Shine

This evening will you wish you were in Arlington, Texas? Will you be glued to your TV set at 6:30? Do I need to tell anyone that that’s kickoff time for Super Bowl XLV? As the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers face off against each other on the field, some of you might be more interested in the players than the plays. Did you know that many of the players on both sides are men of faith who are actively partnering with God to bring God’s kingdom a little closer? I’ll just hold up two of them. Wide receiver and Kalamazoo native Greg Jennings is worth millions as a star player for Green Bay. Through the Greg Jennings Foundation, a non-profit Christian organization dedicated to assisting children and families. Greg has been steadily and generously giving back to the community. Supported by donations, volunteers, fund-raising events, and Greg himself, the Foundation makes grants to organizations and people in need in Michigan and Wisconsin. Among other grants, last summer the Foundation supported a Habitat for Humanity house in Kalamazoo, and in November Greg personally helped distribute 500 Thanksgiving turkeys. That same month 2009 Steelers MVP James Harrison founded the James Harrison Family Foundation. James was inspired by both the generous support of his fans and his love of children, and he started this foundation so that he can make a difference in peoples' lives when they need it the most. Dedicated to fostering hope, the foundation provides aid especially to children with disabilities and their families in the greater Pittsburgh area. In mid-December the foundation invited 200 children and their families to enjoy brunch with Santa and take home new clothing and toys.

Most of the Packers and Steelers players have started such foundations. Many have been spurred to do so by their commitment to being Jesus’ disciples. I would guess that today’s Gospel passage has helped to inspire not only today’s players but also the many other athletes who have founded similar organizations. As you remember, Matthew was writing to a beleaguered community of new Christians, a community that included both Jews and Gentiles. With members of different ethnic traditions, this community, like the community in Corinth, and like many other Christian communities, was striving to live fully into the way inaugurated by Jesus. As we will see throughout our readings from the Gospel of Matthew this year, one of Matthew’s major concerns was to offer instruction to this community as to what Jesus’ disciples should be and do. The center of the story is made up of five great sermons of Jesus, all of which contain concrete instructions as to how a Christian community should form itself.

Here we begin to learn about community formation through Jesus’ instructions to his first disciples. You remember that Jesus has just called Peter, Andrew, James, and John away from their nets. Last week we heard the beginning of the first sermon, in which Jesus began by assuring these disciples that they were blessed by God when they depend on God’s grace to help them live in love and peace. Now Jesus begins to lay out the characteristics of a blessed community. Warning them that their righteousness needs to go way beyond the scrupulous law-keeping of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus tells them that they need two things. They don’t need to be captivating preachers (thank heavens!), they don’t need to be canny administrators, and they don’t need to be spell-binding evangelists.

The disciples do need to be who they are, by God’s grace, already becoming: salt to the earth and light for the world, people whose connection with God could be seen in who they were and what they did. Because they were now Jesus’ disciples, they shared in Jesus’ life, and they could show this Jesus-life to the world. Not by engaging in propaganda, not by haranguing people on the roads, but by being fully alive in Christ, by being the kind of people who make other people see the possibility that God might be real after all and at work in them. By living the kind of life that shows forth God’s goodness to others. For Jesus’ disciples, this means more than the personal piety that the scribes and Pharisees modeled so well. Living a life infused with Jesus-ness means engaging in concrete acts of mercy, justice, peace, and liberation – for the people in their own homes, on their own doorsteps, across the street, and across the world. Those who partake of Jesus’ own life are enabled by him to do Jesus in the world, not to win God’s favor, not to buy their way into heaven, but so that others “may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” So that others may be healed and restored, and so that ultimately all nations may be brought under God’s gracious reign.

Guess what? We are Jesus’ disciples too. We are also salt for the earth, we are also light for the world. Jesus’ challenge to his immediate disciples is addressed to us too. In The Holy Longing, his meditation on spiritual life in our time, Ronald Rolheiser reminds us that there are four “non-negotiable essentials” for a healthy spirituality: personal prayer and morality, mellowness of heart and spirit, communal worship, and pursuit of social justice. We’ve talked a lot about prayer, especially contemplative prayer, and some of us have experienced it here. And certainly we’re all trying to overcome our own personal brokenness and sinfulness. Mellowness of heart and spirit? We might say that that’s about acknowledging your dependence on God, being grateful for all of God’s blessings to you, and trusting the spirit to lead you. Communal worship brings us back together as the Body of Christ, enabling us to support each other as we enter into the sacred mystery of God’s presence among us. Pursuing social justice flows out of the first three practices. As we deepen our relationship with God through prayer, and as we are nourished by Word and Sacrament in worship, our ability to be and do Jesus in the world is strengthened.

Do you see pursuing social justice as essential to your spirituality? “Well, yes,” you might say, “but what can one person, or even one small parish actually do?” Just think of all the areas of our globe that need addressing: poverty, both right here in this county and in the rest of the world; sub-standard housing and homelessness; hunger; Third World debt; environmental justice; access to health care; human trafficking, sweatshop labor; fair trade purchasing; socially responsible investing. The list goes on and on. Do you feel stopped in your tracks, intimidated into total inertia by the enormity and complexity of all the areas of social injustice? Perhaps we can follow the advice of Mother Teresa: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one.” Be and do Jesus for that one! Here at St. Peter’s, we understand that scale. Today, our youngsters are helping to complete our collection for the Souper Bowl of Caring. Food and dollars are still very much needed. We continue our Loaves and Fishes dinners, and our distribution of diapers with the Lutheran Social Services mobile food pantry. Where else might our ministries take us? Where else might we be and do Jesus in the world?

I want to challenge us. I know that pursuing social justice isn’t easy. In fact, sometimes it’s downright dangerous – as the history we remember in Black History month so poignantly reminds us. Nevertheless, I want to challenge us to be and do more than we think we can. I would like the children to think of something that only they can be and do between now and Easter. “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine!” Can you children think of a way that your light can shine brighter between now and Easter? How about the young adult group that’s forming? Yes, it’s important that you all come together in fellowship and strengthen the ties among you. But is there a way that you can grow in your love of God and of those around you? Yes, all of you are busy with your various obligations. I was a young mother once too, believe it or not. So if you can’t feed a hundred people, can you feed one? Is there one thing you can do between now and Easter? How about the ECW? Is there one thing you can do between now and Easter? How about you men? What can you do? Is there something the whole congregation can do together? Can we put old conflicts behind us and do something, really do something, together? Engage in a letter-writing campaign for Bread for the World maybe? I challenge all of you to come up with some ideas and then to follow through with them. The rest of us pledge to give whatever help we can!

Jesus told us, “You are salt for the earth, you are light for the world.” Confident that God will enable us to continue growing in our ability to be and do Jesus in the world, we are bold to pray, “O God, with endless mercy you receive the prayers of all who call on you. By your Spirit show us the things we ought to do, and give us the grace and power to do them, through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord.”