“Photosynthesis”
1 Corinthians 4:1-5 / Matthew 6:24-34
8th Sunday in Ordinary Time / Season of Epiphany
27 February 2011
Today … just like last week … we’re treated to a Gospel text which hasn’t rotated through our Sunday lectionary readings since 1984 – this time after Epiphany being so long this year, Lent and Easter coming so late – like the calendar seasons, the church seasons are slow to change as well.
Now, I say “treated” with some irony intended – for, also, like last week, these words are not easy ones. These are real seat-squirmers … difficult, challenging words from Jesus in these concluding sentences of this section of his Sermon on the Mount.
Unlike last week, though … Jesus’ words are not framed by his rhetorical tool, on the one hand “You have heard it said,” laying out the “word on the street,” the go along to get along word that the world lays out as “gospel truth” … and then, contrasting with Jesus’ charge, upping the ante for his disciples, those who hear and follow him, “But I say to you” …“turn the other cheek” … “give your enemy even your cloak” … “love your enemies” … “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” … showing how Jesus emphasizes not just the letter of the law, but the Spirit behind it
No, here, today, the cruel joke comes on hard and fast ... not nuanced, but straight up: “Do not worry about your life … what will we eat … what will we drink … what will we wear?”
For if you are paying any attention to the world around you at all … not worrying seems at the very least, the airhead response … “what, me worry?” … and, at worst, callous, hard, insensitive.
Everywhere we turn … there is reason to worry.
A brief sampling of the news can surely bring us bushel baskets of worry.
“Mideast unrest may soon send the price of oil to over $220 a barrel, bringing $5 a gallon gasoline to the US as soon as this summer for the first time ever, and killing the fledgling economic recovery.”
“The price of clothing is set to rise this year at its highest rate since the 1970s.”
“World food supplies are at a tipping point; if bad weather in the US Midwest this year delays planting or harvest, food shortages may well affect not just the world’s poor countries, but the US as well.”
“The US budget deficit – at its highest point ever – may now be set to create an irreversible path of destruction … we could soon see spiraling hyperinflation, baby boomers’ retirement dollars erased, bankrupted Social Security and Medicare for our elderly … for America, an economic disaster worse than the Great Depression.”
And that’s the way it is …
As I said, you’d have to be either brainless, or have the insensitivity of Montgomery Burns – Homer’s tycoon boss on TV’s “The Simpsons,” to NOT be worried. We worry these days, and with good reason. Everything we’ve worked so hard for, everything we own, our livelihood, our very lives, is at risk, today, perhaps more so than at any time during most of our lifetimes.
And yet … for the next little while … I’m going to ask you to suspend that very real worry … and indulge me in one final Epiphanytide science lesson.
Today’s Science word is … another familiar one to us … “photosynthesis.”
It’s the process in plants through which, sunlight turns carbon dioxide into sugar, which turns sunlight into food, adding to their growth. Sunlight hits the leaves and begins the process, the end result of which is physical growth in the plant, and oxygen released into the atmosphere for humans and other animals to breathe … so we can live.
Without photosynthesis … there wouldn’t be any plants … nor would there be any humans. We’d soon enough use up all the oxygen.
OK … Pastor Bob … you might be saying … well and good, we all know photosynthesis is a good thing … and it was nice to have our minds diverted for a few minutes on Sunday morning … but can we please get back to our worrying?
Fair enough … but first, hear the word that photosynthesis has everything to do with our Gospel text today.
Huh?
Why sure it does. This section of Gospel text actually begins back in verse 21 – three lines before our printed text today – as Jesus admonishes his hearers, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” And then he expands on this in the verse which begins today’s reading, “No one can serve (literally, be enslaved to) two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other … you cannot serve (again, be enslaved to) both God and wealth.”
Once again, Jesus goes back … back in time, back in word, back to the beginning, asking that question, “who’s your God?”
What is it, who is it, that your entire living revolves around … without which, your life is empty, worthless …without meaning???
Is it God … or is it wealth … mammon … stuff … possessions … things?
In the language of photosynthesis, which sun do you revolve around … which sun provides your growth … gives you true food for living … God’s Son … or some other one?
Now, Jesus doesn’t go to a Word of judgment here … because he knows that people of every time and every place have problems with worry.
What he does … is to go into a series of comparisons … much like he did in last Sunday’s Gospel … just without using his rhetorical “you have heard it said … but I say to you.”
“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”
That sentence … it’s no mistake that it’s disjointed … disparate … divided into several different pieces. Literally, that word Jesus uses that our Bibles translate as “worry,” it means “being distracted, or being divided into pieces.”
And indeed … that is what worry does to us … it distracts us, and divides us … divides our attention … divides up our lives, if we worry enough about enough different things.
Granted … there is a lot to worry about these days … and I don’t want to lessen the importance of that. Maybe the basics of life … food and clothing, home, shelter … those might not be on our worry list, those of us gathered here today … but then, we US residents are wealthy people … maybe we don’t feel like it, but compared to the rest of the world, we really are.
Maybe some of you have heard that story about “if the world were shrunk down to 100 people” … you know the one, 60 would be Asian, 12 European, 14 Africans, 8 Latin Americans, 5 Americans. Of those 100, 5 would control over 30% of the world’s wealth and … yep … all 5 are Americans.
Still, even here, some of us have, and some of us don’t, and it’s a lot easier to not worry about food and clothing if you have some means, some money, some wealth.
But then, there’s always something to worry about, isn’t there … if it’s not food and clothing, it might be “… are we going to be able to save up enough money for the kids’ college education … or have enough for retirement … or even pay our medical bills?”
And that’s what Jesus means here. Worry divides and distracts … it takes us away from the whole, complete life of God’s shalom to which Jesus is calling us when he says, at the end of last week’s Gospel reading, “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
That life of shalom, of wholeness, in which we hear Christ’s call to love our enemies, to not plot revenge, to be generous to others … the life of shalom for which Jesus goes all the way to the Cross … to give to us … in our repentance and his forgiveness, our falling short and his restoration.
And Jesus has even more to say to us about this. Though others might strive for the stuff that we worry about … what Jesus sees here is more than just “working for stuff,” working for that which causes worry … Jesus calls us to strive after … literally, to find our answer, to our quest, our search for meaning … that quintessential human question, “what does it all mean,”…
Jesus says, encourages, admonishes us, not to look for the answer to that question in “what will we eat” or “what will we drink” or “what will we wear?”
Because he knows we’ll be disappointed.
And yet again, that’s a tough answer. It’s easier for a person who has the means of life, some assurance of a safe future, a secure job or retirement, to go searching for meaning outside of stuff … than it is for someone who lives hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck, month after month after month.
And that’s why the final Word Jesus has for us here is just that … “Therefore, I tell you” …
Yes, that’s right … YOU … a big, collective, plural YOU.
Jesus knows that, separate and separated, we’ll most certainly worry. Remember that worry’s root meaning is division and distraction. Alone, by ourselves, it’s always easier to worry about things, stuff, the future, whatever.
That’s why this passage of the Sermon on the Mount is, finally, a call for us to be together … for us who follow Jesus to come together and be together … rich and poor, have and have not … to come together in our striving, our searching for meaning, to be together as a body, Christ’s body, in the world.
A body, Christ’s body in the world, where together, as community, we can and will bear each other’s burdens.
A body, Christ’s body in the world, where together, as community, we can and will gather around Christ’s Word, in water and in forgiveness, in bread and wine.
A body’ Christ’s body in the world, in and through which, in and through each other … Jesus’ light and love shining into our worrisome lives through our gathering together, through our presence together, here, for each other … out there, for others, growing in and through the light of the Son … this is how we find true meaning for this life.
Yes, there will still be troubling, worrisome things happening around us. The stock market, the national debt, jobs coming and going … Jesus never said, “believe in me and *poof* everything gets better”… what he did say is “tomorrow will, indeed, bring worries of its own.”
What Jesus does offer us is food for the journey … traveling companions for the journey … wholeness and healing, forgiveness and grace, mercy and peace for this life … so that we can live this life as he intends it for us.
Much better than the future a hamburger, a bottle of beer or pop, a pair of Levis can offer us.
For Jesus’ much better is … enough.
And always, for us.
Amen.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
20 February 2010
“Prism”
7th Sunday in Ordinary Time / Season of Epiphany
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18 / Matthew 5:38-48
20 February 2010
So far, in this Epiphany season … this season when we talk about, read, take in these Scripture readings about Jesus living more and more into the title, “Light of the World” … we, here as Nativity, have given this season our own theme of “Let the Son … S-O-N … shine” … and each Sunday, we’ve been looking at different ways that the light of Jesus comes into our lives.
A couple of these ways have been rather complex … the example of parallax (the concept that things may not appear to us, to be as they really are) … and the yellow color of light, the color salt light – sodium light – is seen by us … well, you may have felt like you have been walking into a science lesson here every week …
… and you know, that’s OK. For too long, science and faith have been seen as enemies … with some scientists distrusting religion, religious people, as backward Neanderthals hanging onto ridiculous superstitions … but far greater … far more people of faith, people who most certainly use the products of science in their everyday lives … but who, when it comes to matters of faith, consider science “godless” and atheistic … recall, some of you, last week, Pastor Gretchen’s frustration, mentioned in her time of the Word last week, as she told of her friend who went to a more fundamentalist church because “he didn’t want to think on Sunday morning” …
… well, I believe science and faith, they can and do go together … Jesus most certainly does NOT ask us to leave our minds at the door when we gather for worship each week.
But maybe concepts such as “parallax” and “yellow light” … well, perhaps that was a little too much, too deep of science talk for so early on Sunday morning.
Well, this week, I’ve got something far easier.
The prism.
We know about prisms. We’ve all seen prisms in action because we’ve all seen rainbows. A rainbow is the result of light passing through raindrops and getting “bent” into its various wavelengths.
That is what a prism does. It bends light, so that the light is “shaped” if you will, and changed, and viewed differently, depending on the location of the light and the location of the prism.
So too … does Jesus, and the light in his Word for us, become “bent” and “shaped” for us, depending on the prism we or others place between it and us.
This week, the light of the Gospel continues to shine for us through the words of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, where we’ve been the past few weeks, and will be for one more Sunday.
This section before us today is continuous with last week’s verses … the theme of “you have heard that is was said” was the way Jesus started out each little subsection last week, the verses immediately prior to these today, in which he spoke of murder, adultery and divorce, and compared the “you have heard it said” of the “word on the street” with the “but I say to you” word he gives for those who follow him.
But … depending on where you hold the prism … the light shining forth from Jesus’ words can be observed, seen, received in very different ways.
Some people place the prism in such a way that the light of these words shines to show Jesus as the new Moses, the new lawgiver. The difference between “you have heard it said” and “but I say to you” is there, they say, to show that for those who follow Jesus, the bar is set high … very high … even higher than it had been for God’s people before Jesus … and that the rules for being a Christian are clear and straightforward.
So … coming through this prism … Jesus’ word is received to say that, for Christians … these activities put you “outside” – outside the community of faith:
Unreconciled conflict or strife with a brother or sister believer.
Lust.
Divorce.
Swearing.
Selfishness – holding back in giving to others.
Revenge.
And so Jesus’ words at the conclusion of this section of Matthew’s gospel – “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” are heard as a call to “perfect Christian behavior” … and a warning that, stepping outside that perfect behavior for Christians means stepping outside the community, the family of faith.
And we know churches that believe, and act, this way … where divorced people are excluded from full participation in the community of faith … no remarriage, no Holy Communion, no forgiveness … where one’s political stance on this issue or that, brings at the very least, criticism from the officials of the faith, and at worst, calls for excommunication … exclusion from the faith community.
That’s the prism setting for “Jesus the New Lawgiver.”
But there are other settings.
We Lutherans are quite familiar with one ourselves … and it goes like this:
The Law has its place … the Law is good because it comes from God. But the Law demands perfection. Rules demand to be followed perfectly. There is no “half-following” the Law that satisfies it. Lex semper accusat … the Law always accuses.
Bad news for us.
But wait … there’s good news! And it’s called … grace! Forgiveness! We all know we can’t possibly live up to God’s demands of us in the Old Testament, nor Jesus’ commands of us here. And you know … Jesus must know this too … why else would he utter such ridiculous words, requirements of us like “if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away …” or “do not swear” … or “be perfect.” No one … not even Jesus … can expect that of us! Ha ha!
So it’s all grace! We can’t live up to the demands of the Law, but we’re always forgiven anyway, so what’s the big deal! Just try your best, do what you can, and when you screw up, hey, THERE’S ALWAYS GRACE.
Well … maybe that’s a bit extreme of a caricature of us Lutherans … but you get the point.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer did … he, Lutheran himself, seeing this kind of theology in action all around him … the Law done an “end run” around … he called this “Cheap Grace.” The “oh well” following human mess ups, screw ups, sins … falling short of the demands of the Law … whether it’s just an oops, excuse me kind of thing or a huge and flagrant fall … walking away with just a simple shrug of the shoulders and passing it off to “Oh well, I can never be perfect anyway, but there’s always grace, always grace …”
… that attitude cheapens God’s gift of grace, of forgiveness … as much as it cheapens, lessens, the Law, the rules.
Cheap Grace does not fulfill the Law, as Jesus says of himself … but in actuality it throws out the Law, its discussion, its demands.
And so what we’re left with is a morass, a mushy middle, the sinking sand of relativism and “well, that’s what YOU say is right.”
We don’t have to look very far to find this. We all know the elephant in the room in our ELCA is the continued fallout of our Churchwide Assembly 2009 vote on allowing partnered gays and lesbians to serve as ordained ministers in our denomination. The effects of that vote continue today … even in our own cluster, Shepherd of the Valley in Maple Valley had a vote last week, in which they decided to stay in the ELCA … while Zion, down the road, has had their first vote to leave … with the second, confirming vote to come, in the spring.
Pastors, leaders, lay people, theologians, bishops, gay people, straight people, all took, continue to take, their sides on this issue.
But some of us looked back … back to Jesus’ words here in the Sermon on the Mount … and other Scripture, other rules and laws, talking about proper behavior for leaders in the church … and we realized that … something changed … back in the 1970s … when we went from a church body in which pastors whose marriages ended in divorce were not allowed to continue in their calls as servant leaders … to today’s practice, where divorce among clergy is at least as common as it is in the general population … (perhaps more) and, whether or not a pastor has been divorced or remarried -- that has virtually no effect on their qualifying for service in the church.
Just this past week two of our friends and seminary classmates … another clergy couple, in fact … announced their divorce. Before the 1970s they would have had to resign their calls and move away. But today, other than a vaguely public announcement of what happened (I happened to see it on Facebook) things carry on for them professionally as if nothing happened.
Which, granted, is probably well and good for them … and for the churches they serve. Pastors are just like everyone else, with all the foibles, mistakes, sins committed as anyone. Putting us up on a pedestal is dangerous, both for the church as an institution, and for us personally. The higher we’re elevated, the harder it hurts when we fall.
The point is … we went from divorce being a serious matter for pastors and the church … to today’s deafening silence … without any public discussion of this matter whatsoever. No churchwide studies. No assembly votes. Quietly, Jesus’ words against divorce and remarriage, Paul’s words against divorce and remarriage of clergy … their authoritative word for us … just … went away.
And so … some of us said … where is our integrity? How can we as a church possibly prohibit gays and lesbians in committed relationships from serving as ordained pastors … a topic about which Jesus says absolutely nothing … when, on the other hand, we as a church have without study, without discussion… ignored, set aside, turned away … some might say, graced away, the weightiness of Jesus’ words about divorce?
That is the problem with cheap grace. Grace, poured out too fast, too soon … it’s like a bailout before you hit rock bottom … receiving the balm of the Gospel before you even know why you need it … before you even feel the sting of not being able to perfectly keep the Law ... it mocks Jesus’ death on the cross … really, why did he have to die at all, since God knows we’re all bound to fall short of the Law anyway, he’s just going to forgive us all anyway, anyhow.
But there is a third way. A third way which avoids perfectionism and legalism … and, on the other hand, feel-good, why can’t we all just get along Cheap Grace.
To find it, we need to look back a couple of weeks in our readings from the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus bookends this section of Scripture in Matthew’s gospel with not just ONE call for perfection, but two …
Chapter 5, verse 20 … “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
And today, Chapter 5, verse 48 … “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
And in between … all that talk about being angry with a brother or sister, adultery, lust, divorce, swearing, revenge, loving your enemies.
Jesus is indeed paralleling the Word of God given to Moses, which we have before us in our Old Testament reading from Leviticus this morning … what we call the “Holiness Code” because of that Word given there to the Israelites, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”
And that’s because … what is given there in Leviticus and here in Matthew is covenant language … language about living in relationship, in God’s family … together with God, together with Jesus, together with one another.
It is talk, it is language, it is expectations of what living in relationship, in and with one another is all about.
It helps us recall the Ten Commandments … the original Holiness Code if you will … words which also start out with the words “I am the Lord your God” … words which we have interpreted as “thou shalt” and “thou shalt nots” … rules, laws, requirements for living … but these, too, are words given to be lived out in covenant relationship … family words, family talk … “I’m your God … you’re my children … in my family, here’s how we do things … we honor life … we value sexual relationships … we help protect other’s property … we live this life satisfied with what we have.”
We’ve all experienced this kind of talk in our own families … somewhere, someone along the way likely sat us down and said to us, “you’re a (insert your family name here) … and in this family, here’s how we do things …
And so the demand for perfection … isn’t letter perfect perfection, stepping outside that line meaning “you’re out of the family” … but neither is it an empty word, meaningless … a marker to a past way of things, or just there for no reason whatsoever, since it’s all grace and forgiveness and love love love anyway …
… no, even as we look at the Greek word Jesus uses … it’s telos … signifying wholeness, completeness, integrity …
… so here, Jesus is calling us, we who have heard his call to join him on the discipleship path, to follow him … he is calling us to live and to love in the same whole, fulfilling, complete way as God our Father lives and loves for us.
This is God’s peace, God’s shalom.
In our Gospel word today … this Shalom for us means not taking revenge … it means no retaliating violence. Period.
It means turning the other cheek to our enemies. Giving up our cloaks to them … exposing our nakedness, literally, figuratively, we are to be completely vulnerable before them.
Shalom means loving as God loves. God-love your enemies … agape love is the word here … which is far different from Cheap Grace love. God-love holds people accountable for their actions when they step outside the boundaries of right and wrong. We don’t lust after revenge but neither do we relativize or trivialize their violation of the rule of Law.
So we discipline them … in the true sense of the word … the root of discipline is disciple … we show them, through our words and our actions, what God is like, how Jesus loves … not by letting our enemies off the hook, but by loving and praying for them, that they would change.
But what happens when … they don’t change? When we don’t live up to the “family standards” … into the covenant … what happens when relationship is broken … broken, through adultery, through divorce, through violence or greed or selfishness?
The offense… the violence … the hurt … it leaves its mark. It doesn’t just “go away,” nor can it be washed over in a tide of cheap grace, cheap grace which cheapens the hurt, the offense, cheapens the one hurt … and yes, cheapens God.
The Word is clear. “I say to you.”
The Word is clear. “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
The Word is clear. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
The Word is clear.
And so, then, must this word be clear.
“Let us confess our sin in the presence of God and one another.”
“We confess that we have fallen short of the life you desire for us.”
“Have mercy, O God.”
The Word is clear.
And so, then, must this word be clear.
“You belong to Christ, and through the power of the Cross – Jesus, dying for you and me to make us right with God – through the power of the Cross, +your sins are all forgiven.”
The Word is clear.
And Jesus puts down a Cross in the middle of it, a Cross on which he dies and from which he rises to new life, rises to acknowledge sickness and proclaim healing … acknowledge bondage and proclaim release, acknowledge condemnation and proclaim forgiveness.
To give us … righteousness exceeding that of the Scribes and Pharisees.
Perfection. Wholeness. Completeness. Shalom.
In Christ, all these are yours. You belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
So have peace and healing and wholeness in yourself, and peace, healing and wholeness in your relationships with others.
And so we rise in that forgiveness and peace, wholeness and shalom, rise to live another day, we who have literally been to hell and back, now we rise to bring others through it as well, not separating from or shunning, not avoiding or ignoring, not denying, but living, living as Jesus calls us …
In his name. Amen.
7th Sunday in Ordinary Time / Season of Epiphany
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18 / Matthew 5:38-48
20 February 2010
So far, in this Epiphany season … this season when we talk about, read, take in these Scripture readings about Jesus living more and more into the title, “Light of the World” … we, here as Nativity, have given this season our own theme of “Let the Son … S-O-N … shine” … and each Sunday, we’ve been looking at different ways that the light of Jesus comes into our lives.
A couple of these ways have been rather complex … the example of parallax (the concept that things may not appear to us, to be as they really are) … and the yellow color of light, the color salt light – sodium light – is seen by us … well, you may have felt like you have been walking into a science lesson here every week …
… and you know, that’s OK. For too long, science and faith have been seen as enemies … with some scientists distrusting religion, religious people, as backward Neanderthals hanging onto ridiculous superstitions … but far greater … far more people of faith, people who most certainly use the products of science in their everyday lives … but who, when it comes to matters of faith, consider science “godless” and atheistic … recall, some of you, last week, Pastor Gretchen’s frustration, mentioned in her time of the Word last week, as she told of her friend who went to a more fundamentalist church because “he didn’t want to think on Sunday morning” …
… well, I believe science and faith, they can and do go together … Jesus most certainly does NOT ask us to leave our minds at the door when we gather for worship each week.
But maybe concepts such as “parallax” and “yellow light” … well, perhaps that was a little too much, too deep of science talk for so early on Sunday morning.
Well, this week, I’ve got something far easier.
The prism.
We know about prisms. We’ve all seen prisms in action because we’ve all seen rainbows. A rainbow is the result of light passing through raindrops and getting “bent” into its various wavelengths.
That is what a prism does. It bends light, so that the light is “shaped” if you will, and changed, and viewed differently, depending on the location of the light and the location of the prism.
So too … does Jesus, and the light in his Word for us, become “bent” and “shaped” for us, depending on the prism we or others place between it and us.
This week, the light of the Gospel continues to shine for us through the words of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, where we’ve been the past few weeks, and will be for one more Sunday.
This section before us today is continuous with last week’s verses … the theme of “you have heard that is was said” was the way Jesus started out each little subsection last week, the verses immediately prior to these today, in which he spoke of murder, adultery and divorce, and compared the “you have heard it said” of the “word on the street” with the “but I say to you” word he gives for those who follow him.
But … depending on where you hold the prism … the light shining forth from Jesus’ words can be observed, seen, received in very different ways.
Some people place the prism in such a way that the light of these words shines to show Jesus as the new Moses, the new lawgiver. The difference between “you have heard it said” and “but I say to you” is there, they say, to show that for those who follow Jesus, the bar is set high … very high … even higher than it had been for God’s people before Jesus … and that the rules for being a Christian are clear and straightforward.
So … coming through this prism … Jesus’ word is received to say that, for Christians … these activities put you “outside” – outside the community of faith:
Unreconciled conflict or strife with a brother or sister believer.
Lust.
Divorce.
Swearing.
Selfishness – holding back in giving to others.
Revenge.
And so Jesus’ words at the conclusion of this section of Matthew’s gospel – “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” are heard as a call to “perfect Christian behavior” … and a warning that, stepping outside that perfect behavior for Christians means stepping outside the community, the family of faith.
And we know churches that believe, and act, this way … where divorced people are excluded from full participation in the community of faith … no remarriage, no Holy Communion, no forgiveness … where one’s political stance on this issue or that, brings at the very least, criticism from the officials of the faith, and at worst, calls for excommunication … exclusion from the faith community.
That’s the prism setting for “Jesus the New Lawgiver.”
But there are other settings.
We Lutherans are quite familiar with one ourselves … and it goes like this:
The Law has its place … the Law is good because it comes from God. But the Law demands perfection. Rules demand to be followed perfectly. There is no “half-following” the Law that satisfies it. Lex semper accusat … the Law always accuses.
Bad news for us.
But wait … there’s good news! And it’s called … grace! Forgiveness! We all know we can’t possibly live up to God’s demands of us in the Old Testament, nor Jesus’ commands of us here. And you know … Jesus must know this too … why else would he utter such ridiculous words, requirements of us like “if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away …” or “do not swear” … or “be perfect.” No one … not even Jesus … can expect that of us! Ha ha!
So it’s all grace! We can’t live up to the demands of the Law, but we’re always forgiven anyway, so what’s the big deal! Just try your best, do what you can, and when you screw up, hey, THERE’S ALWAYS GRACE.
Well … maybe that’s a bit extreme of a caricature of us Lutherans … but you get the point.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer did … he, Lutheran himself, seeing this kind of theology in action all around him … the Law done an “end run” around … he called this “Cheap Grace.” The “oh well” following human mess ups, screw ups, sins … falling short of the demands of the Law … whether it’s just an oops, excuse me kind of thing or a huge and flagrant fall … walking away with just a simple shrug of the shoulders and passing it off to “Oh well, I can never be perfect anyway, but there’s always grace, always grace …”
… that attitude cheapens God’s gift of grace, of forgiveness … as much as it cheapens, lessens, the Law, the rules.
Cheap Grace does not fulfill the Law, as Jesus says of himself … but in actuality it throws out the Law, its discussion, its demands.
And so what we’re left with is a morass, a mushy middle, the sinking sand of relativism and “well, that’s what YOU say is right.”
We don’t have to look very far to find this. We all know the elephant in the room in our ELCA is the continued fallout of our Churchwide Assembly 2009 vote on allowing partnered gays and lesbians to serve as ordained ministers in our denomination. The effects of that vote continue today … even in our own cluster, Shepherd of the Valley in Maple Valley had a vote last week, in which they decided to stay in the ELCA … while Zion, down the road, has had their first vote to leave … with the second, confirming vote to come, in the spring.
Pastors, leaders, lay people, theologians, bishops, gay people, straight people, all took, continue to take, their sides on this issue.
But some of us looked back … back to Jesus’ words here in the Sermon on the Mount … and other Scripture, other rules and laws, talking about proper behavior for leaders in the church … and we realized that … something changed … back in the 1970s … when we went from a church body in which pastors whose marriages ended in divorce were not allowed to continue in their calls as servant leaders … to today’s practice, where divorce among clergy is at least as common as it is in the general population … (perhaps more) and, whether or not a pastor has been divorced or remarried -- that has virtually no effect on their qualifying for service in the church.
Just this past week two of our friends and seminary classmates … another clergy couple, in fact … announced their divorce. Before the 1970s they would have had to resign their calls and move away. But today, other than a vaguely public announcement of what happened (I happened to see it on Facebook) things carry on for them professionally as if nothing happened.
Which, granted, is probably well and good for them … and for the churches they serve. Pastors are just like everyone else, with all the foibles, mistakes, sins committed as anyone. Putting us up on a pedestal is dangerous, both for the church as an institution, and for us personally. The higher we’re elevated, the harder it hurts when we fall.
The point is … we went from divorce being a serious matter for pastors and the church … to today’s deafening silence … without any public discussion of this matter whatsoever. No churchwide studies. No assembly votes. Quietly, Jesus’ words against divorce and remarriage, Paul’s words against divorce and remarriage of clergy … their authoritative word for us … just … went away.
And so … some of us said … where is our integrity? How can we as a church possibly prohibit gays and lesbians in committed relationships from serving as ordained pastors … a topic about which Jesus says absolutely nothing … when, on the other hand, we as a church have without study, without discussion… ignored, set aside, turned away … some might say, graced away, the weightiness of Jesus’ words about divorce?
That is the problem with cheap grace. Grace, poured out too fast, too soon … it’s like a bailout before you hit rock bottom … receiving the balm of the Gospel before you even know why you need it … before you even feel the sting of not being able to perfectly keep the Law ... it mocks Jesus’ death on the cross … really, why did he have to die at all, since God knows we’re all bound to fall short of the Law anyway, he’s just going to forgive us all anyway, anyhow.
But there is a third way. A third way which avoids perfectionism and legalism … and, on the other hand, feel-good, why can’t we all just get along Cheap Grace.
To find it, we need to look back a couple of weeks in our readings from the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus bookends this section of Scripture in Matthew’s gospel with not just ONE call for perfection, but two …
Chapter 5, verse 20 … “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
And today, Chapter 5, verse 48 … “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
And in between … all that talk about being angry with a brother or sister, adultery, lust, divorce, swearing, revenge, loving your enemies.
Jesus is indeed paralleling the Word of God given to Moses, which we have before us in our Old Testament reading from Leviticus this morning … what we call the “Holiness Code” because of that Word given there to the Israelites, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”
And that’s because … what is given there in Leviticus and here in Matthew is covenant language … language about living in relationship, in God’s family … together with God, together with Jesus, together with one another.
It is talk, it is language, it is expectations of what living in relationship, in and with one another is all about.
It helps us recall the Ten Commandments … the original Holiness Code if you will … words which also start out with the words “I am the Lord your God” … words which we have interpreted as “thou shalt” and “thou shalt nots” … rules, laws, requirements for living … but these, too, are words given to be lived out in covenant relationship … family words, family talk … “I’m your God … you’re my children … in my family, here’s how we do things … we honor life … we value sexual relationships … we help protect other’s property … we live this life satisfied with what we have.”
We’ve all experienced this kind of talk in our own families … somewhere, someone along the way likely sat us down and said to us, “you’re a (insert your family name here) … and in this family, here’s how we do things …
And so the demand for perfection … isn’t letter perfect perfection, stepping outside that line meaning “you’re out of the family” … but neither is it an empty word, meaningless … a marker to a past way of things, or just there for no reason whatsoever, since it’s all grace and forgiveness and love love love anyway …
… no, even as we look at the Greek word Jesus uses … it’s telos … signifying wholeness, completeness, integrity …
… so here, Jesus is calling us, we who have heard his call to join him on the discipleship path, to follow him … he is calling us to live and to love in the same whole, fulfilling, complete way as God our Father lives and loves for us.
This is God’s peace, God’s shalom.
In our Gospel word today … this Shalom for us means not taking revenge … it means no retaliating violence. Period.
It means turning the other cheek to our enemies. Giving up our cloaks to them … exposing our nakedness, literally, figuratively, we are to be completely vulnerable before them.
Shalom means loving as God loves. God-love your enemies … agape love is the word here … which is far different from Cheap Grace love. God-love holds people accountable for their actions when they step outside the boundaries of right and wrong. We don’t lust after revenge but neither do we relativize or trivialize their violation of the rule of Law.
So we discipline them … in the true sense of the word … the root of discipline is disciple … we show them, through our words and our actions, what God is like, how Jesus loves … not by letting our enemies off the hook, but by loving and praying for them, that they would change.
But what happens when … they don’t change? When we don’t live up to the “family standards” … into the covenant … what happens when relationship is broken … broken, through adultery, through divorce, through violence or greed or selfishness?
The offense… the violence … the hurt … it leaves its mark. It doesn’t just “go away,” nor can it be washed over in a tide of cheap grace, cheap grace which cheapens the hurt, the offense, cheapens the one hurt … and yes, cheapens God.
The Word is clear. “I say to you.”
The Word is clear. “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
The Word is clear. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
The Word is clear.
And so, then, must this word be clear.
“Let us confess our sin in the presence of God and one another.”
“We confess that we have fallen short of the life you desire for us.”
“Have mercy, O God.”
The Word is clear.
And so, then, must this word be clear.
“You belong to Christ, and through the power of the Cross – Jesus, dying for you and me to make us right with God – through the power of the Cross, +your sins are all forgiven.”
The Word is clear.
And Jesus puts down a Cross in the middle of it, a Cross on which he dies and from which he rises to new life, rises to acknowledge sickness and proclaim healing … acknowledge bondage and proclaim release, acknowledge condemnation and proclaim forgiveness.
To give us … righteousness exceeding that of the Scribes and Pharisees.
Perfection. Wholeness. Completeness. Shalom.
In Christ, all these are yours. You belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
So have peace and healing and wholeness in yourself, and peace, healing and wholeness in your relationships with others.
And so we rise in that forgiveness and peace, wholeness and shalom, rise to live another day, we who have literally been to hell and back, now we rise to bring others through it as well, not separating from or shunning, not avoiding or ignoring, not denying, but living, living as Jesus calls us …
In his name. Amen.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
6 February 2011
“Yellow”
Psalm 112:1-9 / Matthew 5:13-20
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time / Season of Epiphany
6 February 2011
Salt and light.
Two substances which you wouldn’t think would go together.
But they do.
And the result is … yellow light. Warm, pleasing, yellow light.
When you throw salt into fire … when you electrify sodium vapour … the result is yellow flames … yellow light.
Some of us are old enough to remember when street lights were all mercury vapour … we still have a couple of examples right here at Nativity … our two big parking lot lights. Mercury vapour lights became big in the 1940s because they were relatively cheap and gave off a lot of light.
But it’s not a realistic-looking light. It washes out true colors, and makes people look like ghosts.
So the sodium vapour streetlight was introduced in the mid-1970s. It’s hard to remember when our streets weren’t lit with their yellow/orange light … and even harder to remember that people, at first, didn’t like their yellow light, even though it made things look better, more realistic, safer night light for both drivers and pedestrians.
Sodium light … salt light … makes things look real.
I don’t think Jesus had streetlights or even, throwing salt into a fire, in mind, when he said these words in his Sermon on the Mount.
But I do think that he was trying to make a connection between salt and light – and a comment on what it is to be truly human … following God’s call, and his – Jesus’ – example – of living this life.
“You are the salt of the earth, “ Jesus said to those surrounding him, there on that mountain, our Gospel text picking up where we left off last week, in these familiar verses of what’s called the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew’s gospel.
“Salt of the earth” is a familiar phrase for us. When we use it, we are usually referring to people who bring out the true colors of human existence … good, solid, hard-working, trustworthy, faithful individuals who we usually want to emulate … copy … follow in their example.
The Rolling Stones’ song – written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards … illustrates this well:
Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's drink to the lowly of birth …
Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth
To be “salt of the earth” means, simply, to be real people … truly human … honest, hard-working, without guile, what you see is what you get. Masks off, no pretending … in other words … to be as the people Jesus called forth in the Beatitudes we heard and read last Sunday …
Blessed are the poor in spirit … the meek … those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.
These are the salt of the earth. “You are the salt of the earth.”
“But if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?”
Salt isn’t like other spices … those other flavor enhancers we keep on the kitchen shelf, some of which have expiration dates stamped on the bottom of their containers … they can lose their potency, their zip and zest … but salt isn’t like that. Sodium chloride stays sodium chloride, no matter how long it sits out, how “old” it gets in the container.
There’s only one way in which salt can lose its taste, its “saltiness” … and that is, to dilute it … to weaken its concentration … to so water it down as to make it have little to no taste in the vehicle … food, drink … which contains it.
If you wash it out … it’s not salt anymore, is it?
Sort of how those old mercury vapour lights do to people … they wash us out, and make us look less than human …
“You are the salt of the earth.” Jesus is calling those who follow him to be salty disciples … not washed out, not diluted … no, to full strength let their, our, light so shine before others that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven.
Strongly salty disciples give off a pleasant light, a light which shows to others what being truly human is all about.
Our psalm today illustrates this well.
Granted, the translation before us this morning leaves something to be desired … the rather insipid “happy are they” should more properly be “blessed are those” … which should remind us of those Beatitudes, those blessings, we read and heard last week in worship.
Remember that “blessing” is far deeper than just the emotion of “happiness.” Sometimes “blessing” can make us feel anything but happy.
Certainly when Jesus says “blessed are the meek … the poor in spirit … the peacemakers” that’s the case.
And yet, Jesus calls them “blessed.” Because that is where Jesus is … right there … right here … as salt, as light, pouring forth into these dark places of life … bringing hope and healing, comfort and peace.
And here is where Jesus calls us, salty disciples, with the glow of warm, attractive light … where he calls us to be as well.
The Psalmist makes a similar move here, centuries earlier, in the words of this 112th Psalm.
What does “blessed” look like for “those” of whom the Psalmist writes here?
Perhaps, well, likely, not what we would call “happy” states of being, to be sure.
Being full of compassion. Being generous in lending and managing one’s affairs with justice. Giving freely to the poor … and above all, trusting in the Lord.
And yet … here is where those who follow the Lord are called to be … living as salty disciples, full of rich, warm light, pouring forth into the lives of those who need it most.
Being as “a city” … living, serving together … as community, communities of salt and light, pouring forth into the lives of those who need it most.
This is what it means to be real people … truly human … to hear and follow the call of the Lord to be salt and light to the world.
May your light so shine before others … bright, yellow, warming in its glow … the Son Shining through you … that others may see you as “real people” and want to follow you as you follow the Lord … seeing, copying your good works and giving glory to your Father, our Father in heaven.
Amen.
Psalm 112:1-9 / Matthew 5:13-20
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time / Season of Epiphany
6 February 2011
Salt and light.
Two substances which you wouldn’t think would go together.
But they do.
And the result is … yellow light. Warm, pleasing, yellow light.
When you throw salt into fire … when you electrify sodium vapour … the result is yellow flames … yellow light.
Some of us are old enough to remember when street lights were all mercury vapour … we still have a couple of examples right here at Nativity … our two big parking lot lights. Mercury vapour lights became big in the 1940s because they were relatively cheap and gave off a lot of light.
But it’s not a realistic-looking light. It washes out true colors, and makes people look like ghosts.
So the sodium vapour streetlight was introduced in the mid-1970s. It’s hard to remember when our streets weren’t lit with their yellow/orange light … and even harder to remember that people, at first, didn’t like their yellow light, even though it made things look better, more realistic, safer night light for both drivers and pedestrians.
Sodium light … salt light … makes things look real.
I don’t think Jesus had streetlights or even, throwing salt into a fire, in mind, when he said these words in his Sermon on the Mount.
But I do think that he was trying to make a connection between salt and light – and a comment on what it is to be truly human … following God’s call, and his – Jesus’ – example – of living this life.
“You are the salt of the earth, “ Jesus said to those surrounding him, there on that mountain, our Gospel text picking up where we left off last week, in these familiar verses of what’s called the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew’s gospel.
“Salt of the earth” is a familiar phrase for us. When we use it, we are usually referring to people who bring out the true colors of human existence … good, solid, hard-working, trustworthy, faithful individuals who we usually want to emulate … copy … follow in their example.
The Rolling Stones’ song – written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards … illustrates this well:
Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's drink to the lowly of birth …
Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth
To be “salt of the earth” means, simply, to be real people … truly human … honest, hard-working, without guile, what you see is what you get. Masks off, no pretending … in other words … to be as the people Jesus called forth in the Beatitudes we heard and read last Sunday …
Blessed are the poor in spirit … the meek … those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.
These are the salt of the earth. “You are the salt of the earth.”
“But if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?”
Salt isn’t like other spices … those other flavor enhancers we keep on the kitchen shelf, some of which have expiration dates stamped on the bottom of their containers … they can lose their potency, their zip and zest … but salt isn’t like that. Sodium chloride stays sodium chloride, no matter how long it sits out, how “old” it gets in the container.
There’s only one way in which salt can lose its taste, its “saltiness” … and that is, to dilute it … to weaken its concentration … to so water it down as to make it have little to no taste in the vehicle … food, drink … which contains it.
If you wash it out … it’s not salt anymore, is it?
Sort of how those old mercury vapour lights do to people … they wash us out, and make us look less than human …
“You are the salt of the earth.” Jesus is calling those who follow him to be salty disciples … not washed out, not diluted … no, to full strength let their, our, light so shine before others that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven.
Strongly salty disciples give off a pleasant light, a light which shows to others what being truly human is all about.
Our psalm today illustrates this well.
Granted, the translation before us this morning leaves something to be desired … the rather insipid “happy are they” should more properly be “blessed are those” … which should remind us of those Beatitudes, those blessings, we read and heard last week in worship.
Remember that “blessing” is far deeper than just the emotion of “happiness.” Sometimes “blessing” can make us feel anything but happy.
Certainly when Jesus says “blessed are the meek … the poor in spirit … the peacemakers” that’s the case.
And yet, Jesus calls them “blessed.” Because that is where Jesus is … right there … right here … as salt, as light, pouring forth into these dark places of life … bringing hope and healing, comfort and peace.
And here is where Jesus calls us, salty disciples, with the glow of warm, attractive light … where he calls us to be as well.
The Psalmist makes a similar move here, centuries earlier, in the words of this 112th Psalm.
What does “blessed” look like for “those” of whom the Psalmist writes here?
Perhaps, well, likely, not what we would call “happy” states of being, to be sure.
Being full of compassion. Being generous in lending and managing one’s affairs with justice. Giving freely to the poor … and above all, trusting in the Lord.
And yet … here is where those who follow the Lord are called to be … living as salty disciples, full of rich, warm light, pouring forth into the lives of those who need it most.
Being as “a city” … living, serving together … as community, communities of salt and light, pouring forth into the lives of those who need it most.
This is what it means to be real people … truly human … to hear and follow the call of the Lord to be salt and light to the world.
May your light so shine before others … bright, yellow, warming in its glow … the Son Shining through you … that others may see you as “real people” and want to follow you as you follow the Lord … seeing, copying your good works and giving glory to your Father, our Father in heaven.
Amen.
6 February 2011
“Yellow”
Psalm 112:1-9 / Matthew 5:13-20
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time / Season of Epiphany
6 February 2011
Salt and light.
Two substances which you wouldn’t think would go together.
But they do.
And the result is … yellow light. Warm, pleasing, yellow light.
When you throw salt into fire … when you electrify sodium vapour … the result is yellow flames … yellow light.
Some of us are old enough to remember when street lights were all mercury vapour … we still have a couple of examples right here at Nativity … our two big parking lot lights. Mercury vapour lights became big in the 1940s because they were relatively cheap and gave off a lot of light.
But it’s not a realistic-looking light. It washes out true colors, and makes people look like ghosts.
So the sodium vapour streetlight was introduced in the mid-1970s. It’s hard to remember when our streets weren’t lit with their yellow/orange light … and even harder to remember that people, at first, didn’t like their yellow light, even though it made things look better, more realistic, safer night light for both drivers and pedestrians.
Sodium light … salt light … makes things look real.
I don’t think Jesus had streetlights or even, throwing salt into a fire, in mind, when he said these words in his Sermon on the Mount.
But I do think that he was trying to make a connection between salt and light – and a comment on what it is to be truly human … following God’s call, and his – Jesus’ – example – of living this life.
“You are the salt of the earth, “ Jesus said to those surrounding him, there on that mountain, our Gospel text picking up where we left off last week, in these familiar verses of what’s called the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew’s gospel.
“Salt of the earth” is a familiar phrase for us. When we use it, we are usually referring to people who bring out the true colors of human existence … good, solid, hard-working, trustworthy, faithful individuals who we usually want to emulate … copy … follow in their example.
The Rolling Stones’ song – written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards … illustrates this well:
Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's drink to the lowly of birth …
Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth
To be “salt of the earth” means, simply, to be real people … truly human … honest, hard-working, without guile, what you see is what you get. Masks off, no pretending … in other words … to be as the people Jesus called forth in the Beatitudes we heard and read last Sunday …
Blessed are the poor in spirit … the meek … those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.
These are the salt of the earth. “You are the salt of the earth.”
“But if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?”
Salt isn’t like other spices … those other flavor enhancers we keep on the kitchen shelf, some of which have expiration dates stamped on the bottom of their containers … they can lose their potency, their zip and zest … but salt isn’t like that. Sodium chloride stays sodium chloride, no matter how long it sits out, how “old” it gets in the container.
There’s only one way in which salt can lose its taste, its “saltiness” … and that is, to dilute it … to weaken its concentration … to so water it down as to make it have little to no taste in the vehicle … food, drink … which contains it.
If you wash it out … it’s not salt anymore, is it?
Sort of how those old mercury vapour lights do to people … they wash us out, and make us look less than human …
“You are the salt of the earth.” Jesus is calling those who follow him to be salty disciples … not washed out, not diluted … no, to full strength let their, our, light so shine before others that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven.
Strongly salty disciples give off a pleasant light, a light which shows to others what being truly human is all about.
Our psalm today illustrates this well.
Granted, the translation before us this morning leaves something to be desired … the rather insipid “happy are they” should more properly be “blessed are those” … which should remind us of those Beatitudes, those blessings, we read and heard last week in worship.
Remember that “blessing” is far deeper than just the emotion of “happiness.” Sometimes “blessing” can make us feel anything but happy.
Certainly when Jesus says “blessed are the meek … the poor in spirit … the peacemakers” that’s the case.
And yet, Jesus calls them “blessed.” Because that is where Jesus is … right there … right here … as salt, as light, pouring forth into these dark places of life … bringing hope and healing, comfort and peace.
And here is where Jesus calls us, salty disciples, with the glow of warm, attractive light … where he calls us to be as well.
The Psalmist makes a similar move here, centuries earlier, in the words of this 112th Psalm.
What does “blessed” look like for “those” of whom the Psalmist writes here?
Perhaps, well, likely, not what we would call “happy” states of being, to be sure.
Being full of compassion. Being generous in lending and managing one’s affairs with justice. Giving freely to the poor … and above all, trusting in the Lord.
And yet … here is where those who follow the Lord are called to be … living as salty disciples, full of rich, warm light, pouring forth into the lives of those who need it most.
Being as “a city” … living, serving together … as community, communities of salt and light, pouring forth into the lives of those who need it most.
This is what it means to be real people … truly human … to hear and follow the call of the Lord to be salt and light to the world.
May your light so shine before others … bright, yellow, warming in its glow … the Son Shining through you … that others may see you as “real people” and want to follow you as you follow the Lord … seeing, copying your good works and giving glory to your Father, our Father in heaven.
Amen.
Psalm 112:1-9 / Matthew 5:13-20
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time / Season of Epiphany
6 February 2011
Salt and light.
Two substances which you wouldn’t think would go together.
But they do.
And the result is … yellow light. Warm, pleasing, yellow light.
When you throw salt into fire … when you electrify sodium vapour … the result is yellow flames … yellow light.
Some of us are old enough to remember when street lights were all mercury vapour … we still have a couple of examples right here at Nativity … our two big parking lot lights. Mercury vapour lights became big in the 1940s because they were relatively cheap and gave off a lot of light.
But it’s not a realistic-looking light. It washes out true colors, and makes people look like ghosts.
So the sodium vapour streetlight was introduced in the mid-1970s. It’s hard to remember when our streets weren’t lit with their yellow/orange light … and even harder to remember that people, at first, didn’t like their yellow light, even though it made things look better, more realistic, safer night light for both drivers and pedestrians.
Sodium light … salt light … makes things look real.
I don’t think Jesus had streetlights or even, throwing salt into a fire, in mind, when he said these words in his Sermon on the Mount.
But I do think that he was trying to make a connection between salt and light – and a comment on what it is to be truly human … following God’s call, and his – Jesus’ – example – of living this life.
“You are the salt of the earth, “ Jesus said to those surrounding him, there on that mountain, our Gospel text picking up where we left off last week, in these familiar verses of what’s called the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew’s gospel.
“Salt of the earth” is a familiar phrase for us. When we use it, we are usually referring to people who bring out the true colors of human existence … good, solid, hard-working, trustworthy, faithful individuals who we usually want to emulate … copy … follow in their example.
The Rolling Stones’ song – written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards … illustrates this well:
Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's drink to the lowly of birth …
Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth
To be “salt of the earth” means, simply, to be real people … truly human … honest, hard-working, without guile, what you see is what you get. Masks off, no pretending … in other words … to be as the people Jesus called forth in the Beatitudes we heard and read last Sunday …
Blessed are the poor in spirit … the meek … those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.
These are the salt of the earth. “You are the salt of the earth.”
“But if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?”
Salt isn’t like other spices … those other flavor enhancers we keep on the kitchen shelf, some of which have expiration dates stamped on the bottom of their containers … they can lose their potency, their zip and zest … but salt isn’t like that. Sodium chloride stays sodium chloride, no matter how long it sits out, how “old” it gets in the container.
There’s only one way in which salt can lose its taste, its “saltiness” … and that is, to dilute it … to weaken its concentration … to so water it down as to make it have little to no taste in the vehicle … food, drink … which contains it.
If you wash it out … it’s not salt anymore, is it?
Sort of how those old mercury vapour lights do to people … they wash us out, and make us look less than human …
“You are the salt of the earth.” Jesus is calling those who follow him to be salty disciples … not washed out, not diluted … no, to full strength let their, our, light so shine before others that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven.
Strongly salty disciples give off a pleasant light, a light which shows to others what being truly human is all about.
Our psalm today illustrates this well.
Granted, the translation before us this morning leaves something to be desired … the rather insipid “happy are they” should more properly be “blessed are those” … which should remind us of those Beatitudes, those blessings, we read and heard last week in worship.
Remember that “blessing” is far deeper than just the emotion of “happiness.” Sometimes “blessing” can make us feel anything but happy.
Certainly when Jesus says “blessed are the meek … the poor in spirit … the peacemakers” that’s the case.
And yet, Jesus calls them “blessed.” Because that is where Jesus is … right there … right here … as salt, as light, pouring forth into these dark places of life … bringing hope and healing, comfort and peace.
And here is where Jesus calls us, salty disciples, with the glow of warm, attractive light … where he calls us to be as well.
The Psalmist makes a similar move here, centuries earlier, in the words of this 112th Psalm.
What does “blessed” look like for “those” of whom the Psalmist writes here?
Perhaps, well, likely, not what we would call “happy” states of being, to be sure.
Being full of compassion. Being generous in lending and managing one’s affairs with justice. Giving freely to the poor … and above all, trusting in the Lord.
And yet … here is where those who follow the Lord are called to be … living as salty disciples, full of rich, warm light, pouring forth into the lives of those who need it most.
Being as “a city” … living, serving together … as community, communities of salt and light, pouring forth into the lives of those who need it most.
This is what it means to be real people … truly human … to hear and follow the call of the Lord to be salt and light to the world.
May your light so shine before others … bright, yellow, warming in its glow … the Son Shining through you … that others may see you as “real people” and want to follow you as you follow the Lord … seeing, copying your good works and giving glory to your Father, our Father in heaven.
Amen.
6 February 2011
“Yellow”
Psalm 112:1-9 / Matthew 5:13-20
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time / Season of Epiphany
6 February 2011
Salt and light.
Two substances which you wouldn’t think would go together.
But they do.
And the result is … yellow light. Warm, pleasing, yellow light.
When you throw salt into fire … when you electrify sodium vapour … the result is yellow flames … yellow light.
Some of us are old enough to remember when street lights were all mercury vapour … we still have a couple of examples right here at Nativity … our two big parking lot lights. Mercury vapour lights became big in the 1940s because they were relatively cheap and gave off a lot of light.
But it’s not a realistic-looking light. It washes out true colors, and makes people look like ghosts.
So the sodium vapour streetlight was introduced in the mid-1970s. It’s hard to remember when our streets weren’t lit with their yellow/orange light … and even harder to remember that people, at first, didn’t like their yellow light, even though it made things look better, more realistic, safer night light for both drivers and pedestrians.
Sodium light … salt light … makes things look real.
I don’t think Jesus had streetlights or even, throwing salt into a fire, in mind, when he said these words in his Sermon on the Mount.
But I do think that he was trying to make a connection between salt and light – and a comment on what it is to be truly human … following God’s call, and his – Jesus’ – example – of living this life.
“You are the salt of the earth, “ Jesus said to those surrounding him, there on that mountain, our Gospel text picking up where we left off last week, in these familiar verses of what’s called the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew’s gospel.
“Salt of the earth” is a familiar phrase for us. When we use it, we are usually referring to people who bring out the true colors of human existence … good, solid, hard-working, trustworthy, faithful individuals who we usually want to emulate … copy … follow in their example.
The Rolling Stones’ song – written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards … illustrates this well:
Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's drink to the lowly of birth …
Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth
To be “salt of the earth” means, simply, to be real people … truly human … honest, hard-working, without guile, what you see is what you get. Masks off, no pretending … in other words … to be as the people Jesus called forth in the Beatitudes we heard and read last Sunday …
Blessed are the poor in spirit … the meek … those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.
These are the salt of the earth. “You are the salt of the earth.”
“But if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?”
Salt isn’t like other spices … those other flavor enhancers we keep on the kitchen shelf, some of which have expiration dates stamped on the bottom of their containers … they can lose their potency, their zip and zest … but salt isn’t like that. Sodium chloride stays sodium chloride, no matter how long it sits out, how “old” it gets in the container.
There’s only one way in which salt can lose its taste, its “saltiness” … and that is, to dilute it … to weaken its concentration … to so water it down as to make it have little to no taste in the vehicle … food, drink … which contains it.
If you wash it out … it’s not salt anymore, is it?
Sort of how those old mercury vapour lights do to people … they wash us out, and make us look less than human …
“You are the salt of the earth.” Jesus is calling those who follow him to be salty disciples … not washed out, not diluted … no, to full strength let their, our, light so shine before others that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven.
Strongly salty disciples give off a pleasant light, a light which shows to others what being truly human is all about.
Our psalm today illustrates this well.
Granted, the translation before us this morning leaves something to be desired … the rather insipid “happy are they” should more properly be “blessed are those” … which should remind us of those Beatitudes, those blessings, we read and heard last week in worship.
Remember that “blessing” is far deeper than just the emotion of “happiness.” Sometimes “blessing” can make us feel anything but happy.
Certainly when Jesus says “blessed are the meek … the poor in spirit … the peacemakers” that’s the case.
And yet, Jesus calls them “blessed.” Because that is where Jesus is … right there … right here … as salt, as light, pouring forth into these dark places of life … bringing hope and healing, comfort and peace.
And here is where Jesus calls us, salty disciples, with the glow of warm, attractive light … where he calls us to be as well.
The Psalmist makes a similar move here, centuries earlier, in the words of this 112th Psalm.
What does “blessed” look like for “those” of whom the Psalmist writes here?
Perhaps, well, likely, not what we would call “happy” states of being, to be sure.
Being full of compassion. Being generous in lending and managing one’s affairs with justice. Giving freely to the poor … and above all, trusting in the Lord.
And yet … here is where those who follow the Lord are called to be … living as salty disciples, full of rich, warm light, pouring forth into the lives of those who need it most.
Being as “a city” … living, serving together … as community, communities of salt and light, pouring forth into the lives of those who need it most.
This is what it means to be real people … truly human … to hear and follow the call of the Lord to be salt and light to the world.
May your light so shine before others … bright, yellow, warming in its glow … the Son Shining through you … that others may see you as “real people” and want to follow you as you follow the Lord … seeing, copying your good works and giving glory to your Father, our Father in heaven.
Amen.
Psalm 112:1-9 / Matthew 5:13-20
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time / Season of Epiphany
6 February 2011
Salt and light.
Two substances which you wouldn’t think would go together.
But they do.
And the result is … yellow light. Warm, pleasing, yellow light.
When you throw salt into fire … when you electrify sodium vapour … the result is yellow flames … yellow light.
Some of us are old enough to remember when street lights were all mercury vapour … we still have a couple of examples right here at Nativity … our two big parking lot lights. Mercury vapour lights became big in the 1940s because they were relatively cheap and gave off a lot of light.
But it’s not a realistic-looking light. It washes out true colors, and makes people look like ghosts.
So the sodium vapour streetlight was introduced in the mid-1970s. It’s hard to remember when our streets weren’t lit with their yellow/orange light … and even harder to remember that people, at first, didn’t like their yellow light, even though it made things look better, more realistic, safer night light for both drivers and pedestrians.
Sodium light … salt light … makes things look real.
I don’t think Jesus had streetlights or even, throwing salt into a fire, in mind, when he said these words in his Sermon on the Mount.
But I do think that he was trying to make a connection between salt and light – and a comment on what it is to be truly human … following God’s call, and his – Jesus’ – example – of living this life.
“You are the salt of the earth, “ Jesus said to those surrounding him, there on that mountain, our Gospel text picking up where we left off last week, in these familiar verses of what’s called the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew’s gospel.
“Salt of the earth” is a familiar phrase for us. When we use it, we are usually referring to people who bring out the true colors of human existence … good, solid, hard-working, trustworthy, faithful individuals who we usually want to emulate … copy … follow in their example.
The Rolling Stones’ song – written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards … illustrates this well:
Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's drink to the lowly of birth …
Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth
To be “salt of the earth” means, simply, to be real people … truly human … honest, hard-working, without guile, what you see is what you get. Masks off, no pretending … in other words … to be as the people Jesus called forth in the Beatitudes we heard and read last Sunday …
Blessed are the poor in spirit … the meek … those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.
These are the salt of the earth. “You are the salt of the earth.”
“But if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?”
Salt isn’t like other spices … those other flavor enhancers we keep on the kitchen shelf, some of which have expiration dates stamped on the bottom of their containers … they can lose their potency, their zip and zest … but salt isn’t like that. Sodium chloride stays sodium chloride, no matter how long it sits out, how “old” it gets in the container.
There’s only one way in which salt can lose its taste, its “saltiness” … and that is, to dilute it … to weaken its concentration … to so water it down as to make it have little to no taste in the vehicle … food, drink … which contains it.
If you wash it out … it’s not salt anymore, is it?
Sort of how those old mercury vapour lights do to people … they wash us out, and make us look less than human …
“You are the salt of the earth.” Jesus is calling those who follow him to be salty disciples … not washed out, not diluted … no, to full strength let their, our, light so shine before others that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven.
Strongly salty disciples give off a pleasant light, a light which shows to others what being truly human is all about.
Our psalm today illustrates this well.
Granted, the translation before us this morning leaves something to be desired … the rather insipid “happy are they” should more properly be “blessed are those” … which should remind us of those Beatitudes, those blessings, we read and heard last week in worship.
Remember that “blessing” is far deeper than just the emotion of “happiness.” Sometimes “blessing” can make us feel anything but happy.
Certainly when Jesus says “blessed are the meek … the poor in spirit … the peacemakers” that’s the case.
And yet, Jesus calls them “blessed.” Because that is where Jesus is … right there … right here … as salt, as light, pouring forth into these dark places of life … bringing hope and healing, comfort and peace.
And here is where Jesus calls us, salty disciples, with the glow of warm, attractive light … where he calls us to be as well.
The Psalmist makes a similar move here, centuries earlier, in the words of this 112th Psalm.
What does “blessed” look like for “those” of whom the Psalmist writes here?
Perhaps, well, likely, not what we would call “happy” states of being, to be sure.
Being full of compassion. Being generous in lending and managing one’s affairs with justice. Giving freely to the poor … and above all, trusting in the Lord.
And yet … here is where those who follow the Lord are called to be … living as salty disciples, full of rich, warm light, pouring forth into the lives of those who need it most.
Being as “a city” … living, serving together … as community, communities of salt and light, pouring forth into the lives of those who need it most.
This is what it means to be real people … truly human … to hear and follow the call of the Lord to be salt and light to the world.
May your light so shine before others … bright, yellow, warming in its glow … the Son Shining through you … that others may see you as “real people” and want to follow you as you follow the Lord … seeing, copying your good works and giving glory to your Father, our Father in heaven.
Amen.
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