Salt & Light
Here we are still in the wall-hanging, cross-stitched, jeopardy category parts of Jesus’ sermon on the mount as it is recorded in Matthew’s gospel.
There are some big themes uncovered today that follow from where we started last week – remember that last week, we explored the beatitudes, the “blessing statements” that pronounce blessing on the meek and mourning and poor in spirit, those seeking righteousness and offering mercy.
And we pondered what it meant to read them NOT as statements about what IS to come or what will be one day but rather as statements about who God is and what God values right here in the here and now. God is the God of the humble, meek, the merciful and the pure in heart. Not one day. Right now. Even when the world seems to value other things.
And this week, Jesus begins with statements about those gathered and listening – and not aspirational statements but statements that claim a present reality – you ARE salt of the earth. You ARE light for the world.
Salt and light are vital additives. Salt is used to make food flavorful but it is also a preservative AND it is required in our bodies, helping us to seek hydration, keep our electrolytes in balance. The right amount of salt is VITAL – important for our very life.
And here in the dark days of winter, many of us can attest to the vital importance of light. Seasonal affective disorder is a kind of seasonal depression that can be triggered by changing patterns of light. In the winter months, there is less daylight. And that throws our bodies into a low functioning mode sometimes.
I suppose in the evolutionary cycle it helped us to preserve calories in a time when hunting and gathering were limited by weather, BUT today with full refrigerators, waning light changes our brain chemistry in ways that cause some to really struggle. Light makes plants grow, but it also keeps us alive. And it helps our vision!
So…Jesus moves from teaching about who God is to teaching about who we are in light of who God is.
And then he says something quite important about who HE – Jesus - is. Jesus says he has come not to abolish the law and the prophets – not to erase or replace them, but rather he comes to fulfill them.
He then goes on to talk about how hard it is to be righteous, and how vitally important it will be for the future that the law is accomplished. He talks about how hard it will be for those who will break these commandments. He talks about how important it is for our righteousness to exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees.
Wait a minute. Last week, we talked a bit about how Jesus’s claims about who God cares for stand in deep contrast to the powers of the Temple and of the oppressor Rome. Jesus tangles with the Pharisees time and time again throughout his ministry – they are perpetually trying to catch him in lawlessness and his is perpetually pointing to the nuances of law that they overlook.
Sometimes, I want to read Jesus as the guy who looked at the powers that be and said, no…you have it all wrong, you are concerned about all the wrong things. And that is sort of what is going on but it is WAY more nuanced than that.
And the nuance matters.
Jesus is teaching his disciples understand and live the law through the lens of their lived reality, which was a season of all kinds of tension.
Let’s unpack some of that tension for this passage.
We’ve talked in the past about being occupied by Rome. So…an historic people to whom God promised a special and important place in the world, now find themselves subject to an invasive political power.
Foreign occupation in this middle eastern location meant that there are gentiles / foreigners (remember that gentiles are simply anyone not JEWISH in this context) and Roman soldiers at every turn. Different languages are creeping in. New societal norms are being introduced. New and unfamiliar religious practices show up.
How can the holy land and God’s holy people co-exist with all of these outside / foreign influences? That’s one facet of the conflicted reality into which Jesus is preaching here.
And then, within the religious structures that the Jews valued for order and righteousness, there was strong disagreement about how to live in this state of foreign occupation.
It’s complicated (it always is). The Sadducees, typically of higher socio-economic status within Jewish society, were seeking some harmony with Rome in an effort to preserve the Temple in a way they saw valuable. And maybe in a way least disruptive to their way of life. The Pharisees were divided about foreign occupation – some wanted to isolate themselves as Jewish community, creating self-contained communities to preserve their understanding of the law and their set-apart status. No need to upset the apple cart – live and let live…let’s just live over here in this little ghetto.
Others among the Pharisees looked to violent protest – perhaps you’ve heard to these referred to as the Zealots. Taking out a Roman official every now and then seems justified in light of the threat to all that the Jews know and hold dear. So within the community of the Jews, there are wildly different opinions about how to be righteous, good, God-loving and loyal. How to live in this complicated time.
It sounds kind of familiar, right?
And then into the mix emerges this man, Jesus. And he’s attracting big crowds. And he’s saying he’s got a different way. A way that includes all who are willing to hear and follow the law in a way his ministry will reinterpret over time.
A way of being in the world and not of it. A way of being salt that is sprinkled throughout and a way of being light that is not hidden under a bushel or isolated in the Jewish quarter.
I cannot listen to this passage (actually, I cannot listen to most of Matthew) and NOT get drawn into my child of the 70s identity and the musical “Godspell.”
(As we creep near to Lent, I feel the need to warn you that this is how I came to know the gospel, not in the King James version but in the lyrics of musicals that suggested that Jesus had a message that is rightfully reinterpreted in times of wild social change. It is a Lenten practice of mine to swim in both Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar.)
For those of you unfamiliar, Godspell was a dramatized reinterpretation of Matthew’s gospel staged by a band of homeless hippies of sorts. With rock beats and guitar licks and wild costumes, the musical places Jesus’s ministry in a context that is ripe with cultural conflict.
Jesus and his followers emerge as a counterpoint to all that is going on in the systems and norms of society. More recently I’ve seen Godspell staged in steam punk or goth styles – creating a similar message about outsiders in a bigger societal order. And in 2018, NBC aired a production of Jesus Christ Superstar with John Legend cast as Jesus. Make no mistake that the visual was about violence against a black Jesus, and it aired to a mass market audience that was having a tense conversation about how black lives matter.
These dramatic interpretations seek to make a point.
Jesus was pretty anti-establishment, preaching peace and love into human systems where those typically fall somewhere below money and power as priorities.
Jesus is making a public commitment to the law and the teachings of the prophets.
This is all being framed in this first LARGE public teaching to a wide audience known as the sermon on the mount.
That teaching starts with who God is and who we are in light of that. And Jesus will go on from what we’ve read today to unpack some specifics of how we are to behave. How it is that WE in our context, will follow Jesus as a fulfillment of the law and the prophets.
How do we then imagine Jesus entering into the religious and political divide of today? And what does it mean for us to seek to be more righteous than the experts and the keepers of the tradition?
In the midst of a divided world – in the midst of a divided country – where it would seem half of the folks have one plan of action and one perspective on right and wrong and how that gets lived out, and another half have another perspective, and neither one seems to be working particularly well OR seems to be particularly in keeping with what it means to walk like Jesus, what are we to do?
Sometimes, I hear people say – we can’t talk about “that” (where “that” is the hot policy topic of the day – things like income inequality, affordable healthcare, immigration, education) because “that” is too political.
Folks, Jesus was political.
I share with you a quote from Tommy Givens, associate professor of New Testament studies at Fuller Seminary:
“Christians today often forget that the word translated as “church” in the New Testament, ekklesia, means political assembly. Like the assembly of Israelite authorities from the time of Moses before it, “church” is Scripture’s name for a gathering, political community, with its own law and authority figures. Not surprisingly, when the growth of the Christian movement began to threaten the stability of established Roman society in Asia Minor in the 2nd century AD, the Roman proconsul Pliny issued a decree prohibiting “political associations” (Pliny the Younger, Ep. 10.96) as part of his violent crackdown on Christianity.
That the church was and is political does not entail the pursuit of violent sovereignty and the imposition of Christian ways on others, however. But it does mean that the Christian church is a public reality, that in the patterns of its life it cannot submit itself to a political authority other than Christ the humble Lord, and that it will always be in a politically influential relationship with the other communities with whom it shares its places.”
Jesus was not about one candidate or one party...but he was about one God.
Jesus was asking those who would follow him to apply the laws, you know - the laws that had been handed to the Israelites as a way of being a community called by God to be God’s people to share God’s light with the rest of the world, - he was asking his followers to apply those laws in a way that manifested the Kingdom of God where the meek and the mourning, the pure in heart and the peacemakers are the root of God’s blessedness.
And so we need to be willing to talk about and then act on behalf of righteousness where definitions of truth and honesty are twisted by current events.
We need to be willing to talk about and act on what it means to care for the orphan and the widow when poverty, illness and safety are all impacted by our daily economic choices.
We have to be willing to talk about and act on how we love one another rather than how we love those that are part of our circles of influence.
Maybe it feels political, but most importantly, it is GOSPEL good news…God’s grace and love made manifest in the way people get to live their lives.
Who are the interpreters of today? We must be – as the ekklesia – an assembly with our own law and authority figures.
Jesus told the gathered that they were salt and light, created to be in the mix because salt and light are VITAL to the thriving of the whole.
Our work is to walk with Christ today looking to the past, living in the present and living toward a future where God’s love is known and felt, even by those with whom we disagree.
Be salt.
Be light.
You are not the meal. You are the additive.
You are not the heat source, you are the illumination that makes life visible.
You are not the full text, you are the revelation.
May it be so.
Amen.
SOURCES:
The Politics of the Church in the World, Tommy Givens, https://fullerstudio.fuller.edu/politics-church-world/, accessed February 8, 2020.
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Commentary on Matthew, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 1.
Preaching this Week, WorkingPreacher.org.
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