February 9, 2014
As you remain standing will you hear our Gospel lesson today taken from the 5th chapter of
Matthew beginning in verse 13 reading through verse 20? “You are the salt of the earth but if salt
has lost its taste how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but to be
thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot
be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket but on the lampstand and it
gives light to all in the house. In the same way let your light shine before others so that they may
see your good works and give glory to God, your Father in heaven. Do not think that I have
come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For I tell you
until heaven and earth pass away not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law
until it is all accomplished. Therefore whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever
does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven for I tell you unless
your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of
heaven.” The word of God for the people of God.
Thanks be to God.
Please be seated.
Yesterday we had a celebration of life for a dear servant of St. Luke, Mable Hester, who served
as the Administrative Assistant to the pastor and secretary for some 23 years, retiring in 1996
when Marion Edwards, the pastor at the time, was elected bishop, and she said she just did not
have it in her to break in another new preacher. And so she retired. But with great thanksgiving
for her life, her joy, her faithfulness and her service to this congregation and to the community.
Jesus preaches his Sermon on the Mount beginning with blessings. They’re simply thrown out.
Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the meek. It is good to know that you have a God who takes a
stand and where that God stands that is a concern for the poor and the least and the most
vulnerable. It is a God who makes himself known in the affairs of daily life. And maybe that’s
what people came for, was a blessing. I don’t know what thought process went into your being
here today but if it’s like any given Sunday we may have thought, well you know I could use a
blessing. I could use some word to inspire. I could use some word to encourage. I could certainly
hear music that would stir and bless the soul. I would be there for a blessing. But you notice
those of us who do and very legitimately so, come for a blessing, for something to quote help us
get through the week, to live more faithfully, guide our life, help me, suddenly get more than
they expected. For after the first twelve verses of blessing, blessing, blessing, the language
changes and now it’s not only a blessing that they receive but an assignment. And you’re
thinking, wait a minute, I’m sorry, my plate’s already full enough with the things I have to do. I
don’t need another assignment. But here Jesus looks at the crowd gathered and says, now you are
the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost its taste, what good would it be? You know where we
get our expression of those people who so embody integrity and humble goodness that they
permeate life with their life and love and make life a better place and we refer to them, well she’s
just the salt of the earth, they are the salt of the earth. Comes from this very expression. In our
day and time, salt may not be such a good thing. You hear one medical warning after another.
Watch the salt, it’ll kill you. It’ll affect your blood pressure, read the label. See how much salt’s
already in the food that you’re eating again and again. A danger. No so in Jesus’ day. Not that
they were unconcerned but in the time before refrigeration, preservation, salt was imperative to
preserve and to sustain life. Salted fish, salted meat. It was curative. You’ve heard the expression
rubbing salt in the wound. And that may be somebody whose adding insult to injury or it may be
the antiseptic affect. If you’ve ever been at the beach with a nick or a cut and wandered into the
water, you felt that antiseptic affect, the sting. Here is this preservative, so essential to life, so
valued for life, that Roman soldiers were paid in salt rather than currency. You are the salt of the
world. Us? Isn’t it amazing that Jesus doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t draw a long pause and a deep
breath or even bat an eye before he will suddenly recruit those who have been listening, ordinary
folks like ourselves, into a call to discipleship and commission them to be a part of what God is
doing in the world, His work, this work of redemption. Then he says, you are the light of the
world. Us? It’s one thing for John to reflect on the meaning of Jesus’ life. He was life. In him
was life that was the light of the world and the darkness is not overcome and we can all say,
affirmingly and adventing Christmas. Amen. But here Matthew has Jesus turning the tables and
it’s another thing to say altogether. In a world desperately in need of light, in a world that lives in
too much darkness, you are the light of the world. And not for your own benefit mind you. No
one lights a lamp and then puts a bushel basket over it and raise it up and says, yep, we still got
light. Got it right here. It’s for me. You put it on a lampstand and it brings light to the whole
room, the purpose. In the midst of the commission and calling is the dire warning with the
statement of salt. But if salt has lost its saltiness, what good is it? It is a statement that is
profoundly true in every generation and we’ve seen it in our own with institutions but it’s been
true in every generation, it is especially true with our life of discipleship and with the church.
Any time we become disconnected from our fundamental purpose for being, our ontological
grounding as to why we’re here, chaos, dysfunction ensues. You’ve seen it again and again.
Military whose purpose for being is maintaining the peace. Disconnected from that mission and
that fundamental purpose can become a ruthless war machine. Health systems whose primary
purpose for existence is health and well-being diverted to another purpose in the quote
healthcare industry can become something altogether different. Court system whose whole
purpose and existence is to insure and to administer justice and when you say that now they’ll
say how naive are you? Do you really think that’s what lawyers do and the way the court works?
But a calling back to a fundamental sense of purpose. And with the church our fundamental
purpose and grounding among the many things that we do is to share God’s salvation with the
world, with the world. Encompassing and broad scope all of the above, a concern for peace, a
concern for well-being. Just like the government. A concern for the common welfare, the public
good. What is our mission and purpose? And if you lose contact, if you are untethered from your
mission in life and your purpose, whether an institution or an individual, it has become almost
worthless and will be thrown on the heap pile only to be trampled, rather than an effective
instrument. It comes as an amazing call and challenge and as a dire warning. Do I dare turn away
from the purpose for which God has created me? You’re salt. You’re light. Both images are only
useful when they’re scattered, when they’re shared. When they’re stockpiled, when they’re
hoarded, they become useless. It is the purpose to permeate, to preserve life, to give light, to
illumine a way. And in Jesus’ day there was a group of kingdom people who were convinced
they were, in fact, kingdom people, scribes and Pharisees. And if we use the term Pharisee
synonymous with hypocrisy, we miss the whole point. They were dedicated. They were sincere.
They worked at it. They read their scriptures. They memorized their scriptures. They said their
prayers. They tithed their income. They were very conscientious to keep their lives pure of the
contamination of the culture around them. And in that they had become disconnected from their
fundamental purpose and God created them. That to be light, that to be life to the world around
them. Not to simply be one who has retreated from the world so that I can take care of me and
mine. I can lift up my basket and know that in a world of darkness there’s at least light in my
house and in my life. And Jesus’ scathing statement, if your righteousness, if you’re relationship
with God does not exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you’ll never enter the kingdom of
heaven. It had to be a shocking claim to the preachers of the day, to the Bible teachers of the day.
For they were convinced that they were kingdom people. Hearing this call is always a reminder
of our fundamental purpose for being here. And of God’s choosiness. I know that I might say
that you chose to get up and come this morning and indeed you did. But the truth of the matter is
for the bigger issues of life, as important as our choice is, God’s choice of us is infinitely more
important. You think of people whom God has used, ordinary people like ourselves, that it was
God’s choice. You ask Paul, how is that you got involved in this whole Christian undertaking?
When did you decide to become a Christian? And he said, you know, I was really going about
my business, doing the best I knew how, as fanatically as I knew how, and it was God’s choice
that laid hold of me. I don’t know that I chose. God chose me. You might say to Mary, now
when was it that you began you’re involvement and you chose to get involved in this narrative
with baby Jesus and Joseph. When did you decide? Well an angel appeared and announced to me
that God had claimed and chosen me. The more we gather before the word and choose to be
here, the more we’re exposed to God’s choice, to Christ’s choice. Now you are the salt of the
earth. You are the light of the world. And it’s not for your benefit alone but for the purposes of
God in this world. Don’t hoard it. Don’t stockpile it. Share it. Permeate the world. Elton
Trueblood, pastor from another denomination and another generation, even in 1958, wrote a
parable that he said expresses both the challenge and the peril of the church in every generation.
The move towards institutionalization. The parable goes like this. There’s a group of people who
lived along the coast. They were concerned because of the rocky coastline of all the crashes that
happened, bodies that were broken, sailors whose lives were lost. Crash after crash and they
heard the horrible stories and they decided that they must do something. And so they banded
together and they built a rescue station on the beach. It was a simple, modest building and they
outfitted it with the most essential tools. They built and they bought rowboats, lifeboats. They
equipped it with bandages and medical supplies. They even had medical people who would
volunteer their time to work in the rescue center. And it worked very well. They set up a siren,
hand cranked. One person who kept vigil and when there was a crash they could alert all the
others and people descended to the rescue station and they put out in lifeboats in teams and they
rescued and they saved many from the shipwrecks at sea. And the whole mission grew. People
saw the value of what they were doing. They saw how well it was being done and they wanted to
be a part of it. And so they came and they volunteered and they joined the rescue mission. And
they not only grew in numbers but they grew in prosperity. There were others who donated
money. They were well funded. They were no longer a modest little start. They had means. They
had resources. And some of the members of the rescue mission looked around said, you know,
we’re better than this with this building. We really need something bigger and grander. And so
they tore down the rescue station and they build a much grander rescue station. They outfitted it
with the fines carpet. They great upholstery, the greatest furnishings. And they were proud
because it was growing. It spoke of the dignity of the group of rescuers. But then there was
another crash. In the middle of the night when they brought the men, they got seawater,
saltwater, on the new carpet. And not everybody was happy. From the rescue they got blood on
some of the upholstery because that’s what they did here. And others were terribly upset. We
spent all this money! We have refurbished and upgraded and expanded. How can we desecrate
this place? These missions need to stop they said. We’ve grown beyond them. There were others
who just didn’t want to go on the rescue missions in the middle of the night and they were too
much work and so they agreed to entertain guests and visitors and give tours of the rescue
mission and that’s what they did each day. And after another crash and another incident they had
the big meeting of the rescue mission and it was divisive and there was a lot of animosity but the
vote was taken and they voted to stop the missions because it was destroying the place and we’ve
grown beyond that. But, of course, they would continue to give tours and talk about the old days
when we started as a rescue mission and the great things that had been done and they would
continue to solicit funds for the upkeep of the rescue mission even though it was now a shell of
what they had done. And a small group, disillusioned, pulled out and moved down the shoreline,
built a modest building, equipped it for the rescues, established a siren, trained the teams and
they stayed up and night and when there was a crash they were there to go out on the rescue
mission. But many a sailor died because there simply were not enough people willing to be a part
of the rescues. Elton Trueblood says it becomes a parable of the institutional church in our time.
I don’t personally believe that it has to be an either or choice. Wonderful facilities or mission.
But I do think Jesus’ words of salt and light is a powerful reminder to never become
disconnected from the purpose of being here and of facilities and it is the mission, it is the
mission, it is the mission. You are salt. Permeate the community to give life and preservation, to
preserve life. You are light, not to be kept in a cathedral, but scattered into every corner of life.
What a powerful reminder of kingdom people, what they look like, what they do, where is their
center. Again, it’s amazing that Jesus could call the likes of ordinary people, everyday people to
be the very instruments in the classroom, in the government, in business, in the hospital, in the
community, on the street, in the rescue mission, to be salt, to be light to all whom they meet. It’s
not meant to be hoarded. It’s not to be kept under a bushel. It is not to be stockpiled for our own
use. It is to be a part of the redemptive mission of salvation to the whole world. Thanks be to
God for his call in Christ. I guess the only question this text leaves us with, where is Christ
calling you to be his light. John Wesley never read the scriptures saying, how could we change
this scripture to be more relevant to the world in which we live? He always asked as he laid his
life, what changes do I have to make in my life to be more faithful to the call of God, in this text.
Where is God calling you to be, salt, light, salvation for another. May we pray?
Almighty God, for your grace and for your blessing, we lift our hearts in thanksgiving. Call us
outside of ourselves that we might be your very channels of blessing for this community, for this
world that through our lives offered to you through our labor, through our witness, others may
know your love, and your salvation through Christ our Lord. Amen.