13 “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 is thrown out and trampled under foot.
Matthew 5:13-20 (NRSVue)
14 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 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. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
My sermon from the 5th Sunday after Epiphany (February 5, 2023) on Matthew 5:13-20.
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I am not a miracle worker but everyday I try to make the impossible happen. Sometimes I’m being silly like pretending my mind is powerful enough to make a parking spot magically appear in front of the store I’m trying to visit. But other times what I’m trying to do is a bit more personal. When I see someone who is sad or who is feeling down, my first instinct is to make them “feel” better. And over the years, I’ve tried to do this by making them laugh or taking them to do something fun. If, however, I’m the reason for why they’re feeling what they’re feeling, I tend to become a bit defensive and act as if my intentions are more important than what they’re going through. If we’ve ever been told to “calm down” or “just relax” while going through something traumatic, we know how impossible it is to change what another person feels. Yet we keep trying to do that because, I think, we don’t really know how to manage our own feelings when someone else is feeling what they feel. We, instead, teach one another to hide our feelings or we learn how certain feelings among certain kinds of people are more important than others. Our own insecurities, defensiveness, and need to appear happy cause us to push hard against those who wonder if there’s a different way to be. It’s difficult enough for us, on our own, to feel what we feel. And it seems a bit unfair that we, at the same time, have to be around others who feel what they feel too.
Today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew is a continuation of what we heard last week. Jesus, after quickly developing a reputation as a healer and a preacher, sat down on a mountain to teach those who came to see him. Jesus, in Matthew’s eyes, is like a new Moses, revealing what life can be like since the kingdom of heaven is near. Way back in the book of Exodus, Moses met God in a cloud on Mt. Sinai and delivered to the people the Ten Commandments. These words from God were given to a community who, for 400 years, had been forced to live a certain way because of their enslavement by the Egyptians. God, after freeing them, gave the Israelites something that was more than simply a list of dos and do nots. They were part of a larger revelation from God about what it means to live together. This revelation is often called the “law” which sounds a bit legalistic. Yet the Hebrew word behind the Greek word in our reading today that was translated as “law” is really all about “teaching.” And while a list of rules provides a structure we can live in, this teaching from God is how we discover what living is meant to be. Jesus, then, began his ministry in Matthew doing exactly that: he taught. And after a series of sayings about God noticing those we usually push aside, Jesus moved the conversation into something odd with a simple “you are.”
Now it’s not uncommon, when we’re teaching, to focus on what another person “should” do. For example, when we show others how to cross the street, we tell them they “should” look both ways before they step onto the road. Our “shoulds” do a lot of lifting when we’re teaching others how they should live their lives. Yet it’s very interesting that at this early moment in Jesus’ teaching, he doesn’t use the word “should.” There he was, sitting on a mountain side, looking out at his disciples and a crowd of people who needed to be healed. Jesus didn’t tell any of them that they “should be the salt of the earth” or that they should be “the light of the world.” He, instead, shared how that was already what they were. To the fishermen who left their nets and their families behind on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus told them: “you are the salt of the earth.” To the parents bringing their sick child to see him and to the blind man who had to beg for food, Jesus told them: “you are the light of the world.” In a world that believes only certain kinds of people get to decide what all our “shoulds” should be, Jesus looked at everyone around him and said we’re already something more.
We, traditionally, are a little more familiar with Jesus’ saying about “light” since we hear it during every baptism. But on this day, I was drawn to Jesus’ comments about salt. Salt is so accessible to us that we often talk about it in a slightly negative way. We, especially as we get older, worry about how much salt is in our diet and we lament at how destructive, though necessary, salt is when ice shows up on our roads. If you went on a scavenger hunt in the church right now, you would find salt in boxes and bags and little glass shakers all over the building. Yet in Jesus’ day, salt was viewed as something, while ordinary, was extremely precious. It was the primary way food was preserved since refrigerators hadn’t been invented yet. And there are descriptions in our Bible of salt being necessary during certain practices and rituals. Our cultural history is so wrapped up in salt that even the word “salary,” which will be a part of today’s annual Congregational Meeting when we talk about the 2023 budget, is derived from a Latin term describing the allowance a soldier received to purchase salt. Salt is very necessary yet Jesus focused on how this very ordinary thing makes an impact on what we do everyday. Salt has a habit of enhancing flavor in whatever we’re eating. And you – the ordinary you, the emotional you, the one who teaches others the “shoulds” we, ourselves, sometimes ignore – you, through baptism and in faith, are a salt enhancing a certain kind of flavor that’s part of our world.
But what, exactly, is that flavor supposed to be? Well, I think it’s tied to Jesus’ comments later in the passage about righteousness. Stanley Stowers, in a reflection on this passage, wrote: “We often think that righteousness is a matter of being a better, nicer, more ethical person: the righteous attend church regularly, give when the offering plate is passed, avoid common vices, and treat others kindly…[but for] Jesus…righteousness is concerned with mercy, forgiveness, and, most of all, justice…” It’s a righteousness that takes a look at the living we do together and how that reflects the fullness of our God. God doesn’t need us to “pursue the kind of morality that divides the world into the righteous and the unrighteous” nor does God need us to become a people “whose sense of righteousness denies the reality of grace.” The flavor God is already bringing out in the world is one where we, through acts of mercy and love, notice and see and work hard to make every relationship whole. One way we do this is by letting ourselves and others feel what we feel. We will have to learn how to emotionally handle the times when there is nothing we say or do that can make anything better. We will discover the courage, strength, and humility necessary to say we’re sorry and to never let our intentions be worth more than what people actually experience. We will, in a sense, stop asking ourselves to do the impossible and, instead, do what Jesus did. He, while teaching, sat with the broken, the hurting, the curious, the emotional, and even those who he knew would abandon him in the end. Yet he remained right there – to show how we, as the salt of the earth and the light of the world, can do the very possible thing of living with one another too.
Amen.