Everybody Should Do It
The Rev. Amy Morgan
March 20, 2011
[Matthew 5:13-20] ‘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 is thrown out and trampled under foot.
‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the 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 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 fulfil. 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. 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.
So, I have a really limited knowledge and understanding of science. And I have a kid who has decided that he is a scientist. Which is great. Except that he has tons of questions about science – the way things work, where things come from, how things grow. Because I generally don’t have the correct scientific answer for him, I give him the best answer I know: Because that’s how God made it. It may not be the answer he’s looking for, but it’s not wrong.
Thankfully, we have much smarter people in our congregation. This week my scientific phone-a-friend was Dexter Snyder. He introduced me to an organism called a stromatolite. Here is a fossil of stromatolite, in its colony – or home. This particular specimen comes from Upper Michigan. Scientists like Dexter know that this is the first life on earth for which we have any evidence. It is a single-celled bacteria that reached out to convert sunlight into its food, so it could survive and grow. This first life on earth started over 2 billion years ago and – this is the really amazing part – it created from water the oxygen on which you and I depend. These simple lifeforms set the stage for all that was to follow in God’s Creation. And they are still alive today, in places like Australia.
With this start in a harsh world, life steadily developed into more complex forms, thanks in part to this tiny creature, living the way God made it.
Much, much later on in the story of the world, we find Jesus, talking to his disciples with this big crowd of people around him listening in. I want you to imagine being a part of that crowd, so let me tell you a little bit about the people Jesus was talking to. They were mostly, if not all, Jewish. They were descended from Abraham. You heard in our first reading today that God told Abraham that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed. The bible tells us that the descendants of Abraham, the Israelites, the Jewish people were special to God. But they were special to God because God planned to use them to bless all the people in the world.
But the Jewish people who were listening to Jesus were having a hard time understanding that. You see, for a long, long time, these people had been picked on, bossed around, and beaten up by other people. For hundreds of years, other people had taken over their land, captured them and made them slaves, and made life hard for them. At the time Jesus came, the Roman Empire ruled over the Jewish people. The Romans made life hard for the Jewish people, and they did things that were offensive to Jewish law, the laws God had given to them. It was hard for the Jewish people to see themselves as a blessing to other people when other people were treating them so badly.
Some Jews tried to get along with the Roman Empire. Keeping peace with those in charge, even if it meant they might not keep God’s law as perfectly as they would like to, would help the Jewish people survive under Roman rule. Other groups of Jews decided that what was needed was violence against the Romans. They felt they could fight the Romans off and get their land back. Another group of Jews thought they should just focus on Jewish tradition, Jewish law, Jewish culture. They should ignore the Romans and just try to be as Jewish as they possibly could.
The problem was, none of these groups of Jewish people were focused on how to be a blessing to all people. They weren’t trying to bless the Romans, or the Greeks, or any of the other people living in the Roman Empire who weren’t part of the Jewish family.
So when Jesus talks to his friends, his disciples, with all of these Jewish people listening in, what does he tell them?
“You are the salt of the earth.” The salt of the earth. What does that mean? When Jesus was on earth, salt was used for all sorts of things. It was used in sacrifices, it was a symbol of loyalty and covenant relationship, it was used in purification rituals, and, of course, it seasoned and preserved food. But what did it mean for the Jewish people to be the salt of the earth? Jesus doesn’t tell them. He doesn’t say, “You’re supposed to help people be in covenant relationship with each other and with God” or “you’re supposed to be a pure people set apart from the world” or “ You’re supposed to spice up people’s lives” or “You’re supposed to preserve the Jewish law and traditions and culture.” Instead, he talks about what happens to salt when it loses its saltiness. He talks about what happens when salt quits being what it is supposed to be, what God made it to be. Jesus doesn’t tell his friends and the crowds to try harder to be more salty, more Jewish. He tells them that they’re not being what God made them to be. They’re not being a blessing to all people. And if they’re not being what God made them to be, they’re not useful, they’re not fulfilling their God-given purpose.
Jesus then starts talking about light, telling the people that they are the “light of the world.” Now, this is a funny thing to say because, in the gospel of John, Jesus says that he is the light of the world. So which is it? Jesus or the Jewish people? Well, I think it’s both. And that is at the heart of what Jesus is trying to tell the disciples and the surrounding crowd.
Jesus is the light of the world, the Kingdom of Heaven come down to earth. This light, Jesus, helps us to see God, to see other people as God sees them, to see the world as God’s beautiful and amazing creation. But God’s people are that light, too. God chose the Jewish people to be a blessing to all the people of the world. They were supposed to help people see God, they were supposed to see other people the way God sees them – as beloved and cherish children. They were supposed to help people see the world as God’s beautiful and amazing creation. But instead, they were hiding out. They weren’t standing out like a city on a hill. They weren’t shining their light. They were drawing into themselves, protecting themselves, keeping the light of God’s love and God’s good will for the world to themselves.
One group of them, called the Pharisees, were hiding their light by trying to follow God’s law perfectly. They ignored the society around them and focused on themselves.
When Jesus reminds them to be a blessing, to be salt and light, to those people around them– it sounds like Jesus is saying to give up on trying to follow God’s law. You can’t follow God’s law perfectly and really be in meaningful, loving, blessing relationship with Romans and Greeks and people from all different cultures and religions. Other people were unclean. They ate unclean food. They didn’t know anything about keeping Jewish law, and they didn’t care. How can the Jewish people let their light shine before others? How can people see their good works and give glory to God if they don’t even know what the law is about? Jesus is talking like the law doesn’t even matter.
So Jesus goes on to say that he hasn’t come to get rid of the law. In fact, he’s come to fulfill it, to complete it. And nothing about the law is going to change, not in the least, until “all is accomplished.” Now, Jesus isn’t talking about the Jewish people here. They’re not the ones who are going to accomplish God’s will. God is going to accomplish God’s will in Jesus Christ. And what is that will, that desire of God? To bless all people. To be in loving relationship with all people. God wants to invite all people into the kingdom of God. Jesus talks about the consequences of breaking even the least of the commandments and the rewards of doing and teaching them. But then he says, “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Here’s the thing. No one could be more righteous than the Pharisees. They made an art form out of keeping the law. That’s all they were concerned with. No one could possibly try any harder than the Pharisees to gain righteousness through the law. So then, who could possibly enter the kingdom of heaven? Now, here’s the irony. Jesus is the kingdom of heaven coming into the world, the fulfillment of God’s law. The kingdom of heaven isn’t a place people can enter through keeping the law. The kingdom of heaven is here on earth. People just needed light to see it. People just needed to be shown the way, connected to God in Jesus Christ. The world needed the Jewish people to be a blessing, the blessing God made them to be. And then they could be in the kingdom of heaven, they could be in relationship with God and with each other.
But that was difficult for the Jewish people of Jesus’ time. And understandably so. It is hard to be a blessing when people are cruel to you, ridicule you, take things from you, offend you. When those things happen, you tend to build walls around yourself. You shut down. You quit being yourself. You give up on being who God made you to be. You forget about being a blessing.
Notice how this fossil of these tiny stromatolites has these lines across it? These are layers. The stromatolites would grow for a while. They would work, take in sunlight, put oxygen from the water into the air. And then, they’d get covered over with dirt and silt. Their light would be gone, and they’d quit growing, quit putting oxygen in the air. Then, somehow, they’d get going again, start being what God made them to be. Time after time, as we see in these layers, these organisms got shut down, covered up. And yet, over and over, they would start growing again, blessing the earth with oxygen that eventually would allow life on earth to grow and develop and flourish. All these little stromatolites had to do was be what God created them to be, do what God created them to do. Even when they were covered up and it was hard to see the light, even when it seemed like there was nothing more they could do, they found a way to grow again, to be what God made them to be. Isn’t that an amazing thing?
That is what Jesus is asking of his followers. He’s not asking them to try harder to be salt and light. He’s not telling them to try harder to follow the law. You couldn’t try any harder than the Pharisees did. Jesus is inviting people to be who God made them to be – a blessing to all the world. Even when it’s hard. Even when they’re being put down and treated badly and it’s hard to see a brighter future. They are called to be God’s people of blessing.
Because, ultimately, they are people who have been blessed. They had been blessed with a special relationship with God. They had been taught God’s law, God’s way of living in right relationship with God and each other. They had been given prophets and kings to lead them. And finally, they were given God’s Son, Jesus. But they were given all this, they were blessed, as God told Abraham, so that they would be a blessing.
All the blessings of salt and light – relationship, flavor, preservation, illumination – they don’t benefit the salt and light. Salt and light exist for the blessing of others. All they have to do is be what God made them to be: salt and light. As long as they don’t lose their saltiness, as long as they don’t hide their light, people will be able to be in covenant relationship with God and with each other, people will be able to see the kingdom of God all around them.
Friends, we get it as wrong today as Jesus’ Jewish audience 2,000 years ago. We live in a culture that is not overtly hostile toward our faith, but which certainly offends our religious sensibilities and lives contrary to God’s will for creation. And so, instead of sticking our necks out to be a blessing, we retreat into our sanctuary. Sometimes literally.
We invite people in. We’re very hospitable. We make a nice place for people to come and worship, to grow and learn, to hear amazing music that lifts our spirits to God in prayer. We welcome children and families and people with special needs. We house the homeless and put on plays and host lock-ins for youth. We even welcome other organizations to use our facilities free of charge.
But we are less good at being a blessing to all the world. I’m not talking about mission trips and soup kitchens. I’m talking about those people we know don’t share our beliefs, who we know don’t have a relationship with God, who we know don’t see the kingdom of God in our midst. In the workplace, at school, at a restaurant, at the park. We forget to be a blessing. We lose our saltiness. We hide our light. We think that if we just act in a Christian way, if we live a good life, if we do the right things, that we are doing all God asks of us. But it’s not about what God is asking of us. It’s not about what we ought to be doing. We don’t need to go out and “save” people. God already did that in Jesus Christ. But we do need to be the people God made us to be – no matter where we go or what we do. We need to ask ourselves, are we being a blessing? Are we bringing people into relationship with God? Are we pointing out, shining light, on the kingdom of God that is everywhere in our midst? Because we have been blessed enough to see God’s kingdom, because we have been given the gift of faith, because we have the blessing of a relationship with God and with this community of faith, we are salt and light. We are a blessing to the world around us. But we have to be who God made us, even through the day to day stresses of life, the challenging interpersonal relationships, the divisiveness of our culture, and anxieties we carry.
In this whole passage, there is only one thing Jesus tells his disciples to do. “Let your light shine.” Let your light shine, and the God who created air to breathe and the vast variety of life on earth from a tiny, single-cell organism, will make you a blessing to all people. Through the dirt and darkness of life, through the stress and challenges of life, God will make you a blessing. Because that is how God made you.
