The Hope and Help of Salt

Matthew 5:1-20

Have you checked out the variety of salts called for in recipes and available in the cooking aisle of the grocery store these days? There are easily a dozen different kinds of salt called for in various recipes and found in the store.

When I was growing up and learning to cook there was only one kind of salt in our cabinet or on our table: Morton’s Iodized Salt.

It came in a round blue cardboard canister with the picture of a little girl in a yellow dress, walking under an open umbrella with a canister of the salt tucked under her arm, but trailing a bit of the salt on the ground behind her.

Early on I learned – the hard way – that the amount of salt used in a recipe matters a great deal, for too little or too much of the stuff could ruin a dish.

Take for example chocolate cookies – a little salt brings out the sweetness in the chocolate and other ingredients in the cookie, but if you confuse the teaspoon called for in a recipe with a tablespoon of the stuff, well, let’s just say no one is going to want to eat your batch of America’s favorite cookie. How do I know this? Well, I’ll leave you in suspense on that one.

So, what is it with all these salts of varying shape, size and colors?

We can agree that in the kitchen, there's no ingredient more important than salt.  Aside from being one of the five basic tastes (salty, sweet, bitter, sour, and umami), salt has properties that release food molecules into the air, giving food an aroma - an integral part of taste.

Salt enhances the taste of food, and that's all we really need to know. Simple. Right? Well...

Salt also highlights and suppresses the different flavors we perceive in our food. In small amounts, various kinds of salt curb bitterness, but enhance sweet, sour and umami, giving our recipes more complex and multi-layered flavors popular today. Hence, the variety you can buy, which includes table salt, kosher salt, sea salt, Himalayan pink salt, black Hawaiian salt, red Hawaiian salt, gray Celtic sea salt, brown smoked salt, flake salt, and so on, may be used depending on the effect you desire and the food being used.

Jesus addresses a large crowd of people from various backgrounds and places. Matthew tells us in the gospel verses just before these that Jesus has been traveling throughout Galilee, preaching, teaching, curing every disease and sickness from among the people. As he did so his fame increased and spread so that people began traveling great distances from throughout the region of Syria, Jerusalem, Judea and even the Decapolis, and the region beyond the Jordan, bringing those tormented by every disease and affliction to be healed by him.

When Jesus looks out from the mountain that day, he looks upon a vast number of faces looking back at him with hope and expectation and even desperation.

He begins with those words that make up what we call the Beatitudes – the “Blessed are” sayings. Jesus describes those who come seeking help and hope – “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he begins – and then names others who the world sees as worthless and powerless, but whom God sees as beloved and blessed – for instance, those who mourn all manner of losses in their lives – loss of loved ones, loss of hope for the future, loss of financial security or livelihood, loss of freedom and autonomy, loss of safety and security. Blessed are the meek, Jesus goes on, blessed are those hungering and seeking for justice, those who are merciful, pure in heart, and the peacemakers.

Jesus empowers all those who hear him. In his eyes they are not unfortunate, abandoned by God and despised people, but blessed, beloved of God and precious in his sight. The people within hearing distance hear these words applied to them.

Jesus lifts up those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness and justice, and for his sake, promising them that their work is kingdom work, and they have a place in that kingdom. Jesus came into the world for those such as these.

There on the mountain, that place perceived as closest to God, Jesus tells them who and what they are because of God’s love and determination poured out on them for the sake of the world.

They are salt. Jesus doesn’t say that they will become salt, but that God has already made them salt – essential, life-giving, flavorful and immensely valuable.

Until a hundred or so years ago, salt was one of the most sought-after commodities in human existence – not plentiful and in such wide varieties as it is today.

Ancients used salt to ward off evil spirits, cleanse wounds and cure illnesses, and even as payment for services and barter for goods. The salt with which Roman soldiers were sometimes paid gives us the origin of our word “salary”.

Covenants, even religious ones, were sealed with salt and salt was used for everything from rubbing on the body to increase fertility, to domesticating animals, to preserving food.

Everyone knew the high value of salt, and the indispensable commodity it was, essential for life, highly valued and precious. For Jesus to tell them that they are that precious to God, and that essential to the work of God’s kingdom, must have astonished them. Jesus conferred on those who did not consider themselves valuable great value then – and he still does this today.

As we read these words, know this, my friends - Jesus was talking about us here, too. As the people gathered around Jesus that day are the salt of the earth, we, lovers and followers of Jesus are the salt of the earth today.

We are salt by God’s doing and for the sake of Jesus – for the sake of the kingdom he is bringing into the world.

Even those, who aren’t valued by the society around them, who therefore don’t consider themselves at all valuable, are loved and cherished by God, uniquely gifted to bless the world and bring out the best in God’s kingdom, to the delight of our maker.

As salt for Jesus’ sake, we are precious in God’s eyes, just as salt is precious in everyday life. We are indispensable to the life of the world and are highly valued by God. As the salt of the earth we can change the flavor of life for those we encounter.

What we do will enhance, improve, and even save the lives of those others who are not valued by the world, but who are loved and blessed just the same by God.

Keeping our essential saltiness is therefore vitally important, and Jesus will tells us how we can do that. Following Jesus by keeping the commandments is a crucial part of keeping salty, even in the face of rejection, persecution, and abandonment by the structures of culture and society (and in the following verses and chapters of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus will expound on what that means, how to go deeper when seeking the guidance of the commandments – they offer more than what you think).

Jesus then uses another metaphor to drive home how you affect the world through your daily interactions and life: you are the light of the world, a light that should not be hidden but should shine for all the world to see.

Light breaks into the darkness, disrupts it, and weakens its power to produce fear. Light changes the reality of those who live in darkness and brings bountiful hope with it. As salt increases and enhances flavor, light brings out the color in things. No longer is everything black or white or gray but an infinite variety of shades and hues and colors once light shines upon the world.

            Salt and light do their best work when they are poured out and scattered broadly about – not, perhaps, as the Morton Salt girl poured salt out willy-nilly from a broken canister but poured out just the same. As a light does no good hidden beneath a basket or in a sealed box, salt does no good if it is kept in a salt box or jar or canister. It must be used, it must be shared, it must be poured and mixed into the world.
            The poor and the grieving, the sick and rejected ones, the persecuted, hungry, and oppressed ones, the crippled and frightened and seeking ones, the outcast, desperate and demon-possessed ones, all named by Jesus, still fill our world.

What do they look like today? Who are they?  They yearn for life as did all those people who followed Jesus and crowded around him, eager, desperate for the good news.

Sometimes we are those people. Certainly, we see them and encounter them on the street, in our homes and businesses, in our communities and schools. Our prisons and hospitals are running over with them. We are salt and light to them.

They are the children who are cast aside, rejected by their peers, starving for a chance in life, defined by their poverty and circumstances. They are our elderly poor who lack the means of accessing the kinds of help they need, who are left lonely, and isolated.

They are the families and children who travel hundreds of miles and halfway around the world, desperately seeking safety, a better life, a future, only to be turned away. They are the farmers whose situations have become so desperate and hopeless that suicide rates among their group have skyrocketed in recent years. They are the addicted, the abused, the mentally ill, the homeless. They are veterans who faithfully served our country in war and are haunted by their experiences and memories, who do not receive the kind of assistance they deserve.

It would be easy to run and hide when faced with all the pain in the world, to keep the good news of Jesus’ love and mercy, forgiveness and grace all to ourselves. But then our salt would be useless, wasted, and the world would be worse for it.

            Disciples of Jesus are salt and light for just such as these, Jesus tells us. God calls on us to flavor their world, to shine light in the darkness as conduits of God’s righteousness, and signposts to the glory of God.
            May we, each and every day, strive to be the kind of salt Jesus needs us to be. May we shine brightly with death-dispersing light. Depending on Jesus’ righteousness, may we humbly serve all God’s blessed ones.
Amen.
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The Good News for Perfectionists

Matthew 5:38-48

“Be perfect therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

I don’t know about anyone else here, but I have to confess that I really have a problem with certain parts of our gospel this morning. For instance, just look at those sending words from Jesus for us today. “Be perfect.” I’m sure there are more than a few therapists who have gone on lovely vacations with the money they have earned counseling wounded people who have spent their entire lives striving – and failing – to “be perfect.”

Perfectionism is defined as “a disposition to regard anything short of perfection as unacceptable, and to regard failure to achieve even impossibly difficult goals as unacceptable and a sign of personal worthlessness. Perfectionism has often been applied to various doctrines holding that religious, moral, social, or political perfection is attainable and anything less should be rejected. It is said that aside from genetics, perfectionism is the strongest predictor of clinical depression in people. And the sometimes insistent demand for perfection has turned many imperfect and wounded people away from the church.

Yet in our gospel today it seems Jesus is telling us we need to be perfect – we need to be like God. Now, aside from all those other problems with perfectionism, isn’t that heretical? After all the Bible also tells us that no one can be perfect as God is perfect. And really, if we were truly capable of being perfect or acting perfectly, there would have been no need for Jesus to come to save us, right? So that cannot be correct. What is Jesus is saying really here?

Let’s remember that the text this morning, once again, comes from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has been using verbal building blocks in this sermon, to create a picture of what the community of his disciples should look like – how they should behave – how they should engage with one another, live together and of course, how they should work together. Jesus, the consummate teacher, has developed a solid lesson plans designed to teach his followers how to exhibit behavior that is just, yet goes beyond simple justice, in keeping with God’s merciful kingdom; teachings that will stick; teachings that make this community relevant and consistent with the characteristics that mark the Kingdom of God.

So, Jesus begins with the basics – describing what it means to be blessed in terms that no one had ever considered before. Then, Jesus said that by God’s grace we are salt of the earth and light for the world. God made us salt and light so that we can make a difference, transforming the world around us by reflecting the goodness of God, and revealing the ongoing presence of God everywhere.  

Finally, Jesus began urging his disciples to look more deeply and broadly than they ever had before at how the commandments and the laws of old help shape community so that we more faithfully reflect the justice and mercy of God.

In last week’s Gospel, for instance, Jesus urged us, don’t lash out in anger, but be reconciled with your brothers and sisters. Don’t swear by God’s name but be honest in your dealings, then you’ll have no need to invoke the name of the Lord.

And, in today’s Gospel Jesus says, “you have heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, if someone strikes you on the right cheek, let them have your left, also. If they take your coat, give them your cloak too. Love your enemy, and pray for those who hate you.”

            Jesus takes age-old law that was given to limit vengeance and acts of retribution, and says that now there is an even better way – the non-violent, non-retaliatory way to deal with insult. The old law, good as it was in keeping people from going off the deep end of vengeance – think of road rage as a contemporary example of over-zealous retribution - is no longer necessary.

For in Christ there is a new freedom, and it is freedom from the kind of desire for self-interest and self-preservation that drives such acts of pay-back; instead we are freed and commended to act lovingly. Even in the face of insult and injury; even when you have suffered great humiliation. That is when as a disciple of Christ, we fulfill God’s desire for us.

            Jesus urges us to not be tossed to and fro by the actions of others, but to respond with our best selves, not falling prey to the little and low ways people try to pick at us, but showing them that there is an alternative way, a Kingdom way of engaging with each other even in the midst of conflict. Even those who hurt you.

Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible, The Message, puts it this way:

“You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’

I’m challenging that.

I’m telling you to love your enemies.

Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst.

When someone gives you a hard time,

respond with the energies of prayer,

for then you are working out of your true selves,

 your God-created selves.

This is what God does.

God gives God’s best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to

everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.”

            Peterson highlights the active nature of Jesus’ commands: Living the Kingdom Way does NOT mean acting as a door mat and letting people walk all over you. Living the Kingdom Way means actively taking control of a situation and taking initiative to respond affirmatively with love.

            Responding rationally and calmly might not make the problem go away—refusing to fight might very well lead to frustration, but it will ultimately get us further down the path of understanding and, perhaps, reconciliation. 

            Patterns of violence and retaliation get us nowhere. We see in our world today that such reactions to injustice only perpetuate the problem. Jesus was all about peaceful protest. There are times when protest is a good, healthy response to injustice. But it must remain peaceful and non-retaliatory to be in accordance with Jesus teaching of the Kingdom Way.

As Gandhi said, in the Spirit of Jesus,

“An eye for an eye makes the world blind”

It is love that transforms,

            Redeems,

                        And creates new life.

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
            The Greek word translated here as “perfect” is “telos”, which denotes not moral perfection, but the idea that something has grown up, matured, and now reached its perfect end – the intended product. Telos is the goal or intended outcome of something—for instance, a fruit tree’s telos, we might say, is to grow mature and tall so that it can bear fruit. In this way, Jesus is not simply commanding something of us…Jesus is also commending something in us.
            It might be easier to understand this instruction from Jesus within its context as meaning, “Be the person and the community God created you to be.”
My brothers and sisters, we are created children of God, empowered and equipped by the Holy Spirit, and Jesus knows we have more to give when it comes to our relationships with one another—even those people with whom we disagree, than to be bound up in “an eye for an eye” kind of living. Jesus knows that we can be and do more than we often settle for.

We can absolutely make a difference in the world when we trust that we are created in the image and likeness of the almighty,

ever-loving, abundantly gracious God who gives us the power,

will, and courage to live the Kingdom way.

Jesus knows this is possible because God sees more in you than you see in yourself.  Jesus well knows that it may be challenging to love, especially those people who just seem to pick and pick and pick and pick at us. But God has plans and a purpose for us. God intends to use us to achieve something spectacular. That something comes as a product of precisely who God were created each of us to be.

God created us to advance a different world, what Jesus calls the Kingdom of God – where violence doesn’t always breed more violence, and hate doesn’t kindle more hate.

Martin Luther King, Jr understood and reflected this truth when he said:

 “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

By his teaching and healing, and by his death and resurrection, we know that Jesus is absolutely serious about this manner of being in the world, he showed us that through him, the Kingdom of Heaven is already here among us and within us, and living in the Kingdom entails a different way of life.

            With these lessons taught on the mount, Jesus invites us to be the people God created us to be so that we might not just persevere through this sometimes challenging life, but will flourish, nourishing Christ’s love and light in the world through pathways of peace and love, understanding and acceptance, mercy and forgiveness.
            Through the Holy Spirit God enables us to both hear Jesus’ message and to follow his teaching. And through the Grace of God we are forgiven for those times when we fail to live into the path that Jesus has set before us. Through the blood of Christ we are forgiven for the times we backslide. That is good news for all of us perfectionists, who see our failures to always live up to these teachings as convicting and shameful. The overarching message of our salvation is that we are forgiven and strengthened to try again, to live the Kingdom way. And so, we are bold to embrace the words of Jesus today:
 “Be perfect, Kingdom people, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Amen.

           

Blessed Are You

Matthew 5:1-12

I have moved around a bit in my life, and with each move, with each new situation and context, I have met new people, developed new relationships, and ultimately, formed new friendships. It’s not always an easy thing to do; for one thing, it takes time. It takes risking a certain amount of vulnerability all over again. I am an introvert, and as such, I am sometimes challenged to reach out and put myself out there, to connect in a deep and meaningful way with someone new. I wonder if it’s any different for you. Connection doesn’t happen instantaneously. You can’t force it. Friendships and relationships are organic. They grow and change and morph and as they do, there may be surprises – many of them (let’s hope most of them) delightful, along the way.

I wonder if you can think back to a time when you met someone new? How did the relationship come about? It’s likely you spent time with this person, that you listened to what they had to say, that you learned something about their story and as you did, you came to understand what was important to them, which in turn told you even more about who they were as a person. When you first met them, you probably exchanged the basic information; name, rank and serial number – or something like that, right? But as you became more familiar with one another, your understanding of the other deepened, broadened, and became more meaningful.

So it is with our relationship with God, now revealed through Jesus Christ. Led by the Spirit of God, this relationship also grows as we spend time with God, in the Word and in prayer.  We listen to what is important to God, and now, through the incarnation of God in Jesus, as we learn who and what Jesus values, we become more in touch with God’s subversive love come to fruition in the kingdom of heaven. As we come to know Jesus better, we also come to know about this kingdom of God that sets a new frame of reference for what blessedness is and what being blessed means.

We’ve been doing a lot of getting acquainted with God and God’s ways in the time since our we were introduced to Jesus at Christmas. In the past few weeks, guided by scriptures appointed for each week, we have moved from Jesus’ baptism to the early days of his ministry including the calling of Jesus’ first disciples and his early teaching, preaching and healing ministry. This movement now takes us to the Sermon on the Mount, and a picture of Jesus has begun to take shape. Like a flower that begins as a tightly closed bud and then gradually opens to reveal layers of intricately patterned blossom, we begin to see more and more clearly this Jesus of Nazareth, this God incarnate, and the new way of life he proclaims. Through Jesus’ ministry and teaching, God is revealed. In the ways this kingdom works, the way this household is run, in its values and priorities, God is made known.

In the gospel of Matthew up to this point, Jesus has been unveiling a new reality which he identifies as the “kingdom of heaven”, a kingdom of God that is packed with layers and textures that are frequently surprising, often unexpected, and destined to turn the status quo on its proverbial head.

“Kingdom of heaven” is a phrase that we will hear over and over again throughout the gospel of Matthew. Already, in the verses before these, Jesus has introduced us to it, as Jesus has called those who wish to follow him into discipleship. Discipleship is created as we come to know Jesus better through these texts, and we are introduced to a re-ordering of reality that was initiated with the inauguration of the kingdom of heaven at the coming of Christ. Discipleship is deepened as our relationship is deepened, as we come to know Jesus more fully, and introduce him to others as well.

The text from Gospel of Matthew that we read today opens a discourse by Jesus known as the Sermon on the Mount. We’ll become familiar with Jesus’ teaching through this discourse in the next couple of weeks, but for today, we are reminded of these introductory words, sometimes called the “blessed bes”, otherwise known as the beatitudes. While these beatitudes may read like a laundry list of those who are blessed, it is a scripture passage that reminds us that God’s economy is not like our economy. Being “blessed” does not depend on health, wealth, status or happiness, as we define happiness. It doesn’t depend on self-satisfaction and is not measured by levels of success or power. It is not reward for a job well done or for being correct, or for fulfilling all righteousness or duty.

Blessedness, instead, is a gift. It comes to us as grace. To the people for whom these words were originally spoken and recorded, the reign of God, preached to a largely Jewish audience of peasants who were oppressed by the Roman system of taxes and tributes and suffering under the demands of the tithes and offerings demanded by the Jerusalem temple, they are words of balm for the desperate ones who live on the edge: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven!”

Mary Hinkle Shore writes: “The word of grace is that blessings as Jesus describes them here are a surprising glimpse of the kingdom of heaven. They are a statement of a world turned upside down. They include those who mourn; those ones are comforted. They include those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; they are satisfied, not ignored, ridiculed or further burdened, where the meek inherit the earth rather than being ground into the dust.”

But, while that good balmy news may in fact be great news for some, it may be troubling news for others. As Scott Tunseth, General Editor of Fortress Press points out “Being poor of spirit may sound pitiful to those puffed up by their own knowledge. Being merciful might sound horribly weak to those bent of revenge. But for those who mourn, the promise of God’s comfort is an oasis of peace. For those who are pure of heart, God will surely be near.”

The beatitudes concern not just the way these words make us feel emotionally, though we may feel a deep emotional response inside; neither do they simply highlight personal qualities of those whom we may call “blessed”. Rather, the Beatitudes function to reveal God’s favor for certain human conditions, for particular human actions, and situations. Regardless of where we find ourselves, we are assured that God will act – in hopelessness and suffering, through pain and turmoil, and God’s reign will find ultimate satisfaction in the lifting up of every single one of the afflicted, and raising them to new heights.

Yet, I think there are two things we need to note about these beatitudes. The first is that while they apply to the “ones” who are poor in spirit, or mourn, or are in dire straights, they also call disciples of Christ into community and into action, where we are both blessing and blessed for one another. As we traverse the landscape of Matthew’s gospel this year, we will find that a prime objective of Matthew’s is to call up disciples of Christ. Discipleship for Matthew is found in community. It is the same today and these words can help us to define the community response to the kingdom of God as revealed through the life and ministry of Christ and those he initially invited to follow.

This revelation of God’s life is an invitation that calls for a response. By following Jesus into God’s abundant life, we will conform to the way this kingdom works, its values and priorities. We are born and reborn into new relationship with God, each other and creation. Jesus invites us: we respond. Always first, the invitation; always, the blessing; always, God reaching out acting first; always, God creating ways of new life, always, where and how we least expect it. Always!

Kingdom life is a responsive life, always seeking, always moving. Discipleship leads to community and the beatitudes call us to a hope filled community focused on God, blessed to seek connectedness through relationship to God and to one another, and embracing what God promises for the future.

Theologian James Bailey writes, “the cumulative effect of the beatitudes puts divine imprint on the community – how the community understands itself and views what God values and whom God honors.”

How poetic! What a beautiful way to describe the way that God is revealed here at Grace and anywhere God’s work is done. We bear the divine imprint as the body of Christ, community alive for the kingdom of heaven!

Henri Nouwen puts it another way:

“I am increasingly aware of how much we fearful, anxious, insecure human beings are in need of a blessing. Children need to be blessed by their parents and parents by their children. We all need each other’s blessings masters and disciples, rabbis and students, bishops and priests, doctors and patients.”

“I must tell you that claiming your own blessedness always leads to a deep desire to bless others. The characteristic of the blessed ones is that, wherever they go, they always speak words of blessing.”

It is a wonderful reminder on a day when we raise up God’s grace that blesses us through the radical nature of the kingdom of heaven, as we welcome into the Body of Christ our new sister through baptism, Lisa Buescher. We are reminded that God’s promise is for grace upon grace upon grace, as gift that is governed by the promise of God’s abundant life. As both blessing and blessed, may we each, as disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, understand that all human beings are blessed by God and worthy of our love and care.

In closing I would like to remind us how Micah instructs us in bearing the divine imprint in our first scripture reading today: “He has told you, O mortal what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God?”

Amen.