Salt and Light.

Matthew 5:13-20

February 5, 2017

I.

When we fill the baptismal font in this season, I repeat some words of the Apostle Paul about unity and oneness.  He says there is one body, one Spirit, one Lord, 

one faith, one hope, one baptism, “one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all.”  So there is only one thing, one entity, one Being “above all, and through all, and in all,” and that is God.  What if we paid attention and really considered what it means for God to be above all, through all, and in all?  What if we took Paul seriously when he uses the word “all”?  

In that section of Ephesians he is talking about unity among the disciples of Jesus in the church.  But there are other places where he and Jesus indicate a much broader, wider, and universal understanding of oneness.  In the church we witness to a oneness that extends beyond us and into everything.  We begin to realize it in ourselves, then among ourselves, until we understand that everything we see and know is but a manifestation of this oneness.  There are many different manifestations, but only one God above, through, and in everything.

The apparent distinctions between people, between things in the world, are not real.  They are more like different waves or ripples in the ocean.  They are merely superficial.  But they share in a more fundamental truth which is that they are all ocean, water.  And what they share is far more important than these temporary surface differences.

Even really big distinctions like that between heaven and earth aren’t real either.  Jesus talks about the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God as if it’s right here, very near, within you, and quite available.  Here says heaven and earth will pass away when all is accomplished, meaning I think that the illusion that heaven and earth are two opposite and distinct places will dissolve when he fulfills his mission on the cross, accomplishing once and for all the unification of everything, when the veil in the Temple symbolically separating heaven and earth is torn in two, and the graves are opened and even the difference between life and death will be erased, all of which happens in chapters 27 and 28.

Jesus reminds us that God has given us hints of this dissolution in the Scriptures.  The Law, the Torah, begins to show us how to live according to the Creator’s values of peace, justice, equality, and oneness.  The rap against Jesus and his followers was that they dispensed with the Law altogether and just did whatever they wanted.  That’s the great fear of legalistic minds, that other people will do whatever they want.

Jesus comes not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it, to make it real, to reveal in himself its true purpose and nature.  That’s why as soon as he is done with this section upholding the Law, he starts to intensify it.  We will hear him repeat, “The Law says that, but I say this.”  Not contradicting the Law so much as driving to the heart of it, so it’s not just something that we keep the letter of on the surface, which people had figured out how to manipulate.  But beneath the visible waves of the written text Jesus says there is something more profound and universal 

which he comes to embody and reveal.

II.

In him God’s will is done “on earth as it is in heaven” and God’s kingdom is revealed as within and among us now.  He teaches this in his model prayer, which we pray daily.  And when we pray it we are asking that our minds be opened, and our behavior reshaped, according to the truth of who Jesus Christ is.  We are asking that we see and live by the truth that all is accomplished in him, and the opposition between heaven and earth is passing away. 

We don’t just verbalize this truth; Christ gives us the power to live it in the world.  His disciples are the light of the world and the salt of the earth.  They are these because we mediate the very particular and specific characteristics of Christ’s life.  That is so important not to forget.  Being salt and light does not mean doing things we by our reason have decided are good and beneficial.  Our reason is controlled by our ego and its fear.  Fear makes enemies and divides people; fear manipulates and exploits; fear brags and bullies; fear builds walls and bans people.  

Fear is inherently selfish and violent.  It has nothing to do with Jesus.   

Being light means that by our actions, by the ways we live our lives, we witness to God’s perfect love which John says casts out all fear.  It means that by engaging in the set of practices and attitudes he has just blessed — like poverty of spirit, mourning, gentleness, purity of heart, showing mercy, making peace, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and enduring persecution — we exemplify an alternative way of life, the life of God’s kingdom and God’s truth.  God’s light shines in and through us as we get our own concerns and agendas, desires and needs, out of the way.  By humility and simplicity we are filled with God’s light so that it flows through us.  This cannot happen unless, frankly, we are losers.

Being salt means that even though we are few in number — indeed, maybe because we are few in number — we may have wide and broad influence.  We affect others, whose behavior and outlook may change, and they may not even know why.  Forgiveness, kindness, welcome, and generosity can get passed along and even become more general social traits because of our subtle work of discipleship.

We must not hide our light by keeping God’s love to ourselves as if it were or even could be our secret or private possession.  If we do that we don’t have it at all, 

and never have.  We must be open and public about living differently.  Neither can salt be allowed to lose its taste, which seems to happen when it is overwhelmed or compromised with other spices and flavors.  Here is that purity of heart, which is also a kind of single-mindedness, that followers of Jesus have to be about.  We have to minister to the pain of others without prejudice.  Even the worst criminal in the world 

deserves our prayers when he is in pain.  Jesus forgave his killers while they were in the act of killing him.  He recognized that they didn’t know what they were doing.

III.

People never know what they are doing, it seems.  Lots of people never know what they are doing for their whole lives.  That’s why we are called to be salt and light by keeping Jesus’ commandments and witnessing to his radically different 

way of life.  We hope to shed some light by getting people to see what they are doing.  Because unless we see what we are doing, and unless we see an alternative, change is nearly impossible.  We hope to spread a little salt around to help form and strengthen relationships.  As salt we are to make it safer and easier to choose the more difficult options, like forgiveness.

  

Our whole life is about witnessing to the God who is above all and through all and in all.  In all circumstances we witness to Jesus Christ, who accomplishes in himself the passing away of the opposition between heaven and earth.  And we witness to the Spirit “who is everywhere and who fills all things.”  I only realize that God is in me when I realize that God is in my enemy too.  I only realize that God is in me when I realize that God is in everything that God made.

That’s how the righteousness of Jesus’ followers has “to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees.”  These are the religious professionals and experts who are often so compromised and domesticated by the culture that they are more about preserving a system that benefits them than they are about emptying themselves so God can work through them.  They kept the superficial letter of the Law and imposed it on others.  Disciples must go deeper and keep the inner meaning of the Law in their own hearts and practice.  By so doing they show it to be all about the love that binds all things together and makes us all one.

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