Fifth
Sunday after the Epiphany
Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 112; 1 Cor.
2:1-16; Matthew 5:13-20
St Stephen
Lutheran Church
Pastor
Maurice Frontz
Grace and
peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
When I was
sixteen years old,
I
travelled to Europe as part of a contingent of high school students
which went
by the name ‘American Music Abroad.’
I was in
the choir, some friends were in the band.
We got to
sing in Notre Dame and Chartres Cathedrals.
We did a
homestay in the Netherlands,
visited
Germany and Austria and Switzerland.
One
morning in Switzerland we were given free time,
and there
was a hill just outside the town that was a ski slope in the wintertime.
There was
a trail up to the top, and I took the trail,
the better
to take pictures of the Alps.
It was a
Sunday,
and out on
the side of the hill I saw a large number of people gathered.
As I got
closer, I realized that it was an open-air church service,
a pastor
teaching a flock of worshipers.
It’s the
scene that I always remember when I think of the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus is
sitting and teaching his disciples.
Nowadays,
we are accustomed to having our teachers or preachers stand,
but in
Jesus’ time and place,
the
teacher would sit down.
As an
aside, this is why ‘cathedrals’ are called what they are.
The
bishop’s chair, where he sits and teaches from, is called a cathedra,
and so a
‘cathedral’ is simply where the bishop’s chair is.
Jesus
teaches the disciples who are gathered around them,
while the
crowd watches and listens what Jesus is teaching them.
Many times
in the Gospels it is the crowd being taught by Jesus.
But here
in the Sermon on the Mount, it is Jesus teaching the disciples.
The crowd
is free to listen,
but Jesus
is not imparting general information about reality.
He is not
teaching about how to live a good life
or how to
attain your goals and reach your dreams.
He is
teaching the new people that he has called into being
about who
they are and who they are to be.
Jesus
called this new people into being
when he
called Peter and Andrew and James and John
from their
fishermen’s nets by the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus did
not give these men an entrance exam when he called them.
Or rather,
it was a different kind of entrance exam.
The
entrance exam of the new people is ‘Follow me!’
Those who
follow are part of the new people.
Following
Jesus means first and foremost being in proximity to him,
listening
to what he says, and one presumes, asking questions.
The
disciples did not begin to follow Jesus when they understood what he was
saying.
So if you
think you don’t understand what Jesus says some of the time,
you’re in
some very good company.
If you
think you have to understand what Jesus says before you follow him,
you’re
doing it backwards.
Jesus
calls the new people ‘Blessed.’
We talked
a little bit about this last week.
Mourning,
hungering and thirsting after righteousness,
being
persecuted, and the like
are not
little signs of God’s favor for which all of us ought to pray…
‘O Lord,
give me more persecution!’
Rather,
they are the inevitable accompaniments to a life spent with Jesus,
and they
can take a variety of forms.
One can’t
be with Jesus and not become more merciful, at least in some small way.
One can’t
be with Jesus and not seek the purity of heart that he displays.
One can’t
be with Jesus and somehow escape the animosity
that this
world displays toward the holiness and purity that he displays in its midst.
By being
called by Jesus,
the
community of disciples become visible as community.
They are
now a body politic, if you will.
The
disciples are not simply a group of individuals meeting together
because
they have a common interest in religion, or ethics, or sitting down on
hillsides,
but they
are community, family, they are to speak with one voice and have one purpose.
Here Jesus
teaches them about who they are, what they are to be.
It’s
important to say that here Jesus does not command the disciples to be anything.
From the
moment the disciples were called and began to follow,
they were
the new people.
Jesus does
not say, ‘You must be the new people!’
Instead he
says, ‘You are the new people.’
From the
moment the disciples were called, they were blessed.
Jesus does
not say, ‘You must be blessed people!’
Instead he
calls them blessed.
In a
similar vein, when Jesus calls the disciples ‘salt and light,’
he does
not say, ‘You must be salt and light.’
By virtue
of their call, by virtue of their association with him,
they are
salt and light for the world.
Salt, a
seasoning and a preservative,
and light,
a guide in darkness,
a source
of joy, pointing toward the God who is the true guide and the true source.
Jesus’
teaching is not so much a command to the disciples to become something they are
not,
but
instead a revelation of what they already are.
It’s so
interesting, isn’t it,
that in
the Gospel of John, Jesus says,
‘I am the
Light of the World,’
and here
in Matthew he says, ‘You are the light of the world.’
Isn’t that
interesting?
Well, which
is it?
Did one of
them get it wrong?
If I were
a New Testament scholar, I might say something like,
‘Well,
John has a higher Christology than Saint Matthew,
and so he
deems it inappropriate for a Messianic title that is only appropriate to Jesus
to be
given to the disciples.’
But I’m
not a New Testament scholar.
Instead,
both statements are true.
Jesus is
the light of the world;
but
because the disciples are following him,
because
they are the new people he has called into existence,
because
they are the people who will be in the world
after his
resurrection and ascension into heaven,
they truly
are salt and light for the earth.
They are
to be witnesses to God’s love in Jesus Christ,
When
people look for Jesus in the world,
they will
not see him,
but they
will see them,
perhaps on
a hillside in Switzerland;
perhaps in
the cities of India or the villages of Ethiopia;
perhaps in
the suburbs and cities and rural hamlets of America,
teaching
and hearing his words,
gathered
around his hidden yet very real presence,
sharing
the meal he gave them.
They will
also be called to a righteousness that is greater than the world’s
righteousness.
But that
is a topic for another time,
perhaps, I
don’t know,
next week.
For now it
is enough to say that I hope it is obvious
that we
are the new people of God
who have
been called by Jesus Christ.
Remember
that in the service of baptism we hold out a candle to a little child
and
address that child as if the child could understand us,
and we
say,
‘Let your
light so shine before others
that they
may see your good works
and
glorify your Father who is in heaven.’
Before
this baby can talk or listen,
before he
can build a house or wash the wounds of an injured person,
before the
baby can recite the Ten Commandments, the Creed or the Lord’s Prayer,
that baby
is to let light shine
because he
or she has been called and claimed by Jesus Christ.
And so
have you.
You are
salt of the earth
and light
for the world,
simply
because he says you are,
because
you are part of the Church,
the people
of salt and light.
And we
have the enormous privilege
and the
enormous challenge
of
spending the rest of our lives,
no matter
how short or long they may be,
to spend
our lives sitting at his feet,
asking our
questions
and trying
our best to become even more what we already are,
through
Jesus Christ our Lord.
