SEATTLE MENNONITE CHURCH

October 9,2005

Sermon: Weldon D. Nisly

TITLE: To be (or not to be) salt and light

THEME: Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount

TEXTS: Isaiah 55:9-13

Matthew 5:13-20 Salt and Light and Law and Prophets

Jesus goes up on the Mount to Teach

Jesus continued speaking on the mountainside:

"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 hid.

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 God in heaven.

Jesus speaks to the crowds and to us

We have heard these strong words from Jesus twice today in worship.

Let me ask a question. Do you hear Jesus words about being salt and light as comfort or as confrontation? The Bible often “comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.”

In what way are we salt and light? Personal? SMC?

Before we look at what Jesus is saying to us in this little portion of the Sermon on the Mount, let’s take a wider look at God’s Word in Jesus of the Bible.

The Bible is the all-time best-seller. The Bible is also the most controversial book in print. As the Word of God, the Bible has inspired an immense amount of good and good faith. At the same time, it has done more harm than any other book in human history. (R. Rohr, “Introduction: How to Read the Bible,” Jesus’ Plan for a New World: the Sermon on the Mount, vii).

The line between “good faith” and “great harm” is sometimes a fine line but always an essential line. We must bring our hearts and our heads and our wholes lives and faith to scripture, especially to hear Jesus! And if we hear anything about and from Jesus in the gospels we know that Jesus is a greater affront to insiders than to outsiders. Are we not more insiders than we are outsiders?

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A short time after preaching this inaugural Sermon on the Mount, Jesus called a disciple named Matthew. Where did Jesus find Matthew? What was Matthew? A tax collector!

If you want to get a sense of how devout religious folk of the day felt about Matthew the tax collector, you might think of Tim Eyman’s view of state tax collectors. Or maybe it brings it closer to home for us to think of our view of Tim Eyman! Matthew was not a favorite or faithful guy.

Yet Jesus walked up to Matthew at a tax booth and said, “Follow me.” Matthew got up and followed Jesus. Some Pharisees immediately complained to the disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus responded directly to the Pharisees, “Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners” (9:9-13; Rohr, p. 6).

The gospel is a scandal – confronting, upsetting, turning upside down. The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ most comprehensive teaching that still is a scandal. Years of struggle over the scandal of Jesus’ Sermon have long led much of the church to tame and temper “Jesus’ plan for a new world” that it no longer troubles much of the church anymore.

For centuries Christians have largely ignored or explained away the Sermon on the Mount. It is an interim ethic for an interim age between this age and the full reign of God, so it doesn’t apply to this age. It is for Jesus and a few religious fanatics so it doesn’t apply to us. It is unrealistic and we live in the real world.

Yet if we are to take Jesus seriously we must take Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount seriously. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is an alternative wisdom for us here and now, always and everywhere.

To be (or not to be) Salt & Light – Jesus & us – personal & corporate

Notice what Jesus says. Does Jesus say, “You should be the salt of the earth and you should be the light of the world?” What does Jesus say? “You ARE salt……you ARE light…..”

Living into what we already are. Living up to what we already are in Jesus. By-the-way, that is what we said and did last Sunday in coming to the Lord’s Table and celebrating

communion. At the Lord’s Table we become what we are – the Body of Christ and bread for the world.

Jesus uses salt and light as images of what we are in the world that can only manifested in lived behavior. The question is whether we are salt that has lost its flavor and light that has been hidden.

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The salt and light images function in three ways here. We must first remember the beatitudes that have just been laid out for them in the twofold manner: “Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.” Especially remember the final blessing: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (5:11). It is precisely the ones who are salt and light for Jesus’ sake who will reviled and persecuted. It is a sign and consequence of being salt and light.

This is what Ed Loring, from the Open Door Community in Atlanta, meant when he asked in this pulpit a couple of years ago, “Are they throwing rocks at you yet? If they aren’t throwing rocks at you, you are not preaching the gospel.”

Not everyone in the world welcomes people who are salt and light. We are not salt and light because it makes us popular or powerful. We are salt and light because that is who Jesus is and who we are in the world. We are salt and light especially in the face of ridicule and persecution.

Second, salt and light are imperatives for us in the world, not for yourselves but for others. A light hidden under a bushel basket is no light. I remember carrying a metal bushel basket on the farm years ago. Turning it upside down and putting a light under it would have meant no light!

It could be said this way: “You are salt, yes, but for the earth, not for yourselves. You are light, but for the whole world, not for yourselves.” These two metaphors anticipate the well-known missionary imperative with which Jesus closes the gospel: The Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20. (Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew, Interpretation, 44).

A third way these two metaphors instruct us is that salt and light are communal imperatives. That is the “you” is corporate more than individual. “You (plural) are the light (singular) of the world” (Hare, 44). The community as a body is salt and light for the world. The mission of the church is to serve as salt and light for the world. It must be accomplished together as a whole.

Jesus fulfills not destroys

Hear again what Jesus says next from the mountainside:

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets;

I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.

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

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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. (vv. 17-20.)

Immediately following this salt and light imperative, Jesus gives us one of the most difficult words in the gospel. It is reported in verse 17:

What do you think Jesus is saying to us here?

Jesus says, “I have come not to abolish but to fulfill the law.” The Greek words for “abolish” [“destroy”] and “fulfill” have been interpreted in various ways.

The key to understanding what Jesus is saying here is in the context of what he is saying in this Sermon. A good starting point for understanding Jesus is that it serves as a preface to the antitheses statement which follow. We will hear those words of Jesus over the next few Sundays. “You have heard…..But I say….”

While these are difficult words of Jesus to interpret – or at least there are many issues that merit attention in the language used here and how these words are used or not used elsewhere in scripture, two simple things can be understood here. One is that Jesus is now the true interpreter of the law. The law is the scriptures, or the Old Testament as we know it. We who are called Christian, read scripture through Jesus’ eyes and life. This will be borne out in the antitheses to come in Jesus’ sermon. “You have heard…..But I say….”

Second, the universal view of first century Jews was a “high” view of all scripture in that God is the ultimate author of Scripture. The shared assumption of the rabbis and of the New Testament authors is that Scripture is sacred and cannot be set aside. In the Second Letter of Timothy we hear the well-known words, “All scripture is inspired by God” (2 Tim. 3:16). Again there has been much controversy and debate over what we mean when we say that “All scripture is inspired by God.” But what is held in common is that scripture is sacred and somehow comes from God.

There were controversies around what was scripture and how to interpret scripture. But everyone knew you had to stake scripture seriously. This means for Christians to take the Old or First Testament and the New or Second Testament seriously.

A few centuries after Matthew wrote this gospel, a church leader Marcion shocked the church by denouncing the Old Testament as coming from demons and unfit for Christians (Hare, 50). Jesus is making clear here that the scripture – remember their scripture, the law, was our Old Testament – must be taken seriously.

Matthew is making clear as is Jesus that the New Testament is rooted in the Old Testament. And Jesus proceeds to build on that in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount.

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Unless your righteousness exceeds….

The portion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount which we hear today concludes with a stern warning:

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (v. 20.)

It is highly instructive that Jesus is not measuring believers against unbelievers. Jesus does not say, “Unless your righteousness exceeds Jews or Muslims you are will not enter God’s reign.”

Who does Jesus hold up as a comparison? What does Jesus say?

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (v. 20.)

Look at the most righteous not the least righteous. You have to do better than that! No wonder so much of the Church across the ages have found ways to dismiss Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount! It is too hard. And the righteous do not measure up well.

Francis of Assisi: salt of the earth and light for the world

I want to close with a reference to one who was salt and light for the world: Francis of Assisi. Francis lived in Italy of 800 years ago. He left the world of his father as a wealthy merchant. He left the world of his partying friends. He even left the church as it was. He was given a vision to give up all and go and rebuild a church. So he did at San Damiano. And thus doing he founded a movement with out trying to do so. Other’s were drawn to him who are now know as Franciscans committed to a life of peace and community. They are salt of the earth and light for the world.

Francis has even been influential on Mennonites. We might be described at our best as a lay Franciscan community.

A few days ago, October 6^th is the Feast of St. Francis. A prayer of St Francis is well known to Mennonites. Let us close with this prayer as found in the back of the Hymnal # 733. Let us pray this prayer of St. Francis by saying “us” for “me” and “we” for “I.”