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The Fifth Sunday after the EpiphanyE. Bevan Stanley
February 5, 2017
Year A, RCL
Isaiah 58:1-9a, (9b-12)
1 Corinthians 2:1-12, (13-16)
Matthew 5:13-20
Psalm 112:1-9, (10)
Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth. You are light of the world.” In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today is our annual meeting. It is a time to reflect on what we are about as a parish. What is our core business? What is Jesus calling us to? One way to read the history of the first three or four centuries of the Christian Church is to see it a process of domestication. We start with group of people who experience the power of the Risen Jesus in healing, prophecy, exorcism, speaking in tongues and so forth. These people know without a shadow of doubt that their lives are empowered by God. But this is wild and unruly. The cultured classes have trouble taking it seriously. So smart people start justifying this wild power with theology. By the time the Christianity becomes the official religion of the empire, a number of Christians are feeling that the Church has become too soft, too easy, too tame. These are the ones who go out into the Egyptian desert and begin the monastic movement. Indeed from then on up to our present day, there has always been a tension between the more charismatic and the more orderly expressions of Christianity. The parts of the Church that are growing today are those where the power of God is manifest. The parts of the Church that diminishing are more nervous about displays of God’s power.
Consider how we read the scriptures in church. We want to be clear and enunciate, and we don’t want to read too much our own thinking into it lest we distort the message. But don’t we lose something? What if we read the passage from Isaiah as an ancient Hebrew prophet were speaking these wordsfor the first time:
Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
And what about the Sermon on the Mount. We want to make it a kind of constitution for Christian belief. But Jesus wasn’t preaching in a synagogue; he was a prophet speaking outdoors on the top of a mountain:
"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 underfoot.
"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 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 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 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."
Paul was a bright man. He was well educated both in the Hebrew Scriptures and the commentaries on them, and in the Greek philosophers and poets. He was articulate and could speak with forcefulness and clarity.He was well educated in two cultures. He could debate with any who wished to take him on as he did in the market place in Athens. And in Athens he had little success. But here in the rough seaport of Corinth, Paul tried a different strategy. He “did not come proclaiming the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom.” He did not come and try to lay out a case or defend intellectual propositions.And the reason is clear. His erudition was irrelevant to the task. For the task of Paul was not to get them to think differently; it was to get people to be different. The question was not what did they see, but how they saw. As long as he used debate as a strategy he would lose, for debate presupposes that the parties already have some common assumptions about the way the world is. But what Paul had to do was to completely overturn people’s perceptions of the universe. He had to show how weakness can be strength, how death can lead to life, how true power comes in giving it away, how true wealth is to be measured not in what you hold but in what you are able to receive and then give away.
And so Paul “decided to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” He did not offer wisdom, as it usually understood, but he offered something else instead; he offered Jesus. “When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.”
So What do we take from these readings to help us understand wht Jesus is calling St. Michael’s to in 2017?
First, today’s Gospel reading continues the Sermon on the Mount that we began last week. These are at first glance pretty positive declarations by Jesus about who we are as his disciples. Immediately, however, Jesus indicates some implications. Salt needs to be salty. If it becomes stupid or dull –the Greek is a form of moron which means dull or stupid—if the slat loses its edge, we might say, then it is useless. And a light that cannot be seen is no good to anyone. And Jesus is clear that he does not wish to send a message that the Pharisees are too strict and we all ought to lighten up a bit. No. He says that unless our virtues exceed that of the Pharisees we will not see the kingdom of heaven.
Our reading from Isaiah is much like that from Micah last week. The prophet says that the ritual offerings of beasts is not sufficient. The People of God must be about the business ofjustice and mercy:
First, If we are to be the salt of the earth and light of the world, we need to place a high value on Justice and compassion. As Isaiah said, Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,to let the oppressed go free,to share your bread with the hungry,and bring the homeless poor into your house;when you see the naked, to cover them. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and you will be the light of the world.,
Second, Paul contrasts the wisdom of the world with the wisdom of God that is accompanied by the power to make change in individuals and in the world.
And he offered himself. He said, “Let me tell you about a man who died for you. Let me tell you about what he has done for me. Look at me and my life. There is power here that is not my own, but comes from Jesus. There is life and joy here that I did not conjure up, but is a gift from God. And this life of Jesus has the power to touch others, it has the power to touch you.Do you wish a new start after your sin, here it is. Do you wish a new life after you disease? Here it is.
Finally, we do not proclaim a theory or a theology. We point to the power of the risen Jesus active among us even today. For we choose to know nothing except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Our speech and our proclamation are not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that our faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.
So be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.