On Being Salty and Lit; a sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Epiphany

Matthew 5:13-20

“You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its saltiness, how will it become salty again? It’s good for nothing except to be thrown away and trampled under people’s feet. 14 You are the light of the world. A city on top of a hill can’t be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they put it on top of a lampstand, and it shines on all who are in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before people, so they can see the good things you do and praise your Father who is in heaven.

17 “Don’t even begin to think that I have come to do away with the Law and the Prophets. I haven’t come to do away with them but to fulfill them. 18 I say to you very seriously that as long as heaven and earth exist, neither the smallest letter nor even the smallest stroke of a pen will be erased from the Law until everything there becomes a reality. 19 Therefore, whoever ignores one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do the same will be called the lowest in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps these commands and teaches people to keep them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 I say to you that unless your righteousness is greater than the righteousness of the legal experts and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Let the words of my mouth
    and the meditations of my heart
    be pleasing to you,
    Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

What is the point of law?

See, it’s my job to occasionally ask philosophical questions.

What’s the point of law? Not a specific law, just law in general.

That depends on who you ask, I suppose.

Ask Aristotle and you come up with the idea that law’s function is to define the purpose of the state. Often, we see law as overbearing, as constricting our liberties, but Aristotle points out that the law, in fact, reflects who we are as a society.

Want to understand more about the character of a family? Look at their household rules and economics. What standards to they value and invest in?

Want to understand more about a society? Look at the laws by which they govern themselves and the priorities their legislation defines regarding their national and international economy.

Aristotle is interested in forms, in ideals, in seeing all of history and all of creation in magnificent, sweeping strokes. Other scholars, contemporary scholars, tend to seek more pragmatic, immediate definitions.

Law is designed and implemented to set guidelines for conduct and behavior within a society.

Keep us organized. Keep us safe. Keep us protected.

It’s a very practical approach to life together, unlike Aristotle’s. Also unlike a lot of our Biblical opinion.

Now, if you want it quite beautifully put, spend some time meditating on Psalm 119. It’s an acrostic meditation on Torah, a word of praise and wonder about the way the Hebrew people encountered the Divine.

On the other hand, Paul speaks about the purpose of the law, referring specifically to Torah:

Before faith came, we were guarded under the Law, locked up until faith that was coming would be revealed, so that the Law became our custodian until Christ so that we might be made righteous by faith.

But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian.

The Law kept us locked away, “confined” being a safe translation of the word, like a child in a playpen.

But now the law has been fulfilled. Another one of those words that means something different to everyone you might ask, especially in this context.

The law, after all, isn’t a cup about which we can argue whether half-full or half-empty is a more appropriate description. It’s more than a contract between two parties that could either be completed or neglected. It’s a covenant, or the mark of a covenant between God and the children of Israel.

More specifically, it’s a conditional covenant. 

Is that familiar?

There are conditional covenants and unconditional covenants. The most famous covenant is the covenant with Noah. Noah gets off the ark, unloads all the animals who trudge through the mud and populate the world, sees a rainbow and hears God say, “I am NOT doing this again!” and promptly gets himself smashingly drunk.

God doesn’t say, “I won’t do this again IF people can behave themselves.” God says, “I won’t do this again. Period.”

Unconditional covenant.

Unlike the law.

God tells the people:

So now, if you faithfully obey me and stay true to my covenant, you will be my most precious possession out of all the peoples, since the whole earth belongs to me. You will be a kingdom of priests for me and a holy nation. 

That “if” makes all the difference.

That “if” shows us what kind of a God we have.

The people certainly don’t keep their end of the covenant, which means God has every reason to reneg on the Divine end of the covenant, too. That is the expected response. One covenant party defaulting on the covenant frees the other party from holding true to their end.

But instead of walking out, God commits even more deeply.

God becomes human to fully commit to the covenant.

Because the covenant isn’t about right and wrong. It isn’t about following rules. The covenant, even the covenant of the Law, the covenant of Moses, is about God fully loving people.

That doesn’t sound like law, does it? That’s not about just keeping an orderly society. It’s not just about implementing guidelines for conduct and behavior.

It’s something a lot more like Aristotle. Rather, I think Aristotle’s understanding of law may enlighten what Jesus is doing to fulfill the law.

If the function of the law is to define the purpose of the state, then God becoming incarnate because God loves us enough to ignore our unfaithfulness, our neglect of the covenant, tells us that the kind of state, the kind of people of God we are called to be is a family of people who love each other and all God’s creation enough to forgive… and forgive… and forgive… until we’ve forgiven as much as God has.

We’re called to be people who share that forgiveness everywhere. We’re called to be people who rethink law, who rethink the purpose of law, because God has turned the law on its head.

We’re called to be a people who understand what God speaks through Isaiah:

You quarrel and brawl, and then you fast;
    you hit each other violently with your fists.
You shouldn’t fast as you are doing today
    if you want to make your voice heard on high.
Is this the kind of fast I choose,
    a day of self-affliction,
    of bending one’s head like a reed
    and of lying down in mourning clothing and ashes?
    Is this what you call a fast,
        a day acceptable to the Lord?

Isn’t this the fast I choose:
    releasing wicked restraints, untying the ropes of a yoke,
    setting free the mistreated,
    and breaking every yoke?
Isn’t it sharing your bread with the hungry
    and bringing the homeless poor into your house,
    covering the naked when you see them,
    and not hiding from your own family?

That’s what it means to be the salt of the earth. We are what make life worth living. We are what give life meaning, flavor, intensity of experience in the same way that salt intensifies taste.

That’s what it means to be the light of the world. We’re called not to reveal all that the world has done wrong. That’s not what God’s light does. We’re called to shine love into those dark places, to warm the hearts that are cold, to dispel the shadows that are the stuff of nightmares, dancing trees in the moonlight scraping long claws onto the cold walls of our midnight rooms. God’s light burns through the nightmares, melts our frozen hearts, shows us each what God has created us to be.

Salt and light. That’s what God has created us to be.

People who free each other, untie the yokes of slavery, share our bread, shelter the homeless, cover the naked, bring relationships into wholeness.

Will you do that for Jesus today? Will you be salty and lit with God’s love?

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.