Sermon Matthew
5:13-20 February 5, 2017 Ordinary Time-communion at NMPC
More Salt, Please
As you heard in the children’s sermon, salt does a lot more
than make our French fries taste great.
Salt makes colors pop,
softens hide to make leather and is an essential ingredient in the production
of plastics.
Now I’m sure when Jesus was sitting on the hillside sharing
his thoughts with the crowd the idea of plastic toys and products was nowhere
in his imagination.
But, truly salt is an
essential component of life.
In the times before refrigeration salt preserved meats and
lengthened the shelf life of many products.
Salt was so valuable that some people were even paid with
it.
But, today, who cares about salt and light and the Law
anyway?
Perhaps what’s most intriguing is that Jesus isn’t just
having a nice conversation with the people on the hill to make them feel good.
His words are quite provocative.
His words were more than words of instruction;
they were and still are today a
challenge, a call!
Dare we get up today and take God’s Law seriously enough
that we will enact it in our every breath?
For Jesus says, “whoever
does the Law and teaches others to do the same, they will be called great in
heaven.”
So, then do we even know the Law
to teach it?
Perhaps some of us still remember
the ten commandments which we were taught in grade school Sunday school.
Hmmm…let’s see if we can recite a few?
Oh yes,
1) I am the Lord thy god, who brought thee out of the land
of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
2) Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
3) Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
4) Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
5) Honor thy father and thy mother.
6) Thou shalt not murder.
7) Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8) Thou shalt not steal.
9) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
10) Thou shalt not covet anything that belongs to thy
neighbor.
These were the first ten of 613 laws of Judaism. But Jesus
also said this about the commandments: Jesus
said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the
second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. —
Matthew 22:35-40.
The easy way to remember this commandment
from Jesus is to think of the cross. The cross has a vertical bar and a
horizontal bar. The vertical bar relates to our relationship with God. It our
understanding that we are to love God with our heart, soul and mind. The
horizontal bar reminds us of our relationship with others and the world. We are
to love our neighbor as ourselves. SO, if we can’t remember the ten, we can
easily remember the two.
In order to
fulfill the fullness of the Law it appears, according to Jesus, that we have to
begin with loving God and end with loving our neighbor.
That
shouldn’t be too hard, should it?
Well, if only I knew your neighbor, you might be thinking.
Especially today being the Super Bowl you might have a split
household on which team you will be rooting for-this could be a great challenge
in living out the love your neighbor rule…
And isn’t it a gift to know that we can share the couch with
friends of different teams and at the end of the game have our friendships
intact. We can certainly be the same in our differences in many more things.
The greatest challenge I see with this call of Jesus in
today’s terms,
is
how do I live a life that has the powerful, penetrating,
preserving, and particular flavor of God’s kingdom’s good news?
Since salt is a penetrating,
preserving, and has a particular flavor-how is God calling us to live our salty
lives?
It makes me question what living like
that looks like for me.
Does it mean marching in the streets,
or does it mean being at home knitting
prayer shawls,
does it mean sending cards to soldiers
overseas,
does it mean
going to town council meetings,
does it mean
volunteering in the schools?
I believe that God has a unique call on each of us.
God know who and how we are
and in that context God gives a job to do for the kingdom.
God might be asking us to just be present with someone who
needs love.
And that is quite a heavenly task,
to join hands with someone and give them all your love.
Yes, God has something for each us in the midst of what we
are already doing to bring a ‘pop’ of color to it and a ray of light.
Perhaps, all of these begins with a basic knowledge of what
Jesus teaches us in the Bible. I would like to suggest that the good news that
Jesus preaches is the news we should take some time to learn in the form of
Bible study and reading of Scripture.
Old and New Testament.
In doing so we can get the flavor of
God’s Word into our system and then shine forth with the light of the God we
worship.
A second way that we can become the zesty salty folks (no not
salty dogs-although some of you may prefer that), is to open our hearts to the
practice of prayer.
The more read and learn about Jesus,
the more we realize he was in communication with God as often
as possible.
If we could begin our day and end it in prayer that would be
a good start.
One of the joys of being around the elders of this church is
their ability to pray without fear. They have provide an example of simple
words spoken from the heart to God.
In choir we ask that someone say a prayer before we leave.
In the moment we hear such things as, “Lord thank you for
getting us to hit the right notes in practice and help us do the same on Sunday.”
Practice praying at
mealtime if you don’t already do so.
Being grateful for the food before us helps us to then carry
a grateful attitude toward other areas of our life.
As we pray for our meals we set an example for those who join
us at the table of our home. This act is a simple way to share the good news of
the kingdom.
Finally becoming salt and light and living the fullness of
the Law in this day and time means answering the call of God for each of us.
The challenge is not for each us to be alike.
The challenge and the call is to be aware of God’s claim on
us as God’s own and to live as God’s has uniquely called each of us.
Listen to your heart, for God is speaking to you there.
Listen to your neighbor for God is calling you to serve
there.
Listen to your world for God is calling you to shine bright
in it.
We are Christ’s body, his call to us is to be nourished by
his Word,
to be strengthened by his love in prayer,
and to be made strong by his truth in service.
SO, in my prayer to Jesus, I’m asking him for more salt
please.
Amen.
