ME*
Did you guys have a favorite cartoon as a kid?
My favorite Cartoon growing up was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I still watch that occasionally on Saturday mornings. I’ve got two older brothers. So naturally, when three boys start watching a rambunctious show like Ninja Turtles, we start emulating their behavior. Well, one of us, I don’t remember which one, said, “Guess Again Double Ugly,” to another brother. Oh boy was my mother angry! So for the next several weeks, we had to watch the Ninja Turtles on mute because we started looking too much like the turles and not enough like Christ.
TRANSITION
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to for us to be the same as the world?
WE
We see sobering statistics about the similarities in divorce rates between regular church-goers and non church goers.
We are just as busy as those outside the church. We only pause on Sundays half the time for worship. We’ve forgotten what it means to take a Sabbath and to rest in the Lord.
We watch the same movies, the same T.V. shows, and read the same books as the world. We’ve become fluent in pop culture.
Pop culture not your thing? How about politics? Instead of talking about Christlikeness and asking ourselves how to be faithful in an increasingly anti-God nation, we talk about Republicans vs. Democrats, conservative vs. liberal, as if either of those parties will ever be the path to Christlikeness.
Politics not your thing? How about sports? All too often we demonstrate that sports are the most important thing to us. We’ll miss times of corporate worship for both our own personal participation in sports and for national sports. Nascar Race? Football Game? Super Bowl? I saw a sign on a church this week that said, “Yes our worship last week was more exciting than the Super Bowl.” That made me laugh - so was my post-super bowl nap, for that matter.
All too often, there is no distinction between us and the world. Even worldly people do good things. I saw a blog the other day about the top 25 most charitable celebrities. Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus were both on there. Two people that I would not consider models for anybody in this room. Yet they do good things.
This is a major problem for much of the North American Church, and often, for us, for me.
And then there is the other side of the equation. There are those of us who try so hard to be distinct. We think it is up to us to save the world! We think it is up to us to single-handedly lead Baker City to Christ, and every time we fail we take it personally and promise “to try harder next time.”
Sometimes this plays itself out similar to the self-righteous pharisees. Everybody in town knows we go to Church, because we are constantly looking down on them for not going to Church, but we’re not friends with any of them because we could never be friends with someone who smokes or dresses “like that.”
A seminary friend of mine worked at Starbucks part time while going to school. Occasionally he had to work Sunday mornings and they would let him go at 10AM where he would rush to church to worship with us. He would get so frustrated by the people, always well dressed, presumably for Church, that came through on a Sunday morning. Quite often, he would get a tract from one of these nice Christians. And sometimes one of them would ask if he went to church. Well he would get pretty frustrated occasionally, because these people he encountered would assume he wasn’t a Christian because he had to work Sunday morning. And sometimes they would ask him why he had to work, why he couldn’t just take Sunday off. He always responded, “Because of customers like you who want their latte on their way to worship!” We can be so self-righteous and judgmental, us Christians. And we can try so hard to be good, to do good works that all the world will see. Too often, its so that people will praise me, or see what I have done, rather than what God is doing.
These are the two sides of the coin that our passage is struggling with today.
TRANSITION:
And this is where our Scripture comes in.
Read Matthew 5:13-20
Prayer
TRANSITION:
In the first part of our text, Jesus tells his disciples that they are the salt of the earth.
God
You see, there is nothing that Jesus’ disciples - and if we are Christians, then we are included in this statement - there is nothing that we did or can do that makes us salt. We are salt because we follow Christ. This is who we are by nature - we can’t help but be salt!
This is all about usefulness here. Salt had several uses in Jesus’ time - uses still around today.
First, salt is a preservative. They used to use it extensively to preserve meat. Today we use it mostly in canned goods and other food products with a really long shelf life.
Second, salt kills. Have you ever put salt on a slug - it’s a little cruel, but it kills the slug in seconds! What about rinsing a wound with salt water, or gurgling your mouth with salt water when you have a sore throat. It cleanses the wound and kills the bacteria. It kills the yucky stuff and makes things clean.
Finally, salt is used for taste. It accents the taste of whatever it is mixed with, and adds a little something. Can you imagine popcorn without salt? What about cookies? Or Pancakes? A little bit of salt is necessary not only for our pallets, but also for our bodies - we need some sodium to thrive.
In other words, salt exists to stay off death and accentuate life! I think that this is what Jesus was getting at. Christians are the salt of the earth. They are the ones who stay off death, who clean wounds, who go to those places of the earth that stink and rot, and help to get rid of whatever is causing that stink and rot. And then they are the ones who preserve life, who make life tasteful. Christians are called to bring out the natural beauty in this world God created, and to bring out the best of our culture, bring out the best in people.
Stay off Death…. Accentuate God’s glory…
Christians are the salt of the earth! What a high calling that Jesus gave his disciples.
But as we said earlier, sometimes we forget who we are, forget what our calling is. You see, “salt a centimeter away from food is of no use; Christians who do not live and work for persons outside themselves are worthless” (Frederick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1987, 158.) They are tasteless and will be completely ignored by outsiders. They will be “thrown out and trampled under foot,” not even noticed as those on the outside go about their day-to-day lives.
Christians have lost their identity if they lost their saltiness.
The next section, Jesus calls his disciples the light of the world. This, also is quite a bold statement. In John, Jesus says he is the light of the world. In other words, by our very nature, we reflect Jesus to the world and are the light of Jesus in those dark places.
I love how Jesus just throws this out there. He doesn’t qualify it - you are the light of the world if…. He states it as a fact. And then goes on to say that lights are made to be seen. Just as nobody lights a lamp and then covers - that would be a useless lamp - so also God is not going to cover us up.
In the beginning of chapter 5, in the Beattitudes, Jesus states that it is the lowly, the poor, those who mourn, the humble, the hungry and thirsty, those who show mercy, those who bring about peace, it is these ones who will see God, inherit the earth, be called sons of God - all of these will know God.
None of these types of people forces themselves into situations. They don’t make themselves into the things they are. They take the road of obedience, service, humility. And it is these ones who participate in God’s kingdom. Those who try to get there by their own strength - those who stomp on other people to be the leader of the servant committee, those who do good deeds and then do everything but buy out an ad in the paper to tell people about them, these aren’t the ones who inherit the earth. The meek do!
And those who are trying to earn their way to heaven through their accomplishments. Those who think they can plant the seed, water it, and make it grow all by themselves, those who - often self-sacrifically - are doing whatever it takes out of a sense of guilt or shame or anything other than reverence and worship of God, the one who works harder than everybody else does not inherit the earth! The meek do!
You see, it is God who creates us to be salt, God who creates us to be light. It is God who has already made us useful. God did not create us to be hidden, but created us to penetrate all the dark places of the world, all areas of society, and to let the love of Christ be known. It is not up to us to create the light or to show ourselves off. All we have to do is embrace our identity and act like who we are.
Then, then, all the glory will be given to the one who deserves it. And we will rest assured knowing that this world is a better place - a place full of beauty and life, a place full of light - because of who God is, and not what we do or don’t do.
It took me a while to understand why the lectionary includes this last part of this passage in today’s text. Then it hit me. These two analogies that Jesus makes are two sides of the same coin. Some of us don’t embrace our identity. We become saltless salt. We try to hide our lamp under a basket. Jesus is telling us who we are. You are salt! You are light! Others try so hard to be salt and light, often to boost ourselves up, but also sometimes just unconsciously trying to earn our way into God’s favor. We’re like a spotlight instead of a lamp. A spotlight is not the metaphor Jesus is using here. That just hurts people’s eyes - it doesn’t reflect Jesus!
You see Jesus tells us that Jesus is the fulfillment of the “Law and the Prophets,” - a shorthand way of saying the bible of his time. And we may be tempted toward throwing everything out and declaring that grace is king.
“We can do whatever we want because we are free from the law! Jesus has come to grant freedom!” But as Paul says - all things are lawful, but not all things are beneficial (1 Cor 10:23). If you serve me in this manner, you’ll be trampled in the ground, unnoticed by the world and useless to anybody.
On the other hand, some of us are still strapped to the law. The Pharisees get a bad rap - but they only wanted to be holy. They understood holiness as following the letter to the T, even if it meant hurting people along they way. They weren’t all bad, they just misunderstood holiness. And Jesus is saying, you’re not the one who makes yourself light; you’re not the one who makes yourself salt. It is I who created you to be like this and it is I who make you shine in the world. If you serve me in this manner, you will be least in the kingdom of God.
Instead, embrace my righteousness, the righteousness which I give you, the righteousness and lawfulness that stems from love and focuses on the spirit of the law. I have made you who are, I have made you exactly what I want you to be, and if you embrace that, I will make the entire world a better place for my glory and you will get to be a part of that!
TRANSITION:
What great news! So what does this mean for you and me?
YOU
Does the world know you are a Christian? Have you lost your saltiness Do you live your life in such a way that you are distinct from the world yet at the same time make this world a place full of life? Or are you useless to the world, does the world simply pass you by as if you aren’t even there. Do you stay off death and accentuate life?
For those of you who identify with this, know that God has created you to be salt! You are salt and God is there to help you become salty once more. You are light, and God wants nothing more than for your lifestyle to be a beacon of light for all the world to see God’s glory.
Pray that God would put you in places that need to be purified, places that need to have beauty and good and God’s light. Pray for the courage to say no to aspects in our society that we need to reject, and for wisdom to know which places in this city that we need to accentuate that bring glory to God. Pray that your home would be a light where all of Eastern Oregon knows the love of Christ dwells.
On the other hand, have you bought into the lie that you are only a part of the kingdom if you can work hard enough? Are you doing, doing, doing, simply because you are trying to make up for sinful things in your past, or because you think you aren’t good enough?
Or are you so intent on doing that you, like the pharisees, just need to stop and see that you’re trampling all over people in the name of God!
For those of you who are so intent on doing that you’ve forgotten it’s God’s job to let your light shine, and God’s job to make you into who God wants you to be, know that it is only the righteousness which Jesus gives you that lets you participate in his Kingdom. It is only when we are meek, humble, and obedient to Jesus Christ - not when we do, do, do, - that we get the incredible opportunity to be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Pray that God would reveal to you who He is calling you to be and the person into whom he is shaping you. Pray that your home would be a light where all of Eastern Oregon knows the love of Christ dwells.
WE
If we as Baker City Church of the Nazarene can embrace our identity as salt and light, can you imagine what this town would look like?
Perhaps more people in town would be free to worship on Sundays because we made our coffee at home!
Perhaps there would be more doodling during Church as people strove to create works of art that glorified God.
Perhaps this church would be the first place in town where prisoners come when they are released from the jail.
Perhaps your family would be the place where others turn to when they need a safe place to simply be.
Perhaps waiters would be excited whenever one of us visits their restaurant because they know we treat them special and tip well!
Perhaps those who have no family in Baker, the orphans, the widows, the divorced, the outcast, the single parent, these people would know that this is a place where life, beauty, and love can be find in Christ Jesus.
Can you dream with me church? Can you dream with me what it means for us to be the salt and the light of the earth!
Pray with Me.
Benediction:
“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col 3:15-17). Amen.
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*The "Me-We-God-You-We" Format is borrowed from Andy Stanley. This was preached Sunday Morning Worship, 2/09/14
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