MATTHEW 5:13-20 ******* Let s set the scene - Jesus is escaping the crowds by going up a mountain with his disciples.

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1 The Power of Salt...The Power of Light by Rev. Sharon Lee MacArthur for Berkeley Chinese Community Church February 5, 2017 (for All Church Bilingual Worship, translator: Vivian Yee) 13 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. 14 You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 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. 16 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. 17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. 18 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. 19 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. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. MATTHEW 5:13-20 ******* Let s set the scene - Jesus is escaping the crowds by going up a mountain with his disciples. He s just finished the lesson about who is blessed...it was not conventional - those who had love and home and family! Nope - it was about how those with challenges were blessed. He said things like blessed are those who are poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. It was an upside down kind of understanding of blessing! Then we move into today s challenging passage. Jesus is still teaching his disciples. He says, You are the salt of the earth and then later You are the light of the world! He did not say - You will become the salt of the earth and the light of the world if you work hard! He did NOT make a prediction of something that s going to happen. Jesus said, You ARE the salt of the earth and light of the world meaning NOW! Jesus is talking to these new followers who were fishermen - they were new at this...they were clueless! Jesus tells these newbies that THEY ARE the sale of the world. Salt - we know salt, right? Salt is something those of us with heart issues or high blood pressure are supposed to avoid. Salt is something that cooks & chefs & those with discerning palates use to transform ingredients into a tasty dish and tasty dishes into tastier dishes. AND - If salt doesn t do that anymore, Jesus says, it s time to 1

2 get rid of it because it s no longer useful. Salt has the power to transform! If it doesn t transform, it s no longer needed! Jesus also tells his disciples that they are the light of the world. Whatever they are doing - others need to see it. In other words, don t hide what you are doing under a bushel - even ordinary everyday things. Light has the power to transform, too. Light is not meant to be hidden. Light needs to reveal new visions, new understandings, images of God... Challenging thoughts...confusing juxtaposition of ideas! So these new kids on the block...just as they are: Without a whole lot of training & education other than life and living...they are the transformative salt of the earth and light of the world! Hmmmm... And there s more - what s this about righteousness and law? Jesus said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Wait a minute - really? Unless the disciples righteousness is greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees, they ll never enter the kingdom of heaven???? But the Pharisees are THE ultimate law-keepers, Everyone in Jesus time knew that the Pharisees were the Righteous among the righteous, right? So, what must the new disciples be thinking? Their teacher is telling them that THEY are supposed to be MORE righteous than THE most righteous of righteous??!?! That s like telling beginning voice students that they need to sing better than Pavarotti! BUT then we remember the stories we ve heard about Jesus and his interactions with the Pharisees. We remember that Jesus didn't seem to think highly of the lifestyle or attitudes of the religious leaders of his day. He regarded them as shams and nitpickers, who loved rules at the expense of loving people. OK - what s that about? - Jesus is asking his newbie disciples to be more righteous than the Pharisees - AND Jesus is asking that THEY (who are not among the righteous law-keepers) ARE the salt and the light of the world. - And slowly it dawns on us that maybe Jesus righteousness...god s righteousness...is NOT the righteousness that the Pharisees are talking about or teaching about... - that is, being righteous is when one strictly follows the religious rules and laws. - Hmmm - that seems to be in keeping with Matthew s theme. 2

3 - Did you notice that the entire gospel of Matthew is about turning conventional expectations and ordinary ways of doing things upside-down and inside out. - So we can see the world in a whole new way...so we can see God s purpose in the world. Those surprises started at the very beginning of Matthew - with Jesus lineage and family history...remember? There were all the names of Jesus ancestors...all the fathers..generation by generation BUT Matthew includes Tamar and Rahab and Ruth and Bathsheba... These women are named as part of the lineage of the Messiah! Their stories were part of the Messiah s family history: - the sexual shenanigans of Tamar, - the redemptive actions of the prostitute Rahab of Jericho, - the compassion of a the non- Israelite, the Moabite, Ruth - the object of lust Bathsheba whose beauty drove King David to kill. These women in Jesus s family were definitely not in line with the conventional righteousnessness of the times! So maybe God s deep righteousness is not just about keeping the law. Wait - there s more. We hear about righteousness early in the gospel of Matthew. We hear that Jesus earthly father Joseph is a righteous man. So when his fiancé turns up pregnant and he knows it's not him who got her that way...joseph probably knew what the righteous, law-abiding thing to do is. But remember what happened? Just as Joseph is drawing up righteous divorce papers, an angel comes to point him toward a broader righteousness...a broader righteousness! That s what would come through Mary's child! 3

4 Mary s child...the One who would be Emmanuel. Mary s child...the one who would be known as God with us! Joseph was the first of many righteous people who would come to a whole new understanding of what being righteous is...in God s eyes. Joseph...salt of the earth...light of the world. We don t hear this in the Bible, but don t you wonder about how the righteous Pharisees treated Joseph for staying with Mary? And Mary gets mentioned in the same family tree as Tamar and Rahab... maybe folks wonder if Mary, too, was regarded as one of "those kinds of women." But God was up to something bigger and deeper than hurting one's reputation, and so Joseph and Mary did as the angels directed. Joseph and Mary...salt of the earth...light of the world. The child Mary birthed eventually got his fair share of public criticism and condemnation from the religious authorities. Jesus was a far cry from righteousness in their eyes. In the eyes of the Pharisees who uphold the law: - Jesus broke God's Law, - he mixed with the wrong people, - he failed to keep Sabbath, - he contaminated himself with every filthy undesirable he ran across. 4

5 Yet in today s passage, we hear otherwise - Jesus says he was actually keeping the Law right down to its slightest pen stroke! Jesus says he is achieving a righteousness so pure that you'd have to be God to do any better. What he said to the disciples that day and what many more would hear later... seemed backwards and upsidedown, unexpected and unexplainable. At the end of the day the only way to deal with this Jesus, and this kind of righteousness, was to get rid of him That way, everyone could get back to their previously scheduled programming - where righteousness meant only rule-keeping and not much being loving toward all people, just toward some, just toward those already like you. And that s what they tried to do - to go back to the way things were - with the crucifixion... The deepest irony of the Gospel is that the righteousness of Jesus did exceed that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law - the moment when Jesus stretched out his arms on the cross, and cried "It is accomplished!" And with that, Jesus drew all people to himself in gracious and perfect love. But that's not the end of the story! Salt of the earth...light of the world...is a legacy of Joseph, of Mary, of Jesus, of many more... We are salt of the earth...light of the world! We now have to respond about what to do about those righteous patterns and the notion of being righteous and following the law. And it s simple if we just remember that the heart of God's Law has been LOVE all along... Not love in the abstract or love as something you reserve for those who are already a lot like you. No - we re talking about God s divine love...god s radical love, The kind of love that God had and has in creating 5

6 something new in the beginning and every day: the world and all that is in it and on it. That s one clue about how we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world...love. Maybe this story gives us another clue: Someone once asked a well known preacher and writer what he would say if he were writing his very last sermon. He replied, "I would want to talk about things that are immediate and ordinary. In the kind of world we live in, I would like to get people to be more aware of God. I can do that by asking, 'Who are you going to have breakfast with tomorrow, and how are you going to treat that person?' I'd also say, 'Go home and be good to your spouse and treat your children with respect. And I would say, Do a good job at work.'"all the ordinary stuff about living your life and how you live it...we saw some of that in the video about Bing s 100 years of living, right? I think Bing and our preacher were right on... We need to be righteous people of salt and light in the real world, - we need to be involved with real people, - we need to really listen to them well, - we need to treat them as the images of God that they are. AND Along the way, maybe we will be deeply surprised at who God brings into our lives. Maybe we ll discover that sometimes the most righteous thing to do is something that will cause others to regard you as not righteous, as not Christian. Maybe we ll discover that sometimes the most moral thing to do is the one thing that will cause others to regard you as immoral, as not keeping up your standards. It happens. But that's OK: it happened over and over to Jesus, too. And he fulfilled all the righteousness there ever was...as salt of the earth...as light of the world. Please pray with me. O God, we thank you for filling us with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Thank you for being a God of surprises and a God who shows us again and again the true meaning of Christ-likeness in the least likely people and places. Bless us as your salt and your light that with You the world will become Your righteousness revealed. In Christ, Amen. 6