5 th Sunday after Epiphany Sermon Scripture: Isaiah 58:1-12 Matthew 5:13-20

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1 5 th Sunday after Epiphany Sermon Scripture: Isaiah 58:1-12 Matthew 5:13-20 When I was new to preaching, a man in my home congregation approached me in the narthex following worship. I d known him most of my life; he was about my parents age, and had children about my age. He was an airline pilot, like my dad, and therefore neatly put together, with hair trimmed just above the ears as according to regulation. He put out his hand to shake mine with enthusiasm, apparently as pleased to know me now as a preacher as he ever was to know me as just a kid. Listening to you speak, he said, smiling, I m reminded of Ronald Reagan. I had no idea what he meant by that, and still I m mostly puzzled by it. I accepted it as a compliment, though. Clearly, he loved Ronald Reagan; most pilots did, until he deregulated the airlines. I m revisiting a book I read about a year ago, The Age of Fracture, by Daniel T. Rodgers, a political historian. Considering the last 25 years of the 20 th century, he explores what is in effect my lifetime, tracing its many streams as they flow into this new age, which he claims is distinctive as one of societal fracture. The book flap explains that during this time, Midcentury concepts of national consensus, managed markets, gender and racial identities, citizen obligation, and historical memory became more fluid. And a pivotal moment in this evolution is Ronald Reagan s First Inaugural address. In it, President Reagan told of Martin Treptow, a soldier in the First World War who had already been the subject of many a speech. A small-town barber before taking up a post on the Western front Mr. Treptow was one day Dispatched to carry a message between battalions, [whereupon he] was killed. His diary, recovered later, revealed a handwritten pledge: I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone. The set-up was perfect fodder for presidential speechifying. For decades, presidents had been employing a rhetoric of extremity, giving word to 1

2 what Rodgers calls an urgent sense of history s demands. To talk in the presidential voice was to talk against a backdrop of crisis, danger, and trial. In other words, to talk in the presidential voice was to speak in terms of Treptow s pledge and the context out of which it came. But President Reagan took it in a different direction. The crisis we re facing today, he said in January 1981, does not require of us the kind of sacrifice that Martin Treptow and so many thousands of others were called upon to make. It does require, however, our best effort and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds, to believe that together with God s help we can and will response the problems which now confront us. And after all, why shouldn t we believe that? We re Americans. Summing this up, Rodgers writes, Treptow s part was to give his life; ours was simply to believe that deeds as great as Treptow s were possible. It was to be one of the last significant mentions of sacrifice in Reagan s major speeches. What he would discuss more now was dreaming. In his Second Inaugural, he intoned: All we need to begin with is a dream that we can do better than before. All we need to have is faith, and that dream will come true. In his State of the Union of 1985, he declared, There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect. In these phrases, Rodgers hears not the voice of conservatism but of self-actualizing psychology in which there is no sharp thorn of cost. He writes, To dream, to reach, to sing, to break loose, to fly as high and as far as the imagination would carry you this notion of freedom was privatized and personalized, bent in on itself in the very enunciation of its limitlessness. [It was] enchanted. Last week, I spoke of spells. Considering the Beatitudes, I spoke of Jesus casting a spell. Considering the Beatitudes, these by which Jesus began his Sermon on the Mount (Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek... Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for 2

3 righteousness... ), I imagined the realm that Jesus meant to conjure up a realm, yes, of the hereafter, of heaven!, but also of the here-and-now, this which is to be the Church. A sermon is a spell, I said as much, words cast that they might come true, words of love and truth, mercy and justice, forgiveness and peace, cast that they all might come true. Whatever enchantment this all might have conjured, though, becomes demanding now with this next section of the Sermon: You are salt of the earth, Jesus said. He didn t say, You might be salt, if or You could be salt, if There are no qualifiers or qualifications. Apparently, merely listening to the Sermon on the Mount makes this so. There are also no ways to opt out of this program. If you lose your saltiness, you re to be thrown out and trampled under foot. But, wait, who ever heard of salt losing its saltiness? That s as possible as snow losing its crystalline make-up or granite losing its hardness. Salt is salty: that s what it is. It was also the most commonly used seasoning in antiquity and, though valuable, was among the people Israel in plentiful supply because of their proximity to the Dead, or Salt, Sea. Its preservative powers made it a necessity in life, a virtual synonym for life-giving force. As such, it was required that all sacrifices made in the Temple be salted whether for purifying the offering, preserving it, or pleasing God is not entirely clear. Maybe it was for all three. To say, You are the salt of the earth, is to speak in terms of sacrifice. But it s to do so in a new way. This is Jesus as Mathew remembered him to have preached Matthew who was so concerned with Jewish scripture and its fulfillment, Matthew who lived and wrote after the Temple had been destroyed and so to whom sacrifice meant something new, something still in discovery. Matthew would push the process of discovery along: in this new configuration, the whole world is the sacrificial offering to God a living sacrifice! while the disciples, apparently, were and are to be the salt. You are the light of the world, Jesus said (and many a politician has since appropriated, President Reagan included). He didn t say, You might be 3

4 light, if or You could be light, if There are no qualifiers or qualifications. Apparently, being a follower of Jesus makes this so. There are no ways to opt out of this program. Isaiah is the longest prophetic book, and it s thought to have been written by three people, each speaking from a difference stage in the life of Israel and Judah. The first speaks just prior to the invasion of Babylon and the exile, the second speaks from exile of the suffering of the people and the promise of restoration, and the third looks forward to a time that is surely coming when the people are back in their land and their way of life is reestablished. In this passage, the prophet is concerned that the people get it right this time. As ever, the people claim to delight in knowing God s ways, but then they complain that their pious acts come to nothing before a God who fails to notice them: Why do we fast, and you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice? But God, apparently, has noticed: Look, you serve your own interest in your fast day, and oppress all your workers Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to lie in sackcloth and ash? [Or] 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...? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house?...if you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness To say, You are the light of the world, is to speak in terms of collective sacrifice, collective self-giving that there might be justice for all. It s possible that the people thought they d be released from this. It s possible the people thought they d be released from the obligations of the Law I mean, now that the Messiah was here. No longer would they have to consider the needs of the oppressed because the Messiah would make it so no one (in their chosen nation, at least) would be oppressed. No longer would they have to consider the needs of the poor because Christ would make it so no 4

5 one (in their exceptional nation, at least) would be poor! No longer would they need to practice self-restraint. No longer would they have to practice selfbinding. Now living in the new age, the new creation, everything would be boundless and they could live with abandon freedom, as Daniel Rodgers wrote of it without obstacles or limits, and certainly without accountability to one another! If that s what the people thought, then they were wrong. The new age would be marked not by unboundedness but by boundless self-giving. The new creation would be characterized not by the Law of God abandoned and the people living with abandon but by the Law of God so fulfilled as to have filled the people to overflowing. The kingdom of heaven is not a place where you don t have to consider anyone else; it s a realm in which, to do so, to consider others while restraining yourself, is the ultimate blessing and joy. One commentary-blog I read claimed this is a lot to lay on a congregation. Such expectation, such demand: You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world: this is a lot to lay on a congregation. It s better perhaps to say that it s enough to believe such a thing is a possible. It s preferable perhaps to be assured that to have such a dream will suffice. Certainly it s true that the one who promises salvation so cheap will win at the ballot box did in the 80s and does still. What national leader speaks in terms of sacrifice anymore, except when referring to those in the military? And, besides, wasn t I saying as much last week? There is something inevitable about the gospel. The truth of God will prevail; the revelation that self-giving love is the salvation of the world will prove itself to be true. That we get to participate in its proving to be true, that we get to play a hand in its prevailing, is a gift to us. Living in the kingdom even now, living in the joy that God intends for all the world starting here, starting now: these are a gift of grace to us. But the end to which God is moving all of history, all of creation, does not depend upon us alone, or perhaps on us at all. So why do it? Why bother? If we can party on, held to no 5

6 account but our own pleasure, my own pleasure, then why bother with being salt, why bother with being light? To be honest, I was offended by the blogger who claimed such a claim was a lot, perhaps too much, to lay on a congregation as much as I am offended by the notion that not much is expected of me except that I believe in myself and dream big dreams. Yesterday was the boys final basketball game of the season, both on teams that won some and lost some. Jack came away from the school gym with a trophy: in 1 st and 2 nd grade, everyone s a winner. Toby came home empty-handed; in 3 rd and 4 th grade, you shouldn t need such consolation. Anticipating some heartbreak on Toby s part, I asked, Are you okay with that? Oh, yeah, he said casually. Who wants a trophy just for showing up? I love that God loves me as I am; I love that God calls forth more from me than just this. I love that God loves us each as we are; I love that God needs us to continue to rise to God s costly call. If I didn t say as much last week, let me say it now. If we feel burdened by this, then I m doing my job preaching in the tradition that Jesus perfected. If we feel defeated before we ve already begun, then let us discern the Holy Spirit who is the wind at our back. And if we feel up to the task, even excited at the task, then our worship has worked. Thanks be to God. 6