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Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 5:11-16
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
You are the salt of the earth. You are here to make things taste better. You are here to preserve what is already good within all things. Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here.
Speaker 1:We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. Thanks for being here today. I think we got everyone in and seated. My name is Jeremy.
Speaker 1:I'm one of the people who hang out around here at Commons, and we're so glad to see everyone today. The fall is always lots of fun as everyone is back and getting into new rhythms again, and we really appreciate that you make commons part of your rhythm on the weekend. Our hope is that you might actually encounter the divine in new ways through our time here today. But today, the shine is off the new season. We have no cookie go.
Speaker 1:There is no popcorn, no streamers as you enter. Last week, I talked to someone who was here for the very first time, and they asked me, is church always like this? And sadly, I had to say no. It's all downhill from here. But hopefully, you did enjoy last week.
Speaker 1:It's fun and actually it's holy to celebrate these markers in our year and in our shared story together. However, along with all of the excitement last week, we also kicked off our new season and our new series in the Sermon on the Mount. And so thank you to everyone who reached out this week with some feedback from last Sunday. The idea of God meeting us in our spiritual poverty really seem to resonate with a lot of you. And it's incredibly encouraging for us to see how our language can begin to open up new ways of thinking and new avenues for the spirit to do God's work inside each of us.
Speaker 1:And so last week, we began by reading the beatitudes. These eight declarations of how the world could and should be in the imagination of God. Except of course, there was no way that we could talk about eight declarations of a brand new world in just thirty minutes. And so we focused on the first couple. However, we did start putting together a YouTube series touching on each of the beatitudes.
Speaker 1:You can check that out if you're interested and subscribe at youtube.com/commonschurch. Those are going up this week. But to look back at last Sunday, we started at the start because for me, for my money, that first beatitude, that opening line from Jesus is really the key to understanding everything that follows. I remember when I was in seminary and I took classes on how to preach a sermon. They called it homiletics just to make it sound fancy.
Speaker 1:But the thing they drilled into us over and over again was the need to grab your audience with your opening line. And clearly, I did not pay much attention in that class because I rarely spend any time on my opening line. Who's gonna remember that anyway? It's the ending. That's what matters.
Speaker 1:But then again, maybe my professors were onto something because Jesus really does seem to front load a lot of meaning in his opening salvo. And the key here, I think, is remembering that the beatitudes are Jesus not teaching us about ourselves, not yet. That's coming. That's where we'll turn our attention today. But first, Jesus wants to begin by saying something about God.
Speaker 1:And if you get that, if you read each beatitude through that lens, what is this telling me about the divine? Then they open up in new and sometimes heartrending ways. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God. I read some of my favorite quotes last week. Walter Brueggemann, this is God's bless you to the god awful.
Speaker 1:Dallas Willard, these are the spiritually bankrupt, the spiritual beggars, those without a wisp of religion. And then my take on it, blessed are those who don't have a clue for God has come near to you. But this really begins to open up when we understand the setting that Matthew creates for us. The writer of Matthew actually goes out of their way to tell us who's in the audience. It's rural Jews who are just trying to do their best under an oppressive regime.
Speaker 1:It's religious elites from Jerusalem who broker the power and politics of religion. And it is Roman pagans from the Decapolis who have their own religions and traditions, but who were considered godless by their Jewish contemporaries. In fact, Matthew uses the term to describe this crowd. That term is where we get our phrase from, which means the unwashed, unfiltered masses. That's who's here listening to what Jesus has to say.
Speaker 1:And to that crowd, that mishmash of humanity, to rural Jews and religious fundamentalists and Romans with completely different assumptions about God, Jesus begins, blessed are those who can't make sense of the divine for God has come to find all of you. Dallas Willard, in his book, The Divine Conspiracy, goes on to say that standing around Jesus as he speaks are the people with no spiritual qualifications or abilities at all. You would never call on them when spiritual work is to be done. There is nothing in them to suggest that the breath of God might move in or through their lives. They have no charisma, no religious glitter, no clout.
Speaker 1:In fact, they are the first to tell you that they can't really make heads or tails of religion, and they are beloved. And that's great. Except someone asked me this week, okay. So God loves me and God comes near to me. Now what?
Speaker 1:Like, do I have to respond to that? Can I just go on with my life? What's next? And this is why understanding Jesus here at the start is so important for understanding Jesus there at the end. Is Jesus saying that God loves you and God will continue to love you even if you keep on being selfish, even if you keep on ignoring the divine, even if you keep on following your own path and ignoring God?
Speaker 1:And the answer is absolutely unequivocally, yes. You are loved. You will always be loved. You cannot do anything to make God love you anymore or any less because you don't have the power to change God. The thing is, once you know this, once Jesus gets it into you, once Jesus gets through to you, once Jesus convinces you that you are not who you thought you are not on your own, You will not, you cannot remain the same person.
Speaker 1:But it's not because you start to try harder. That's not the gospel. It's because grace. Pure acceptance and unfettered divine love experienced in our lives cannot not begin to transform us. Jesus says, I don't need to tell you to be better.
Speaker 1:I need to tell you that you are beloved. And if that lands, well, then everything else will begin to take care of itself. In traditional Christian language, we say that we are saved by grace. But the thing is sometimes we forget that we are sanctified by grace as well. It's not our best efforts that change us.
Speaker 1:It's God's love that transforms us. And so if you heard Jesus saying last week, you are loved as you are, and your first response was, well, great. Then I can go back to my life stealing and abusing and mistreating those around me. I'm telling you, you did not hear Jesus say that you are loved. What you heard was your own greed justifying itself, but you did not hear divine love that changes everything about you.
Speaker 1:And this is what makes the gospel so elusive. Because God says you are loved. And somehow we try to turn that into either a license to be jerks or something to live up to and neither of those understand grace. And so Jesus says, okay. Let's start again.
Speaker 1:No. No. No. You are loved. You are loved.
Speaker 1:You are loved all the way to the cross and back because love is the only thing that can turn our worst moments into something beautiful on the other side. That is the good news, and so that is where Jesus begins. Now, there are seven other beatitudes, and we'll talk about those on YouTube. But today, we now begin to shift toward this life that is shaped by love. So let's pray, and then today, it is salt and light.
Speaker 1:God, our only refuge, our steadfast shelter, We seek you. We need you. We yearn to be close to you, but we are fearful and afraid, and sometimes real love scares us. And so often, we run from you and we wander far from you. We squander our blessings and yet you continue to call us back home.
Speaker 1:God, may you be present to us today, reminding us that our way home is not found in working harder. That the way home is not chasing our own inventions. The path of return and calm and grace and peace is learning to rest in your welcome. May we trust that you are exactly who you tell us you are. Good and gracious and infinite love ever offered to us.
Speaker 1:May we learn to run back towards all of that. If we are lost today, would you light our path? If we are confused this morning, would you speak truth? If we are fearful right now, send us courage. And if we are hesitant, Lord, would you be gentle with us and slowly show us true love.
Speaker 1:In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen. Okay. Salt and light. Let's start by reading today.
Speaker 1:We're gonna go to Matthew five starting in verse 11, which is where we left off last Sunday. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad because how great is your reward in heaven for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?
Speaker 1:And is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house.
Speaker 1:In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven. Matthew chapter five verses 11 through to 16. Now again, our assumption here today based on the beatitudes is that Jesus is not now giving us a task list to live up to. Instead, he is beginning to describe the life that emerges from within us as God's grace and God's love begins to take root in us. But there's some big stuff here, and so we need to talk about what is right, what tastes good, what lasts forever, and what illuminates our way in the world.
Speaker 1:But let's go back and start in verse 11. Because this line is almost like a ninth or maybe even a restatement of that eighth beatitude. Remember, Jesus ends that opening section by saying, blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Which by the way, is the same gift that is given to the poor of spirit in the first beatitude which creates this nice and reinforces everything we've been just saying. The kingdom of God is gifted to all of us.
Speaker 1:And then the kingdom of God is also what transforms us from our poverty of spirit to righteous actors in the world. But then from there, Jesus expands that by saying, well, blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, falsely say all kinds of things against you because of me. Now, important piece here, you are not blessed. God is not impressed when people avoid you because you are belligerent. That is not the persecution Jesus is talking about here.
Speaker 1:This is not what Jesus is talking about, and yet there are all kinds of preachers who seem to think that their proficiency in annoying people with religion is somehow a badge of honor, and it's not. People did not hate Jesus. People loved Jesus. People were drawn to Jesus as evidenced by the huge crowds of people that gathered to listen to Jesus. The ones who hated Jesus, the ones who persecuted Jesus, they were the ones who were threatened by Jesus.
Speaker 1:This is the key here. Jesus says, blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness. It's not because of your righteousness. It's not because of their righteousness. It's Try saying that quickly.
Speaker 1:What that means is persecuted for the cause of justice. And we've talked about this before. But the kaiosune is the Greek word that corresponds to the Hebrew word tzedek. And tzedek is this incredibly important idea in the Hebrew scriptures that means righteousness. Except that in the Hebrew language, the idea of an internal rightness with God.
Speaker 1:This was not separate or distinct from an external corporate rightness in the world. So in Hebrew, they don't have two different words for righteousness and justice. They are the same thing. They are what is right. And here, because there is no your, this is not your righteousness.
Speaker 1:There's nothing to personalize Jesus' statement. This is not what we are being persecuted for. We should probably read it instead as blessed are those who are persecuted because of what is right in the world between us. And we tend to, in English, call that justice. So this blessing and this persecution that Jesus talks about, it does not come to those who huddle together in the religious enclaves and yell at those outside.
Speaker 1:It is for those who do what is right for others even at great cost to themselves. You don't get a star for looking out for yourself. You don't need divine love for that. You are blessed when God's love moves in you and through you, and you realize that this love needs to find expression in the world for those who don't see it yet. And if that's your story, and if that's who you are working on behalf of, the powerless and the voiceless and the marginalized, well, then what's going to happen is you're going to challenge the status quo, and that is going to upset some people.
Speaker 1:One of the really interesting things in the gospels is watching the poor and the oppressed immediately seize on the significance of Jesus' message. This good news that has come to them. But then, as the story unfolds, we watch as the powerful slowly turned the masses into a mob. Their discontent is mobilized into anger, and that anger is weaponized against Jesus, and Jesus is scapegoated by those he's working hard to save. Later in this season, this year, we're gonna talk about how to be angry.
Speaker 1:That this is really important because anger is this incredibly delicate balance in our lives where it can motivate and it can move us, but if we don't learn how to transform it into positive action in the world, anger will eat us alive. The key here is to recognize that the persecution Jesus speaks of comes not when we are defending ourselves or our faith or our way of life or our group. In fact, we're kill called to give all of that away anyway. It comes when we learn to work for those who don't have what we take for granted. Because as Jesus says, that's what the prophets were all about anyway.
Speaker 1:Okay. So now we have the transition that Jesus makes from the blessing of God that comes to us to the life that blessing begins to inspire in us. And how we begin to work to sometimes challenge the status quo, that threatens some people and sometimes they don't respond well. And now we can start to track with where Jesus is going. And for that, he uses two metaphors here, salt and light.
Speaker 1:And cards on the table, I love salts. If you've been to my house, I keep a collection of different salts in my house for different culinary applications. I put salt on everything, on pasta, on pizza, on sandwiches, on ice cream, on cookies, on melon. And come on. If you have not tried a little bit of salt on your watermelon, this is the most important thing you will learn today.
Speaker 1:So take out your journal and write something down right now because trust me, it's delicious. And honestly, please tell me you have all made the switch to salted dark chocolate and left that sweetened milk nonsense behind because salt makes everything in your life better. It just does. In fact, in our house, we're at the point where my son, who just had a birthday a couple weeks ago and got a cake, immediately stated that he would be having the icing off my piece because, and I quote, I know you're more of a salty guy, dad. And first I said, yes, of course, you can have my icing.
Speaker 1:And then I said also, please don't go around telling your teachers that your pastor dad is a quote, salty guy. They may not take that the way that you mean it. However, the reason I love salt is not because it's just that delicious sodium fix, although it's that. It's because salt helps bring out all of the flavors around it. Right?
Speaker 1:We know this. We have salt and sour, sweet and bitter and umami taste receptors, and salt is able to help heighten those other flavors. That's why putting just a little bit of salt on your watermelon will make it taste sweeter for you. I promise. But this is not new.
Speaker 1:Actually, this is as old as this text that we're reading. Like the ancient Hebrew text from before the time of Jesus, Ben Sirach says that the basic necessities of human life are water and fire and iron and salt. With wheat flour, milk and honey, the blood of grape and oil and clothing, all of these are good. They are meant for the holy amen. And old Ben Sirach was right.
Speaker 1:Salt has been celebrated throughout human history for two main purposes. One, it makes everything taste better, and two, it preserves food. It's why you put salt on your chocolate. It's also why that rotten hunk of dried out meat you bought at the corner store was also so salty because the salt preserves it. Also, you shouldn't eat that stuff.
Speaker 1:And I think both of these ideas are here in Jesus' imagination. You are the salt of the earth. You are here to make things taste better. You are here to preserve what is already good within all things. So what does that mean?
Speaker 1:Well, let's look back to the beatitudes. Jesus said at one point, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled. There's another culinary based metaphor. And think about that one. Those who hunger and thirst.
Speaker 1:Those who want to see what is right and righteous and just in the world and in themselves, but they hunger and they thirst because they don't quite see it yet. Right? To them, Jesus says, you are blessed just because you want it even before you measure up. You are blessed before you ever take a step towards justice. You are blessed the moment you begin to imagine a world that is just a little bit better than the one you see around you right now.
Speaker 1:So know this, your imagination, the way you see the world and know that it could be better. The way you dream about a world that is more equitable, more generous, more beautiful, more gracious, more of what you already know is good and sacred and life giving. That in itself, that desire you have to see the world made better, that is blessing. Because that dissatisfaction when channeled appropriately puts you in touch with the way that the world could and should and will one day be. Jesus says, you're not a dreamer.
Speaker 1:You are ahead of the curve. But here, he says, you are the salt of the earth. You are here to notice where the flavor is just a little bit lacking, and you are here to make all of it taste better. That hungering and thirsting, that awareness of opportunity, that's a blessing for you. Part of that blessing is that it's also part of discovering your purpose why you're here.
Speaker 1:You hunger for a world that tastes better, start seasoning it with the flavors that you want. And look, I know I'm really driving this flavor metaphor here, but really I love it because Jesus isn't asking us at all to start over. He's not asking everyone to be some kind of revolutionary or lead some massive social change. He's saying, if you can imagine something just a little bit different, if you could see where things could be just a little bit better, then you can begin right now in small ways to shift the flavor of the world that's around you. He's saying, kindness will go farther than you think it will, and generosity will stretch farther than your bank account, and putting yourself in someone else's shoes, listening to their story, honoring their journey even if it doesn't look like yours.
Speaker 1:Conversations with your neighbors and smiles for strangers and unnecessary compliments out of nowhere. All of these really will slowly change the world one pinch at a time. Now hear me. I'm not saying that's all we need. I mean, we do need revolutionaries, and we do need sweeping change, and we do need an imagination for a world that has been completely reinvented by grace, but not all of us are called to lead movements.
Speaker 1:Some of us are called to simply help our slice of the world taste a little bit better right now today. And all of that is sacred and holy before God. So salt helps the world taste better. It also preserves what is already good in the world. Now the ancients knew how delicious salt was, but they also knew how important salt was.
Speaker 1:Numbers eighteen nineteen says, whatever is set aside from the holy offerings that the Israelites present to the Lord, I give to the Levites, to your sons and daughters as your perpetual share. It is an everlasting covenant of salt before the Lord both for you and your offspring. That's weird. Leviticus two thirteen says season all of your offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your offerings.
Speaker 1:Add salt to everything you bring before the Lord. That's weird. And this wasn't just an Israelite thing. In Babylon, they would refer to their allies as those who had tasted the salt of the tribe. In Persia, swearing loyalty to the king was said to be tasting the salt of the palace.
Speaker 1:In fact, in Aramaic, the word for treaty or agreement is a form of the verb to salt. So what is going on with all of these ancient salt covenants? Well, in the ancient world, salt was the primary way that anything was preserved. And it didn't have refrigerators. And so salt became across all of these different cultures, a metaphor for any promise, any agreement, any covenant, any treaty that would never go bad or dissolve or become void.
Speaker 1:Essentially, your salt was your signature. It meant that your word was good for something. And so when God used salt in God's promises to the world, this was God using the images of the ancient world to say that God will not let down God's side of the agreement. God's promise is trustworthy and dependable and forever. And when Jesus comes along and says, actually, you are the salt of the earth.
Speaker 1:Part of what Jesus is saying is that you are here to be proof of God's promise, God's fidelity, God's never ending commitment to God's promises in the world. You are God's signature on the deal. So what does that mean? It means that you and I and those who are sat on the side of a mountain some two thousand years ago listening to Jesus. All of us who have attempted in our broken, confused, sometimes misguided attempts to follow the path of God in the world, we are proof to the world that God still cares.
Speaker 1:God's promise in God's word, God's investment in the world is embodied in all of us who are here seasoning the world, preparing the world, reminding the world that the story is not yet done. And so when you see what is beautiful and you notice beauty and you celebrate beauty by helping someone else see what is beautiful all around them, you are the salt that helps preserve the very best of God's creation. And when you see injustice in the world and you take a stand for what is right and you work to return the world to the rhythms of love embedded in the universe, you are the salt that helps to preserve the very best of God's cosmos. And when you extend yourself just beyond yourself, and you grow your circle to include the person who has become convinced that they have been forgotten by everyone, And you remind them that their story is important to you. You are the salt that preserves the very best of God's story right now.
Speaker 1:But here's the real beauty of it. You don't need to create any of that goodness. You don't need to dream it up on your own. You don't need to be the source of anything. You simply need to become aware of all of the goodness that already is embedded in God's creation all around you all the time.
Speaker 1:Because the salt isn't the main course. Right? The salt is what preserves and points to and seasons and elevates and brings out all of the goodness God is already doing all around us all the time. You see, this is what is so remarkable to me about Jesus. That he is this brown skinned, marginalized person from a conquered land with no country or wealth to speak of, and yet he does not see the world as irretrievably damaged.
Speaker 1:For Jesus, the world is not headed to hell destined for the scrap heap. For Jesus, the world is indescribably beautiful and filled with potential. Everything is infused with sacred purpose just below the grit and the grime and the blood and the sweat and the tears that sometimes obscure our imagination of everything that could be in God's world. And if that's what you are starting to see when you look around, all of that goodness and all of that beauty, not an knackered world intended for Gehenna, but a beautiful world covered up by sin. Well, then of course, you wanna season it.
Speaker 1:Of course, you wanna preserve the best of it. Of course, you wanna lean into it to make it better instead of backing away from it. Of course, you wanna let that light that is beginning to grow within you shine before others because no one lights a lamp just to put it under a bowl. But this is not Jesus telling us to go by placards and stand downtown with megaphones yelling at people. This is Jesus talking with a natural, normal, instinctive response to the good news that fills us with joy for what is and an anticipation of what could be, letting all of that light begin to leak out of us.
Speaker 1:Salt and light is not something for you to live up to. Salt and light is the life that is in you right now waiting to be unleashed in the world. May your kindness bring new flavor and savor to those around you today. May your generosity preserve the very best of everything that you are awakening to for others this week. May the light of Christ that sought you and found you in your spiritual poverty shine in you and through you to those near you, illuminating a whole new way in the world for those with eyes to see the beauty that surrounds them.
Speaker 1:May you become the salt and the light of the earth by moving in step with the God who is already at work right now renewing all things through grace. Let's pray. God of grace and peace, who comes to us, who finds us, who begins something in us, would that light begin to take root and grow and turn into a flame that begins to leak out through all of our pores so that our life might begin to illuminate, to awaken people, to light the goodness that is around them all the time, the beauty that surrounds them, the grace that surrounds them, the love that surrounds each of us right now. May we look at our tiny slice of the world and imagine the ways that it could taste better. And the way we season it with our lives, may we preserve the best of what's already there.
Speaker 1:May we light everything so that your beauty shines all around us. And may we recognize that those moments where we hunger and thirst for a world that is better than the one that we see, This is your sacred imagination beginning to shape how we see the world. Not just for what is, but for what could be, what should be, what will be when we begin to walk in step with your kingdom. May our lives bring salt and light to those near us. May the world taste better.
Speaker 1:May what is good be preserved. What is beautiful be illuminated through our lives. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.