This week and next we will have Gospel readings
from the 5th chapter of Matthew, a portion of the Sermon on the Mount.
We aren’t getting as much of the Sermon on the Mount
during this Epiphany season as usual,
because Ash Wednesday comes earlier this year.
But the Sermon on the Mount is an important part of the Gospels
so I’m going to give you a teaching sermon this Sunday and next.
The selection we get for today fits well with the theme for Epiphany:
you are the salt of the earth,
you are the light of the world.
Being light, the light continues to increase as assuredly as the days lengthen.
And I am quick to remind us all
that this is not just another commandment, a burden,
to be laid as a moral obligation on Christians.
It’s BE the light, just BE,
not an emphasis on doing, but on being.
The doing can only happen when first we BE,
if you can follow what I am saying.
This is actually self evident in the passage.
“You are the salt of the earth.”
Salt doesn’t have hands or feet to engage in action, one might say.
But when salt is present, flavor is enhanced, and food is preserved.
All that’s needed is for salt just to be salt.
And there is no way for salt to lose its saltiness.
If it’s not salty, it isn’t salt.
If God makes you salt, that is irrevolcable.
Jesus says we’re salt.
So how do we give flavor to others, how do we help to preserve others?
“You are the light of the world.”
A lamp emits light, and others see by it.
The lamp does nothing but simply is a source of light.
And it’s what everyone else is able to do because of the light
that makes it so useful.
So how do we BE light so that others can see and do by that light?
The point is, God is at work in us.
If we just BE as we are created,
God can work with us and in us and through us.
The potential is there for great things to happen.
So then there is the rest of today’s Gospel reading:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets;
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
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.
(and)
I tell you, unless your righteousness
exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
So I need to address this with you,
because this can easily be misunderstood.
What do you know about the Commandments?
The Ten Commandments?
or the 613 Commandments of the Jewish Tradition.
These are the expressions of the way of life called the Torah, the Law.
The understanding of the Hebrew People of the Old Testament Covenant
was that walking in the path of Torah,
living a life style of following these commandments,
was walking the way of Life.
So a major part of their spiritual practice
was focusing on these 613 commandments
and keeping them the best they could.
The scribes knew all 613 commandments
and the commentaries written on all of them.
The Pharisees were those whose spiritual practice
was to follow all those commandments
and thus they were recognized by the whole community
as upright and righteous and outstanding in piety.
But Jesus says that isn’t enough!
And the Apostle Paul, who had been a zealous Pharisee himself,
said that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
Romans 3:23
Being perfect in keeping all the commandments is not good enough.
But Jesus said that he came to fulfill all those commandments in Torah.
Well, remember that Jesus actually broke some of those commandments.
He healed, that is, he did work on the Sabbath, as a prime example.
Jesus came to bring to fullness what the Law and the Prophets were all about.
He would do that by everything he said and did
as that flowed out of his very being,
as he showed us how to be,
as he showed us what the fulfillment of our humanity could look like.
Jesus was the embodiment of that whole revelation of God
recorded by Moses on Mount Sinai as the Torah.
Jesus is the Light of the world,
Jesus is Enlightenment embodied.
And Jesus says, “Let me get a foothold in your life,
and I will make you Light too.”
That’s the difference between keeping the law as a morality
and keeping the law by “walking in the Spirit.”
To fulfill, to bring to fullness, to fill completely
all that the Torah and the Prophets of old were about,
Jesus took on as his responsibility
and thus to make himself a blessing to all.
Walking in the Spirit as the fulfilling of the Law
is an existential, not a moral, response.
It comes from being in union with God.
It comes from understanding that the Covenant with God
is first based on this preamble:
“I am your God, you are My people.
Be holy as I am holy.”
BE. BE. BE.
and love God with your whole being.
If you love God with your whole being you are in union with God.
So this whole Gospel passage for today
is a treatise on enlightenment and what enlightenment is.
Like with everything else Jesus says,
those who have ears to hear, let them hear.
those who have eyes to see, let them see.
There is an old story from India
told by Anthony de Mello, in his book Song of the Bird,
that describes this process of enlightenment.
A salt doll journeyed for thousands of miles over land,
until it finally came to the sea.
It was fascinated by this strange moving mass,
quite unlike anything it had ever seen before.
“Who are you?” said the salt doll to the sea.
The sea smilingly replied, “Come in and see.”
So the doll waded in.
The farther it walked into the sea the more it dissolved,
until there was only very little of it left.
Before that last bit dissolved, the doll exclaimed in wonder,
“Now I know what I am!”
So I will conclude with the words of the poet and story teller, Rumi.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing
there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
I'll meet you there.
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