Becoming Salt & Light

Matthew 5:(3-12) 13-16

Second Sunday in Lent/ 17^th March 2019

Salt and light.  Are they tired metaphors for the Christian life today? Perhaps salt really has lost its saltiness and light its luster? Salt is essential to life, of course; we would die without it. Although too much salt, we know, is not good for us. And as for light, although marvelous and necessary for life, we kind of take it for granted. It’s there at a flip of a switch.  We carry around flashlights on our phones.  The daily rising of the sun doesn’t fill us with the same kind of awe as it did for our ancestors.  The natural world has become disenchanted.

In Jesus’ time, salt was an extremely valuable, essential commodity. The Roman Empire issued its soldiers “salt money,” a salarium, money for a soldier to buy salt. Salarium is the root of the English word salary.  Salt was and is a rich metaphor, but Jesus never really says in what way we are salt.  And I say “we” because Jesus is talking to the crowd, to the disciples.  The “you” is plural. All of you, or, better, y’all.  Y’all are the salt of the earth; y’all are the light of the world.  Still, Jesus never says in what way y’all are salt.  Are we a preservative? Are we here to enhance the flavor and tastiness of the earth?  Salt doesn’t really lose its saltiness; it endures, so the metaphor doesn’t really work. Perhaps we’re meant to be a purifying agent?

But we shouldn’t push the salt metaphor too far because it doesn’t stand on its own in the text.  Salt goes with light; they’re tied together—which is easier to see in the Greek.  Light features prominently throughout Matthew’s Gospel, and his allusions to light are rooted in the Hebrew scriptures, especially Isaiah 9, 42, and 58. Light suggests revelation, instruction, the law, righteousness, God’s presence.[1]

Salt and light, together, reflect God’s covenant with Israel and God’s commitment to the world, through God’s people. In earlier cultures, salt was used in covenant making ceremonies. In Leviticus (2:13), Numbers (18:19), 2 Chronicles (13:5), and Ezra (4:14), salt was eaten by itself or with bread when committing to a covenant agreement. The Roman Catholic Church often uses salt in the sacrament of baptism. Salt and light signal that God is doing something new in and through Jesus, and that to be his disciple is to be a herald of a new and lasting covenant effected by Jesus.[2]

To be his disciple is to be salt and light.  Still, Jesus never really says how, except that we are light set on a hill for all to see, and that we are to shine.  But how? And what does that mean for us in a world that has a very different relationship with light? Did Jesus leave us without any instructions?

The answer is yes, but they’re often overlooked because these verses are usually lifted out from the flow of the sermon and taken out of context. Look at what comes before verse 13 and you’ll see Jesus’ blessing statements, the Beatitudes.  As we discovered last week, behind the English word “blessed” is the Greek word makarios, which can be translated as “blessed,” but it can also mean “blissful,” “happy,” “fortunate,” or “flourishing.”

We also discovered another problematic Greek word in the text; it’s the word hoti, often translated “for.”  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom” (Mt. 5:3).  The use of the word “for” in each statement creates the impression that these descriptions of blessedness will be experienced one day, in the future.  It’s also easy to read or hear these verses as saying: If I am poor in spirit, God will bless me, and then I will enter the kingdom.  If I am meek, then I will inherit the earth, etc.  If I live this way, I will be blessed.  If we took a poll, my guess is that most us have read it this way.  If “p,” then “q.” But this is a flat, we could even say boring way of reading this text. 

The Greek word hoti (for) can also be translated “because.” And hen we translate the Beatitudes this way, using “flourish” instead of “blessed,” everything changes: 

Flourishing are the poor in spirit because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

Flourishing are the mourners because they will be comforted.

Flourishing are the humble because they will inherit the earth.

Flourishing are the ones hungering and thirsting for righteousness

because they will be satisfied.  

Flourishing are the merciful because they will be given mercy.

Flourishing are the pure in heart because they will see God. 

Flourishing are the peacemakers because they will be called the children of God.

Flourishing are the ones persecuted on account of righteousness

because the kingdom of heaven is theirs. 

Flourishing are you whenever people revile and slander you and speak all kinds of evil against you on account of me.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.[3]

Y’all are the salt of the earth…Y’all are the light of the world.

You see, the salt and light metaphors belong to the Beatitudes.  They flow out from the blessing statements, they’re a continuation of what comes before them.  Jesus wants his disciples to see that when we live this way, live the way he lived, we will come to see what a flourishing life looks like; and when we are flourishing in this way we are being salt and light in the world. Something happens to and in the world through us, because of us.

What’s striking about Jesus’ teaching is that he wants us to see that we are salt and light—already. The late Eugene Peterson reminds us that, “Scripture does not present us with a moral code and tell us ‘Live up to this,’ nor does it set out a system of doctrine and say ‘Think like this and you will live.’ Rather”—and this is crucial—“the biblical way is to tell a story and in the telling invite: ‘Live into this—this is what it looks like to be human in the God-made and God-ruled world; this is what is involved in becoming and maturing as a human being.”[4]

Live into this. Live into this vision. Live into thinking of yourself as salt and light. What if we leaned forward into it? What if we allowed the symbol to shape us, inform us, touch us, spark something in us, teach us, lead us as a church?  Live and serve this way and we’ll soon find ourselves being changed, becoming salt and light. Jesus has already said we are salt, we are light. Now become who you are. Become who are, already!

Go ahead: Shine! “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Mt. 5:16).  Go ahead, let your light shine. Shine, Church, shine! Don’t hide your light under a bushel. Don’t be afraid. Don’t hide who you are. The world cannot afford for us to be timid.  Don’t be afraid to shine! Flourish! Become who you are! 

In love, Jesus calls us out and invites us to shine.  That’s what love does. “Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”[5] That’s how Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) put it, the African-American author and anthropologist.  “Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”  

Jesus calls us to shine.  But what does this mean for us, we who have a different relationship with light?  There’s still, God knows, plenty of darkness in the world. What does it mean for us to be light today? Jesus tells us we’re light, but we know that we’re not the source of light. I’m not. You’re not. The Church is not.  But perhaps we can be the conduit for light, the channel of light.  As servants of the Light, we are called to help each other see more clearly: to see who we are (and aren’t), to see our neighbors—truly see them, not our fearful and false projections, but who they really are; to see the world around us, and to see more clearly who God is (and isn’t) and what God is calling us to be (and not be) and calling us to do (and not do).

What if these days we’re called to be more than a shining light on a hill—static, stationary, emanating light?  That feels kind of passive. The church must be active. We need to shine. As disciples of the Light, we need to use the light that we have, that we are, to illumine the dark places in the world. We need to bring more light into the world. As the slogan or motto of The Baltimore Sun reads “LIGHT FOR ALL.”  That’s who we are.  

But how? Our Envision Fund is certainly one way, hopefully, we’re bring more light into the world. The board is meeting today to vote on their grant recommendations to Session. More than $140,000 will soon be available to help shed some light in dark places.

But, instead of being a stationary light for all to see, what if we were more like search lights or headlamps? Consider what it’s like driving down a dark road at night.  The headlamps on the car illumine the road so we can make our way through the dark, but we know that the darkness is still there, just beyond the range of our high beams, and we’re careful because we never know what’s lurking in the darkness about jump out in front of us.  The more light we have the easier our way through the woods.

The Church is called to shine its light in the dark places of the world. We must not be afraid to discover what hides in the darkness.  The Church is called to be a spotlight on all that lurks in places and people that are enemies of the light. Isn’t this how we expose injustice in the church and in society? Don’t we have to shine light on it to see it? Otherwise it hides in the darkness and shadow and it works its diabolic deeds of division and destruction. When we shine a light on injustice or a wrong, we see it, and then we can name it. We call it out. Isn’t this what our teenagers were doing at Friday’s Global Climate Strike, demanding climate change reform? They were shining light on an issue, to help more see what many continue to deny, those who live in the darkness of denial. This is holy work.

To act this way means that we must be confident about who we are.  It requires courage.  It requires strength.  And it requires grace and love and mercy to shine the light on the dark and shadowy places in our lives and in the world that hinder God’s children from flourishing, that hinders their future.

The Church needs to shine a stead, strong light on racism within our hearts and in the Church and institutions, and shine the light on the Church’s own complicity in racism, and expose the sin of white supremacy and white nationalism.  Princeton Theological Seminary recently completed a comprehensive historical audit that shines a strong light on its complicated and complex relationship with slavery in the nineteenth century, and how it benefited from the enslavement of African-Americans.  I was shocked and disturbed to read the finds of this report about an institution near and dear to my heart.

And, given the horrific attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, the Church must continue to call out Islamophobia whenever we see it.  And we need to call out anti-semitism.

We need to shine the light on places, people, relationships, situations of human cruelty and abuse, systemic injustice.  In today’s New York Times there is a feature article, “The Tragedy of Baltimore,” on the rise of violent crime in Baltimore City, especially since Freddie Gray’s death in 2015. It’s written by Alex MacGillis, who worships at First and Franklin Presbyterian Church, downtown. A lot of light is needed to expose the death-dealing systems tearing the city apart, and taking the lives of God’s children.

And the Church needs to shine the light on evil. We must name it evil, and expose it, and say it for what it is—in us, in our families and communities, in our churches, in government and the highest halls of power.

“Y’all are light,” Jesus said! Don’t be afraid. Go ahead, shine! And when we do, all our good works will point back not to us, but to the source of light itself.  And we’ll give God all the glory.

* * *
This sermon is part of a six-week Lenten series:
Following Jesus: The Sermon on the Mount
March 10: Are You Flourishing?
March 17: Becoming Salt & Light
March 24: Wholeness, Not Perfection
March 31: Matters of the Heart

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[1] Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 163-164.

[2] Pennington, 165.

[3] This Pennington’s translation of Matthew 5:3-12, 143-144.

[4] Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 43-44.

[5] Nora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (HarperPerennial, 2006).

Are You Flourishing?

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Following Jesus: 

A Sermon Series for Lent

Matthew 5:1-12

First Sunday in Lent

We know these words well, maybe too well.  On the surface, these words of blessings, these Beatitudes sound so unassuming, seemingly harmless, comforting, assuring. We find them on plaques and refrigerator magnets, offering inspiration, aspiration, offering hope.  Depending upon the occasion we can lift out the verse that we need to hear or offer that truth to someone who needs to hear it.  “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Mt. 5:4).  “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Mt. 5:9). Each of the blessing statements can stand on their own.  The Beatitudes are made for Twitter; they’re eminently Tweetable. Each one fits quite nicely into a tweet.

Go below a surface reading of the text, however, go into the Greek, connect the text to the rest of the Sermon of the Mount, connect the sermon to the rest of Matthew’s Gospel, and we discover that things are not that simple—or harmless or all that comforting. Well, they are comforting, but not in the way we usually expect. 

Behind the English “blessed” is the Greek word makarios, which is notoriously difficult to translate.  Makarios can be translated as “blessed,” but it can also mean “blissful,” “happy,” “fortunate,” or “flourishing.”  Blessing-statements or macarisms, as they’re known, were not unique to Jesus; they were widely used in Second Temple Judaism of the first century, as well as throughout the Greco-Roman culture. The Greeks used the word makarios in their mythology to describe the life of a human being who lives like the gods, beyond care, beyond labor, beyond death.[1]  In other words, makarios describes what a blessed or happy life looks like.

There’s another reason to know the backstory of this word, makarios. Between 300-200 BC, the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek, into what is known as the Septuagint. This Greek translation was used widely by Hellenized Jews shaped by Greek philosophy and culture, although it was considered inferior to the original Hebrew text. This is because, in part, the Jewish worldview does not sit easily within Greek culture. The early Christian theologian Tertullian (160-220), aware of our roots in Judaism, famously asked in his Prescription Against the Heretics, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”  Nevertheless, Greek ideas shaped Jewish (and later Christian) thought.

We can see this in Psalm 1.  “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread” (Ps. 1:1).  “Happy” could also be translated “blessed.”  What we need to know is that in Hebrew there are two words for “blessing”: there’s beraka, which is God’s act of blessing, and there’s asre, which describes the happiness, the blessedness of human life in relationship with God, walking in the way of God. Here in Psalm 1, the Hebrew is 'ašrê.  It’s describing a life that is in relationship with God.  And when the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek, they chose makarios for 'ašrê. It’s important to know this because, as Jonathan Pennington reminds us that the “English term ‘blessed’ is so heavily loaded with the narrower sense of ‘divine favor’ that the sense of human flourishing is almost always lost.”[2]

The Judaism of the Second Temple, the Judaism of Jesus and Matthew, was heavily influenced by Greek thought, was driven by this question: what does a good life look like?  What does a flourishing life look like?  And here in Matthew’s Gospel we find Jesus offering “blessing statements,” but reframes their meaning in light of his vision and mission proclaiming the coming realm of God.  In other words, Jesus wants his followers to know that when we follow him, yes, we will be blessed, but more significantly, we will discover what human flourishing looks like—but remember, too many, human flourishing, from Jesus’ perspective, will look odd, bizarre, different, even scandalous. 

And there’s another problematic Greek word here; it’s the word, hoti, often translated “for.”  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom.”  The use of the word “for” in each statement creates the impression that these descriptions of blessedness will be experienced one day, in the future.  It’s also easy to read or hear these verses as saying: If I am poor in spirit, God will bless me, and then I will enter the kingdom.  If I am meek, then I will inherit the earth.  If I am pure in heart, then I will see God, etc.  If I live this way, I will be blessed.  If we took a poll, my guess is that the majority of us have read it this way.  If “p,” then “q.” The problem, however, is that this “if-then” approach is a “flat,” one might say even boring way of reading this text. 

So, what if we translate hoti (for) as “because,” which would also be correct. When we translate the Beatitudes this way, and use “flourish” instead of “blessed,” everything changes. 

Flourishing are the poor in spirit because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

Flourishing are the mourners because they will be comforted.

Flourishing are the humble because they will inherit the earth.

Flourishing are the ones hungering and thirsting for righteousness because they will be satisfied.  Flourishing are the merciful because they will be given mercy.

Flourishing are the pure in heart because they will see God. 

Flourishing are the peacemakers because they will be called the children of God.

Flourishing are the ones persecuted on account of righteousness

because the kingdom of heaven is theirs. 

Flourishing are you whenever people revile and slander you and speak all kinds of evil against you on account of me.  Rejoice and be glad….[3]

When?

Now!

Why?

Because right now that future, God’s future is already on the way and is at work in us when we live this way, because it’s at work in Jesus, and he wants us to know what human flourishing looks like. 

But it’s a tricky word, flourishing. Some might define flourishing as achieving wealth, property, power, influence, possessing many things in a process of endless growth. It’s a word easily coopted by prosperity gospel preachers. However, the counter-cultural element is clear in what Jesus is saying. 

We are flourishing when we are poor in spirit because we are acknowledging our spiritual poverty, confessing what we lack, what we need, that we are all beggars before God. 

We are flourishing when we mourn—that’s a tough word to hear. Many who mourn don’t see themselves as flourishing.  However, Jesus is calling his followers to a different kind of mourning, mourning for the present state of things, grieving for the injustices in the world, for what’s happening to children and families at the border, grieving for our communities, our families, mourning for the poverty of Baltimore City, mourning for those who have sold their souls to wealth and possessions. We will be comforted because this kind of mourning and grieving, ironically, can lead us to a fuller, richer life because it calls us to action, to change. 

We can go through the rest of the beatitudes with this view, especially “Flourishing are the peacemakers because they will be called children of God.” We flourish when we are advocating for peace, making peace real, suffering for the sake of mercy, hungering for righteousness.  And if we’re not living this way, then from Jesus’ perspective we’re not flourishing at all—and we’re probably wasting our lives.

We’ve been working through the Sermon on the Mount on Thursday mornings. I’ve been blown away by Jonathan Pennington’s new study, published last year, which has opened my eyes to the meaning of the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus not only tells us, he shows us what a flourishing life looks like.

And Pennington opened my eyes to see what I had never noticed before.  Each of these beatitudes also describe the life of Jesus. He lived a flourishing life because he was poor in spirit, and he mourned and grieved for our waywardness and ignorance and inability to flourish; he was meek, and he hungered for righteousness, for justice; he was merciful and lived with a single-hearted devotion to God’s claim on his life; he was a peacemaker, and he was persecuted because he was a servant of the Most High; he was ridiculed, mocked, and eventually killed for wanting to show us the things that make for life, for real life, for joy. Yes, even joy. Scripture calls us to look to him, “…who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). Jesus invites us to follow him into a richer, fuller life, and he enables us to actually live this way.

And all of this is all connected, as we shall see in this series, to what might be (and I think that it is) the linchpin of the Sermon, Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Except, the Greek should not be translated “perfect”—“perfect” is an unfortunate translation of the Greek teleios. This word is better understood as meaning “whole” or “complete.” What Jesus wants us to be whole-hearted, even as God is whole-hearted. Jesus tells us that when we live this way we discover what a flourishing human life looks like, can be like.

I agree with Pennington who believes, “A close and careful reading of the Sermon of the Mount will help the church recover the profound and pervasive theme of human flourishing in God’s redeeming work in the world.”[4] Christianity, like Judaism, is a way of life—it must not be reduced to doctrine and ideas and concepts, on the one hand, or reduced to moralistic “do-goodism,” on the other. To follow Christ, to claim him Lord, is to follow in his way; it’s it about the totality of a life in the life of the Kingdom.  We’re called into the kingdom of God, here and now; and in the Kingdom we discover what a human life looks like when it’s flourishing.

This is what Jesus is summoning us toward.  It’s the same call that summons us, every day.  Not to “live up to this” way of living, or “think like this or that, and then we’ll live well.” It’s easy to slip into a works-righteousness and think it’s all about what we have to do. Yes, grace always comes first.  But, then virtue, the good life, a richer life itself follows in its wake.

And, so, Jesus invites us to live into this vision, lean into grace, lean into this future, and when we do we’ll discover what human flourishing looks like. It will be unique for each person, but it will definitely stand in sharp contrast to a world (and, yes, sometimes even the Church) that doesn’t understand mercy or justice or peace or a heart devoted to God’s vision of wholeness.  We might even be persecuted for living this way, we might be laughed at and mocked and ridiculed. Some might even consider us scandalous.  Probably will. But, so what? Who cares, really?

Don’t worry.  When we’re flourishing, as we’ll see next week, we get to be salt and light in the world in the world.  We get to be visible signs and heralds God’s new world that is on the way toward us and now is.  And this is what matters most.

* * *

This sermon is part of a six-week Lenten series:
Following Jesus: The Sermon on the Mount
March 10: Are You Flourishing?
March 17: Becoming Salt and Light
March 24: Wholeness, Not Perfection
March 31: Matters of the Heart

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[1] Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 46. Throughout this sermon, I am heavily indebted to Pennington’s recent scholarship on Matthew 5-7.

[2] Pennington, 50.

[3] This is Pennington’s translation of the Beatitudes.

[4] Pennington, 309-310.