It's About Love

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany – Year A

February 9, 2014

Matthew 5:13-20

[Jesus said:] "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. "You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. 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. 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.

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. 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. 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. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

Like many of you, and probably like our kids in Sunday School, there was a song growing up that I always sang whenever this text came up. It was one of those songs that was always at the top of most childrens favorite songs from Sunday School. I think you know which one I am talking about: This Little Light of Mine. The words are simple, and so are the actions. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. Hide it under a bushel, No! Won't let Satan, pfoof it out. I'm gonna let it shine.

Last week in our text we heard the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount as it is recorded in Matthew's gospel; the beatitudes. A list of those who are blessed, and what they do. This text follows immediately upon that text. Jesus is speaking to those listening, his disciples, the crowd, and us. Just as the beatitudes are a calling, a challenge for us to be aware of how we live, this text is also a call. Yet, it is more than a call, it is a command. In the text up until this point, there has not been a command. Now, for the first time Jesus gives a command. We don't really catch it in the English, but in the Greek it's clear. Shine! Jesus commands us to shine.

Imagine what it would be like to drive around here without headlights, and without streetlights. It wouldn't be easy. Sure, we would have the lights inside our cars, the lights in the businesess and houses; yet our cars would be without lights to light our path and there would be no streetlights to show us corners, or the edge of streets, or potholes that would break an axle, or great big bumps in the road that would jar the teeth out of our heads. I don't know about you, but I don't think I would be doing a whole lot of driving around at night. I would limit myself to driving only in good conditions, when I could see clearly everything around me: where I was going, what I was passing, and what was coming toward me. I would be incredibly grateful for any light that would come my way, to guide my path.

Jesus makes it clear from our text that we are to be bearers and sharers of the light in a world that is cloaked in darkness. We are the headlights and streetlights in this crazy world, and the light that we produce is the light of Christ. The church, our faith, is the place where that light is coaxed into being, where we discover how to shine the light, where the darkness is scattered, where people discover the joy and peace that comes from being in the light. The world is far from being a place where we are confident of our path, where we know where we are going, the world is desperate for something to break into the darkness. The church should be doing really well since we have a light to share. Yet, the Christian church is not doing so well. Especially here in the United States, the number of people who are leaving the church far eclipses the number of people coming to the church.

What is going on? Do people no longer feel the need for light? Is the world suddenly not as dark? Well, when I look around, the world still often seems very frightening and full of things that go bump in the night of our lives. So the world isn't better. And based on the number of self-help books and the number of people who are buying them, the hunger to know how to be at peace in this world certainly hasn't shrunk. So what's going on? The church should be strong, yet it seems to grow weaker with each passing year. More and more people are looking to the church, to the Christian faith as being out-of-touch, as not having anything to contribute that will actually alleviate the hunger, the need we feel.

One of the interesting things that I've noticed is that pretty much everyone, both those who go to church and those who don't, all agree on one thing: Jesus was a pretty awesome dude. All of us like the things he did, the things he said. All of us believe he set a great standard for living. Yet, something breaks down after that. People like Jesus, but they don't like the church. Whether we want to admit it or not, a lot of us followers of Jesus, us bearers of the light, haven't been doing such a great job of sharing the light.

600 years before Jesus there was a man who told great stories. His name was Aesop. One of his well-known stories involves a boy that cried wolf. I think we know it well. A boy is sent out to watch over the flocks of sheep, to protect them from dangers of all kinds. Now, being a shepherd can be a solitary life, and the boy gets lonely. He knows that if he raises an alarm, the town-folk will come running and his boredom will be gone. So he cries out, he raises the alarm, “Wolf! Wolf!” And the town folk coming running to his aid, only to discover that there was no danger to the flock. He does this several times, each time the people come running to protect him, and each time they find nothing warranting their response. Then, a pack of wolves finally appear. The boy cries out, “Wolf! Wolf!” Yet, because he has mislead them in the past about how important his cries were, his cries this time are ignored, and the flock is destroyed.

Is it possible that like the boy who cried wolf, the situation in the church is a result of us shining a light that people find to be misleading? Have we metaphorically cried wolf a little too often? We all know the light we have to share is the light of the world, the light that does indeed bring salvation and peace in this crazy world. But, our message is somehow being lost because of the ways in which we are sharing it.

If we were to do a survey and ask people who are not in the church, and maybe people who are, what are some of the things about the church today that makes them not want to associate themselves with it, I believe there are some basic answers that we would hear. Now, I want to make sure you hear me when I say this, there is nothing wrong with the message we have, there is nothing wrong with the light we have to share; it is the message of salvation, it is the light of God. After all, Jesus declares that we are the light of the world. What I'm wondering is if perhaps the ways in which we have shared and lived out that message, the ways in which we have shone that light may be in need of some improvement.

Here are 6 common responses about the church:

1. The church is seen as judgmental, prideful, self-righteous, thinking itself better than others.
2. We are hypocritical.
3. We are more interested in saving someone than loving them.
4. We are out of touch with reality, old fashioned, and isolated from the ways of the world.
5. We are intolerant of those that we see as different.
6. We are too political, we are seen as using politics, and a bully pulpit, to force our beliefs and morals on other people.

Whether we want to admit it or not, there is truth in every single one of those statements. There is a reason behind why we may be perceived in these ways. We are called to be the light of the world, we are commanded to shine. So, let's shine up our lights and shine. This isn't about scrapping the message, saying that what we believe is wrong. This is about living the way our faith, our beliefs, and our savior Jesus Christ calls us to live. It’s the true face of Christianity we must show the world, if God is to use us to accomplish his good and perfect will.

To overcome the label of being judgmental, full of pride, self-righteous. We must be authentic, we must practice true humility. We have to strive to treat others not as “sinners” to be condemned, but as other people created in our Father's image and loved by him. We must show grace to others. We must find ways to support those who lives are less than perfect rather than criticizing their choices, status, or situation. It's about loving other people genuinely, loving them unconditionally.

We must ensure that what we ask of others in their lives, we also ask of ourselves. If we desire to have our times and moments of failure be forgiven, then we also must be forgiving of others when they stumble. Only in doing that can we avoid the label of hypocrite. Only when we are willing to admit our own sinfulness, our own failings, and declare that we are no better than anyone else, that no sin is worse or more sinful than another will we be able to counter the charge of being intolerant of differences.

We must love people. We can't reach out to them just for the sake of their salvation. We must love them. Jesus loved the whole world, gave himself to the whole world; even though not all people would respond to what he did. He did it out of love. We too must be driven by love for our neighbors and not just a desire to see them saved, or see their lives somehow made better.

It can be tempting in the church, to look at the world as being too dark to deal with; tempting to lock ourselves up away from the world and those we disagree with. It can be easy to hold on to the things we have done, to embrace the things we have always done. “There is an important difference between building on the tradition (what has been handed down to us, and what we will hand down to our descendants) and keeping our focus frozen on the past, forgetting that God is in truth doing a new thing today, in this world, in this time.”¹ We can, and must, back up our beliefs with evidence. We can show how science and Christianity can coexist. We have to promote not just “family values” but the value and benefit of holding those values. We must be like Jesus: engaging with non-believers instead of living within our secure circle of believer friends.

We cannot allow our security, our confidence become a force that alienates others. We must strive for respectful listening and dialog. We can't just declare ourselves against something, we must promote what we are for. There are ways in which we can protect our rights politically and legislatively, without focusing on reducing or limiting the rights of others with different beliefs and morals. We can support positions and legislation that is consistent with our beliefs, without trying to silence or overwhelm opposing views within our church/ranks.

Jesus said that he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Later in his ministry, when he was asked about the law, about what was of utmost importance in the law he responded: “Love the Lord your God, with a ll your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets can be summed up in these.” That is the fulfillment of the law that Jesus is talking about: love.

If we can allow love to be that which is seen and experienced most in our light, then we will truly be able to be the light of the world. I saw a great quote last week: “If your theology doesn't lead you to love people more, you should question your theology.” May God guide us in love that the world may be filled with the light of God. Amen.

1http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/february-9-2014.html