May 12 2024
Matthew 5:13-16
Today being Mother’s Day, I couldn’t help but think of how my Mom could be so tactful with us when we were kids. I mean, Moms at least try and work at finding the best in what you do. I remember that art class for me was brutal and sometimes, you know, the creations that were made were pretty unusual. I mean, what to you give the Mother who does not smoke? An ash tray of course. Ash trays prevailed because at least making an ash tray didn’t require much in the way of talent. So I would bring home my project and you know, my Mom didn’t snicker or laugh but instead she would tell me something like, ‘well, that’s…interesting”, or “my that sure is…different.” Sometimes that was all the affirmation that you needed.
As we come to the end of this series of messages called, The Fullness of Joy, I have to ask you, are you ready to be different? Are you ready to be different in a good way? In a joyful way? After all, people jumping for joy in times like ours just might be called, “different”. When we consider this necessity of being different it is not hard to hear the words of Paul as found at the very beginning of the twelfth chapter of Romans when he tells us that we are not to be conformed to this world, we are to not let the world squeeze us into its mold, its moldy way of living, but instead we are to be transformed, drastically changed, because our thinking has been made new. Can you understand the difference Paul is referring to? Either we are pressed into the world’s cookie cutter existence or we are re-created into a citizen of that very best future that God has for us. Yet, the question is not whether you claim to be transformed but rather the real question is, can anybody else tell that you are different?
We begin this series of messages by describing the difference there is between those who are frantically searching for happiness and those who have taken Jesus at his word and now they have within them an overflowing fountain of joy. This joy can be found where we would never find happiness, places like our hurts, our pains and sufferings. So when we choose joy, we are different. Now instead of pursuing happiness, we pursue the Father’s welcome. We bask in the glow of our Father’s joy as we return to him because we know that his favor is greater than our failure. Time and time again we can rush home to the Father who waits for our return. This is why Jesus came from our Father’s heart so that he might reveal the Father to us. As we obey the commands of Jesus we grow in knowledge of the Father; the more we show the Father the better we know the Father. What we learn about our Father is that he has a future waiting for us, the very best, and this keeps us from settling for the second best of this world. This is our resurrection faith and when our focus is what lies ahead for us, our lives are to bear fruit, evidence of the age to come. Our Heavenly Father is to look at this life he has given to us and say, proudly, “Well, that’s different.”. You see, with God, being different is what life is to be about. What the Father also wants us to know is that we never have to give a second thought at being second class in his kingdom. The very best is open to all. As we daily love God with all that we are and all that we have, God cleanses away our fences. As bridge building people, in this age, of course we stick out, like a sore thumb.
As we look one last time at the fifteenth chapter of John where we find the promise of Jesus to fill us to overflowing with joy, we may not catch the reference Jesus makes to the necessity we all have to be different. It never really occurs to us when we read the eighth verse of this chapter where Jesus speaks of how his Father is glorified that what Jesus is saying here is, “Be different”. The truth is that for most of us when we read about our Father being glorified, we don’t really know what Jesus is speaking about. We may know about the stories of the dedication of the tabernacle or the Temple in the Old Testament where we are told that the glory of the Lord filled those places. About all we can take away from such stories is that when the glory of God is revealed there was indeed a visible difference in that place. This understanding is important for us to hang on to as we come to our scripture for today which is the second place in the gospel accounts where glorifying the Father is mentioned. This scripture is part of a larger teaching of Jesus known as the Sermon on the Mount which is the core teachings of Jesus. Just like the glory that filled those worship spaces of old, a presence that could not be denied, so too Jesus tells his disciples and us, to be the visible difference which cannot be denied. We are to know ourselves, says Jesus, as being the very salt of the earth. Why would we grab the salt shaker and smother our fries if we didn’t want them to taste salty? Can you imagine having a bland pot of stew that you added salt to that did not taste any different after you did so? No, if we had bought some salt that did not make our food more savory we would chuck it out pretty quickly. We laugh at such a weird scenario because in the world we live in, salt always tastes salty. But followers of Jesus though, don’t always live up to the hype. Yes, we are the salt of the earth, but the question is, are we as salty as our name implies? And if we, those who have come to Jesus, are not those who make a noticeable difference in our world, just as salt makes a noticeable difference in a pot of stew, then just what else can God do to make you and I a transformed person that is different in a good way? We may consider ourselves to be good people but to God we are merely good for nothing if our good makes no good difference in the world.
If you don’t care for Jesus’ salty metaphor how about we lighten things up a bit. What if Jesus tells us that we are the light of the world. You do understand, don’t you, that Jesus is here referring to us as being just like the sun? Any thoughts we have about a nice, private relationship with Jesus get thrown right out the window. If we take what Jesus says here to heart, then can you understand how strange it is when good Christian folk complain about how spiritually dark our times have become? In complaining about the spiritual darkness we are just confessing that perhaps we are the ones who have ceased to be the spiritual sunshine that we are supposed to be. As Jesus points out, people don’t turn on a lamp and then hurry up and throw a cover over it. So if Jesus says that we are to consider ourselves the light of the world then we are not to be undercover Christians. No, Jesus tells us, we are to allow God to take us and place us, his light, in the worlds darkest places because isn’t turning on the light what we normally do when we enter a dark room? We are called to be a visible, undeniable, difference, to be people who just cannot fade into the background. We are to be the new Zion, that city up on a hill, which shouts to the world, “Here is the undeniable difference, of those who are filled to overflowing with the joy of heaven, here is where the glory of God is on full view for all to see”. We are to be those who tell the world there is hope for a dark world overwhelmed with, hatred, death, sin and evil. This hope is that there is a God and this God will one day do away with all hatred, death, sin and evil. I know this to be true because this is what I know God is getting rid of in my life.
Jesus goes on to say that what it means for us to be the light of the world is that we are to do good works, the works which glorify God, works which are to be like the glory which filled the worship space of Israel in that they are evidence to the undeniable presence of God. Paul speaks of these words of light in the eighth chapter of Romans, where just after Paul speaks about the interceding of the Holy Spirit, he goes on to and says, “…we know that in all things God works for good with those who love him, the ones called by God according to his purpose.” You see, what the interceding presence of the Holy Spirit reveals to us is that God is on the move, he is at work bringing everything back to its original goodness, and this includes us. We are brought back to that original goodness when love causes us to answer that call of God, when we came out of the death infested existence we used to live in, to go and work with God. So yes, we now can understand that good works are when we work together with a good God, but what would really be helpful is that Paul would just show us what he means by this. Well, fortunately, Paul did this, in this same letter to the Romans, but this time we need to go to the end of the twelfth chapter. There Paul gives us a picture of someone known to us as being our enemy. Paul says go ahead, you put a name in there, where he wrote, “enemy”. Now, by some misfortune, this person finds themselves destitute, out on the street, down on their luck. So, what do you do, throw a party celebrating their misfortune, or perhaps, in good taste, do you just secretly gloat? But what if you remember that you are to be different, you are to join God in doing good works, works done with a good God. So, yes, you forgive them because you know, that’s a God thing, but is this all that God is doing here? No, God goes further and through you and me, this person is fed, this person is given a drink, which implies that they are brought into our homes to sit at our tables. How is that for being different? This is how good overcomes evil, how the very best for everybody, our future hope, changes how we live in the present. This is how the world begins to have a better flavor, when the darkness doesn’t seem to be so overwhelming.When those in the world can witness a different way to live together as those who live only to be in service of the One who is the very source of life, this is when our Father is glorified.
There is yet one more way that we are made different, people who stand out in the world of suppressive conformity, which has to do with the glory of God. As the Old Testament clearly states, the glory of God is to be found there in the tabernacle and later, the Temple. But here, in this teaching of Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount, the glory of God is to be found when we do good works, works done in partnership with the good God who is still at work. Instead of a place of worship, now the glory of God is to be found in the most inglorious of places, the places where the suffering, the hurting, the mourning and the grieving are found. It is here, in places where life, and life more abundantly, is desperately needed, here Jesus tells us, is where the glory of God is now to be found. When those who love God, those who wake every morning ready to love God with all of their heart, all of their soul and all of what God has given to them, go out into the world with the Holy Spirit leading the way, there where the very best is given to everybody, and good once again is found to have defeated evil, here is where Jesus says the glory of God lights upon the earth. Here is a place of holy victory, a place which proclaims the worthiness of God because he is a God of justice who promised to set this world free from its prison of evil. Here, where good has won, here that promise proves to be true. God is found worthy because his actions show him to be a good, and just and righteous God. So wherever we are led by the Spirit to do good deeds, deeds done with our good God, here is where God can be said to be undeniably there, present even in what appears to be the most unholy of places. So, yes, this too is a place of worship where God most assuredly must be praised. And there in the presence of the God who inhabits our praises, we discover joy which overwhelms us. This is the joy Jesus speaks of to his disciples on that fateful night, as found in the middle of the sixteenth chapter of John, saying, “When a woman gives birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for the joy of a human being brought into the world. See you also have sorrow now but your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you.” Jesus speaks to us of how that even in that moment of sorrow and great pain, there can still be found joy when a precious life is born. So too, we are to go where there is sorrow and pain and hurt, the world’s darkness, and there we bring light. There is where the Holy Spirit finds us, and through him we bring life. When life is born out of death, even in those awful circumstances, there is indescribable joy. This is the joy of Jesus, the one who went to the cross because of the joy that was set before him. This is the joy that is found where life, the very good of God, overcomes the evil of death. Out of the suffering, despair and tragedy of the cross there came the victorious life of the resurrection, and we rejoice. This is the joy of Jesus, the joy promised to us to overflowing. This is the joy that is ours when we are known as being the salt people, the people who change the flavor of a sin damaged world.This is our joy when we are known as the people who do good and bring light to the dark and evil places. So rejoice and again, I say, rejoice! Amen!
No comments:
Post a Comment