February 9 -- Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

Friends in Christ, grace to you and peace.

In today’s Gospel text, Jesus tells his disciples in “Sermon on the Mount PART TWO” that they are salt and light.  Salt, by the way, was a Hebrew symbol of covenant, of God’s promise: preservative and flavor enhancer.  One of my favorite translations of the Bible, The Message by Eugene Peterson of blessed memory, puts it like this:  “You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth…You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors of the world.”  What does it mean to you, that you bring out the God-flavors of this life, you bring out the God-colors of this world?

As we prepare again to host the Hypothermia Shelter here at Bethlehem in 2 weeks, you know that’s another opportunity to bring out the God-flavors and God-colors of this earth, right?

This past week, we signed on, because we’re a Reconciling in Christ Congregation, to walk in the DC Pride Parade in June.  You know that’s an opportunity to bring out the God-flavors and God-colors of this world, right?

Chili cook-off and bingo last night…

Listen for implicit salt and light language in our New Member Welcome in just a little bit...

You bring out the God-flavors and God-colors of this earth, you are salt and the light, in what you do at work, what you say to strangers, how you treat people in restaurants and in the airport and on the road, how you post on the internet.  Friends in Christ...YOU are the salt of the earth, the rays of hope and community for this hurting world.  You preserve God’s covenant and enhance this earthly walk.

Saw the movie Just Mercy this week (thanks to the nudgings of Sister Ramona).  It’s based on the true story of Bryan Stevenson who graduated from Harvard and moved down to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned on Death Row, who couldn’t afford proper representation, and had all the cards stacked against them because of the color of their skin.  In the face of so much blatant racism, and its ugly trail of cruelty.  Talk about salt and light!  Hope in the face of despair and the endless struggle for justice and truth.  Hope and the community stood as a beacon in that movie.

Being salt & light has so much to do with HOPE & COMMUNITY.

Because why would Christ call us flavor enhancers and covenant enjoyers and hope bringers and then hide us?  Why would Christ name us lights, and then put a bushel over our heads and hide us?  Being salt and light has a lot to do with HOPE and COMMUNITY!   [sing it] “Hide us under a bushel? No!  God’s going to let us shine.”  God says today, to all sisters and brothers in Christ that we are the light of the world, we bring out the God-colors in this world.  You reflect God in your words and actions, even in your just-being, for all to see.

Do you believe that?  We say this to our kids, in an attempt to get them to behave themselves.  “Now remember, you represent our congregation and our God, you reflect on all of us at BLC.”  We say it to our children.  But what about the rest of us?  Do you believe that you reflect God!?

It’s easy to be humble here, Lutherans:  “No, not me, I don’t reflect God.  I wish I did, but I’m nothing like [this person].”

Let’s entertain our humility for a moment.  Think about who is that other person?  Who do you seeing bringing out the God-flavors and God-colors through their words and actions?  (with us still or dearly departed) Do you have a person like that in your mind?

Anybody mention anybody in this congregation?  We can bring out the God-colors in each other, we reflect God to each other in different times...

(I want to just encourage you, to write a letter or a thank you card to whoever it is that has helped/is helping to bring out the God-colors, or the God-flavors in your life.  Who has helped make your faith 3-dimensional?  Maybe that person has since died or is somehow inaccessible…but perhaps then think of another person you do know, and write them a note this week…because they are God’s gift to you — God’s salt and light.)

But now,  let’s get back to you, humble people…
For if they have reflected God on you, now you definitely reflect God to the world.  For now Christ has shined his eternal light of hope on you, plus you’ve had that same light shined on you by an esteemed faith partner.  You are the salt of the earth, most definitely, you are the light of the world.

...Not even necessarily because I think you bring out God-colors, God-flavors.  I’m saying this because Jesus says it.  I try to preach what Jesus says, not what I think.  This is not my opinion, this is God’s fact, Christ’s truth: YOU REFLECT GOD, bringing out divine flavors and colors that cheer up this planet!  We are living embodiments of God’s hope and community for this world.

Friends, Jesus says it’s already so:  you’re the light of the world, the salt of the earth...
And Christ calls us to it anew again today. Christ has called you, to keep shining brightly.  Not in a showy of flashy way.  Not in a self-righteous way.

But to keep sharing God with this world—keep showing God to this planet, keep pointing to hope and community—keep drawing out the covenant, lifting up the promise of grace, enhancing the flavor of the Incarnation, illuminating the radical embrace of the Divine...through your actions.  “Let your lights shine bright, people of God!”

A light is warm and inviting, not excluding.  A city on a hill, which Jesus talks about in our Gospel, is not meant to be over and against the world; it’s a place that all can see.  It’s recognizable not for its own glory and good, but for the good of the world.  It has many entrances.  A city on a hill is a place where everyone knows they will be safe and welcomed and loved and accepted and fed and washed and empowered.

Here is that place!  Bethlehem Lutheran Church.

Because of Christ, Bethlehem is that place.  We are that city that Jesus is talking about...see the city is not a literal city, namely Jerusalem, any more!  “The city of God” is extending beyond  the confines of one ancient group, breaking out into the world – we are one of many in this city of God’s mercy – not for our own good and glory, but for the good of the world.  We are that people, a light shining bright, salt that enhances.

And we are safe here, so we go now to be safety for others.  We are fed here, and so we go now to feed others.  We are washed here, forgiven and renewed here, and so we go to wash, forgive and renew others.

And we are loved here…
Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

February 2 -- Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Grace to you and peace…

Friends in Christ, today Jesus climbs up onto the mountain and teaches us all.  Today we have some of the core lessons of the Christian life brought to us “pow, pow, pow” in three of the most powerful, most central readings in the entire Bible.  Micah, Paul, Jesus.  It’s almost too much to handle.
Micah’s famous passage:  “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love kindness, and walk [shrewdly] with your God.”  This is why we named our son Micah.

The theme of shrewdness/wisdom ultimately being about doing justice and loving kindness is carried over in Paul.  Paul talks about the wisdom of the world, the shrewdness of the world vs. the wisdom and shrewdness of God.  This text of Paul’s becomes one of Martin Luther’s main focal points as he discusses, what he calls, “the theology of the cross.”  Luther contrasts the “theology of the cross” to the “theology of glory”.  [Lutheran Handbook, and center page on “How to become a Theologian of the Cross” – read points 1 & 3]

This leads us right up the mountain, to find Jesus preaching, the Sermon on the Mount…where Jesus takes his listeners “next level.”  You want to follow me?  You want to be elevated with me up here on this mountain?  Well then, get ready for some surprises, Jesus says to us today.  Because Jesus continues on the themes that the prophet Micah and Paul set forth – that faithful discipleship has nothing to do with showy offerings, or popularity, or success, or the world’s wisdom.  In other words, the mountain top, is the last place you’ll find Jesus and his blessings.  Blessedness is down in the valley, on the plain, in the everyday.  Blessedness is shed upon the suffering, in the sermon on the mount – the lowly, the poor in spirit, the meek.  Jesus is not the king of the mountain; he’s the shepherd of the valley.  And his followers act in a similar way.  This is a radical idea.

It’s a topsy-turvy message again today.  The world would expect Christ, or any deity, to reign supreme – like a super-hero with giant muscles and awesome weapons, and servants, and enemies underfoot.  Conquering hero, like Mel Gibson or Russell Crowe, these characters that once were underdogs, but then overcame all the odds and now are just awesome and all the girls are screaming for them and they know how to fly jump motorcycles and shoot guns with precision and sword fight and do back-flips, bomb a football 70 yards...

...I know not everyone liked him (to say the least) but do you remember how cool President Obama was?  Swagger, calm, carried himself with poise and...just so cool.  Friends in Christ, Jesus is anything but cool.  Sorry.  Jesus is anything but cool, powerful, and smooth.

Seriously, if you want to step into these lessons of Scripture, think of a loser—a modern-day loser.  No muscles, probably clumsy.  Definitely not cool: “Despised and rejected.”  How quickly we forget that!

 Douglas John Hall’s  quote…
“How could we have been listening to the Scriptures all these centuries and still be surprised and chagrined by the humiliation of Christendom? How could we have honored texts like the Beatitudes
and yet formed in our collective mind the assumption that Christian faith would be credible only if it were popular, numerically superior, and respected universally?

"How could we have been contemplating the ‘despised and rejected’ figure at the center of this faith for two millennia and come away with the belief that his body, far from being despised and rejected, ought to be universally approved and embraced?”

It is a topsy-turvy message!  I hope you’re a little offended here, a little scandalized.  Going “next level” means flipping everything on its head.  For to suggest that Jesus is a loser is a winning statement.  [back to Lutheran Handbook, read point 4]
  
This is radical stuff!  And Jesus is just giving us a preview of what is to come, as he inaugurates his ministry with this Sermon on the Mount, lifting up all those who seem insignificant and silly to everyone else.

This is Jesus’ State of the Union address:  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted.”  

Sisters and brothers in Christ, whether we find ourselves in these categories or not, this is Good News.  Because it means that we and the rest of this world will never be abandoned by God, will never stop being blessed by God.  There’s no way that God can ever disappear.  If Jesus is casting blessings on the least of these in our midst—sometimes that’s you, sometimes it’s not—
but if Jesus is casting blessings-upon-blessings all the way down the least of these, then we know we’re always covered by God’s love — ALL of us.

For in the moment when we too feel despised and rejected, clumsy, with no swagger, no muscles, no voice, no smile – Christ is right there.  In the moment when we feel lost and forsaken, alone or confused, Christ is right there too.  At the moment we feel so unforgivable, so broken or poor in spirit, Christ is there.  We find Jesus abiding, not on the red carpet, or at the 50-yard line (seems like we’re witnessing all the power and money in the world today) . . . but at the cross – foolishness to the power-hungry and awesome, “but to us who are being saved,” Paul writes, “it is the power of God.”

These words of Scripture this morning—do not frighten us or dis-engage us, sisters and brothers in Christ.  These words of Scripture send us off this mountain, this good place, where we can be together and encounter the living God.  These words send us down, into the world, with new hope and new life.  They shape us and mold us for forgiveness, for blessedness, and for faithfulness – for going to the next level, that is the gutters, the sad places, the cold places, the ugly places – bringing and doing and being justice, loving kindness, and walking wisely with God…this day and always.

Let’s go.

AMEN.