Matthew 5: 13-20
My camera, a Canon Rebel T5, and I are now BFF’s – Best
Friends Forever. Many of you know
that I have just returned from a ten day trip to Costa Rica with a group of
kindred spirits who like to capture natural science images on digital film and
paper through watercolor or pencil.
I thank you for the time off to refresh my soul’s deepest desire to
travel and see this amazing world and to renew my spirit through my art and
photography. But this is not a
sermon about my trip. It is a
sermon about light, God’s light in particular and our role as apertures’ of
that light.
Getting back to my camera and how we became BFF’s. I was warned that shooting photography
in the rainforest could be a real challenge because of the specific lighting
issues that present themselves. Well
the rainforest did not disappoint on so many levels. It was difficult because shooting poison dart and red eyed
tree frogs, snakes and leaf cutter ants along with the flora of the forest
takes camera settings that let lots of light in because the trees, vines and
abundant growth darken the floor of the forest.
But when you hear Howler monkeys coming in the distance, and
you look up to get ready to shoot, or you see an amazing bird with teal colored
feathers perched high up on a branch you have to quickly change the settings to
let much less light in because the strong and bright sun is piercing its way
through the leaves of the highest trees.
For those of you who know cameras, you know that it’s all
about the speed of the film, the speed of the shutter and the size of the
aperture. Kind of like the Trinity, each has its own
function yet are dependent upon one another to produce a cohesive divine
unit. So when all three camera
settings are aligned properly you get a National Geographic quality photo, or
at least a good one that will be a nice remembrance of your trip. Capturing an image is all about how
much light you let in or don’t let in.
You are not the light source, merely the vehicle by which the light
source is controlled. That’s
exactly what Jesus was talking about that day on the mountainside in Galilee.
Today’s scripture reading is from the Sermon on the Mount
and falls directly after the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew. It may seem a bit disjointed because
what does salt and light have to do with the law and the prophets? We have to remember that Jesus audience
was quite different than Matthew’s audience. Jesus was preaching to Israel and Israel had been called by
God to be a light to the nations. (Isaiah 49: 6)
Jesus’ sermon was quite a divergent view in an already
heated political and religious debate over the fate of Israel whose land by now
had been occupied by the Roman Empire.
The land was no longer in the hands of the Jews but in the hands of the
‘goyim’, the non-Jews. So there
were divisions among the Jews on how to address the questions that would come
up as a result of the occupation and their identity. What does God want us to do? Who does God want us to be? What are we supposed to do?
Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount as encouragement for
the people to be Israel, just to be themselves and to be who God had called
them to be through their covenantal relationship; to be open to the ways in
which God was calling them.
The Pharisees understood Torah in one-way and Jesus understood
it in another. The Pharisees were
working with an outdated political and cultural model and were striving to
maintain the status quo. Jesus was saying that God is doing a new thing, and he
is the fulfillment of the ‘new thing’.
For us, Gentiles, we have now been included through the covenant made in
Jesus, we have been incorporated into God’s covenant of love, hope, and
redemption.
And so now we are to be the vessels by which the light of
God can shine through. We are the
harbingers of God’s light we are the ‘light on the hill’. The question for us is, how can we open
our apertures large enough so that others can see this abundant light? This is such an important question for
us as a church today.
We know people are seeking to have a spiritual connection
with God and with others. We know
people search for a place where they can be accepted and loved for who they
are. We know there are people in
need. And we know that we can
offer all of that and more, so why aren’t people knocking down our doors?
These are questions that need deep, soul searching
exploration to realize the answers. It might just mean that we will need to
change our ways but not the way of Jesus Christ and our commitment to him and
his teachings.
God IS doing a new thing right now with the church. How do we even begin to envision what
it is that God is doing? How do we
embrace change, which can be scary and unnerving? How can we open wide our apertures rather than make them
small only letting just a small amount of light out? How can we be the Church and be relevant in the world around
us? Perhaps in this second year of
my tenure together we can dig deep and come up with some answers. We are just not about surviving and
maintaining the status quo. We are
about fluidity and change because that is what God is about.
Let the light of God fully come to you. Let it warm you and guide you and then
allow others to see it because it is essential to telling the story. Open up and let God’s miraculous,
tender and healing love be seen by others.
In the words of Maryanne Williamson, quoted by Nelson
Mandela in his 1994 Inaugural speech, “Our deepest fear is not that we are
inadequate. Our deepest fear is
that we are powerful beyond measure…We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us. It’s not
just in some of us; it’s in all of us.
And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same. As we
are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates
others.”
And that’s what we are about.
Amen.
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