You Are the Light of the World
The Rev. Scot Sherman
The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, February 5, 2023
1 Corinthians 2:1-16 • Matthew 5:13-20
I was in Washington DC this past November with my family. It was my son’s Birthday and I was looking forward to taking him to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum that I visited as a child (he’s 24, but it’s never too late for rockets). It was closed for renovation! Can you believe that? What I really wanted to see again was the Apollo 11 capsule (which, when I was little, you could actually climb in and sit inside!), and Chuck Yeagar’s X1 rocketplane that he used to break the sound barrier. I saw it as a child, then read about it in The Right Stuff and saw the movie. Yeager named the plane “Glamorous Glennis” after his wife. He never went to college. He started off as a mechanic but switched to pilot when he saw that the pilots got all the girls and had clean hands. If you saw the movie, you know that while other pilots would get close to the sound barrier, as their planes began to shake, or as they began to fear losing consciousness, they slowed down. But not Yeagar. He just flew through, confident that it was possible.
In the sermon on the mount, we have Jesus, at the foot of a mountain, being joyful about the spiritual evolution of the human race. Blessed, happy, are those who learn to fly through. And he gives a flight path, a scary one to be honest. We are either going to spiral down in more rivalry and violence, or find life through forgiveness and the love of God. Jesus sits and proclaims that a transformed life under the reign of God is possible.
We read the beatitudes last week, Jesus’ 9-fold path of love. He lays out a path for blessing, for happiness and deep joy that comes from knowing God and God’s ways in the new community Jesus is forming. “Blessed are”--note the “ed” at the end of the word: this is a gift to be received, not achieved. This is not something that the good ones “gin up” within. This is from Jesus, the work of his Spirit within us. As St. Paul say, “we have received the Spirit from God so that we understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.” (I Cor 2:12).
Blessed are...
1 “the Poor in Spirit.” Sometimes Jesus just said “the poor” in his sermons, but Matthew is pointing out that even the affluent can come to know that everything you have comes from God, ultimately. We can become people who TRUST God for everything.
2 “Those who mourn.” We can help each other become people who aren’t cynical but who freely LAMENT injustice, and use our power to struggle against it.
3 “The meek.” We can become people taught by love to be non-violent, non-retaliatory, humble and gentle in dealings with each other.
4 “who hunger and thirst after righteousness.” We can become people who hunger to see things put right, made better.
5 “the merciful.” We can help each other become people who generously share what we’ve been given.
6 “the pure in heart.” We can help each other become self aware, people who know their own motives, curious to discover who God wants us to become.
7 “the peacemakers.” We can help each other become people who help each other become able to reach past differences, who seek reconciliation.
8 “persecuted” and 9 “reviled” – We can help each other become the people God means for us to be, even if we can’t control the outcomes.
What an upside down world! Comfort for the mourning, inheritance for the meek, satisfaction that comes from hungering and thirsting for justice. This is deeper, through- -the-barrier joy that transcends what we can find in consumption and entertainment (as much as I enjoy a good burger, or binge streaming... I can’t believe I’m saying this... but what Jesus offers is more deeply satisfying!
Of course we read this and it seems so far from our reality, personally, or for the contemporary church. I can barely stand the sound of the gear grind if I think about it seriously. But I want to encourage you to see it as a revelation: to love as God loves is to be discontented with present reality.
William Sloane Coffin wrote a wonderful prayer to this effect: “Because we love this world, we pray now for grace to quarrel with it, O Thou, whose lover’s quarrel with the world is the history of the world.”
Today is the annual meeting of this congregation and I can’t think of better words for us than these Salt and Light sayings we’ve heard today. These metaphors point us outside ourselves toward God’s mission in the world. This is about the impact of a truly Jesus shaped life–the widest possible scope of blessing–salt of the earth, light of the world. Put simply, Jesus is telling his followers, “you are blessed to be a blessing.” And if I may indulge my Southern roots, Jesus–in Aramaic, written for us in Greek, uses the 2nd plural pronoun that we Southerners use, “y’all are the salt of the earth”! (I realize there are others: Pennsylvanians who say you’uns, and New Jersersians who say, “you’s guys,” but I think “y’all” really sticks the landing).
Why ya’ll? Salt and light are metaphors of community. Salt, (which, alas, I am eating less of) is most effective in its work when it is used with other elements. Salt works in tandem with other food to bring out the best flavor. The same is true of light. We praise it because of our experience bumping out heads and stubbing our toes in a poorly illuminated environment. Light brightens that which already exists so that we can rightly perceive.
We saw this powerfully recently in the words and example of Rawvaughn Wells, Tyre Nichol’s Mother. Surrounded by her Christian community, after the shocking video was released she said, “this is going to be horrific, but I want each and every one of you to protest in peace. I don’t want us burning up our cities, tearing up our streets, that’s not what my son stood for.” That is light shining in some unimaginably deep darkness. Those are the words of someone with a transformed consciousness shaped by a community who has learned the deeper reality of the love of Jesus.
Today, keep your hearts open to the promise that God has a preferred and promised future for this congregation. Eye has not seen;ear has not heard; our imagination’s can only being to grasp what God is preparing. (cf. I Cor 2:9).
“What’s the future of San Francisco? There’s lots of speculation and hand wringing. We know this: God wants to make the beauty and distinctiveness of this city more boldly seasoned to be all it’s meant to be, and illuminated with love and justice. And Holy Innocents is an essential part of God’s plan. Amen.