Matthew 5:13-20
Just after a Baptism has taken place…a candle…like this one…is lit at the flame atop of the Christ candle…
- The pastor hands the lighted candle to the baptized sponsor or God parent…
- And declaims these words:
- 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.
- And so…this week…curious to know more…I went into the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew…
- To discover what I could about who this special class of awesome…salty…light bearing people are.
- The Lord be with you…
Ok then…this is where I offer an installment of Pastor Chip’s Nerdy history of the Bible…
- This week’s topic is…Chapters and Verses.
- While having the Bible broken into chapters and verses makes it easier to find things and reference them.
- The Bible did not come with them…
- As a matter of fact…there were no chapter numbers in the Bible until the 13th century…
- And there were no verse numbers until the 16th century.
- So…what I am saying is…Jesus never sat down and divided his sermons into verses.
- And this means that…believe it or not…you have permission to ignore chapters and verses.
- Those separations were added hundreds of years later.
Here’s the thing: There was a monk…in the 13th century…who we do not know…who decided…one day…
- Where Matthew chapter 4 ended…and where Matthew chapter 5 begins.
I say this because when I ignore the arbitrary separation between the 4th and 5th chapters of Matthew…it changes things.
Here is what I mean.
- Our reading…last week…the Beatitudes…started at the beginning of chapter 5…
- But the last verses of chapter 4 say this:
- Jesus’ fame spread throughout all Syria…and they brought to him all the sick…those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains…demoniacs…epileptics…and paralytics…and he cured them. Great crowds followed him from…
- Many places which is where chapter 4 ends…
- Which is interesting because the first verse of chapter 5 says:
- When Jesus saw the crowds…
- Which is to say…when Jesus saw the demoniacs and epileptics and people in pain…
- He went up the mountain…and after he sat down…his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them…saying…
- Blessed are the poor in spirit…for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
- Blessed are those who mourn…for they will be comforted.
- Blessed are the meek…for they will inherit the earth.
So…here is why sometimes it is good to ignore the chapter and verse separations.
- Because it is so easy for us to default to hearing Jesus’ Sermon on The Mount as pure exhortation.
- As though he is giving us a list of virtues we should try and adopt…
- So…that we too can be considered blessed…
- That is…be meeker…be poorer…and be one who mourns more…
- And then…we too can meet the conditions of earning Jesus’ blessing.
- But here’s the thing…it is hard to imagine Jesus exhorting a crowd of demoniacs and epileptics to be meeker.
- He was not telling the sick and the lame what they should try and become…
- He was telling them you are blessed and you are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world.
Which is why the Sermon on the Mount is all about Jesus’ lavish blessing of the people around him…
- On that hillside…who his world…like ours…did not seem to have much time for:
- People in pain…people who work for peace instead of profit…people who exercise mercy instead of vengeance.
Jesus was blessing the ones around him that day who did not otherwise receive blessing…
- Who had come to believe that…for them…blessings would never be in the cards.
What I am saying is this:
- Perhaps there were people in the crowd who totally had their stuff together.
- People who had solid relationships and never had collection agencies calling them…
- And always backed up their hard drives.
- People who only bought new books on Amazon…
- And who did not have terrible secrets…
- And who knew exactly what they were doing.
- Of course…it is possible those people were in the crowd…
- It’s just…that’s not who we are told were coming to Jesus.
The ones we are told were coming to Jesus…the ones to whom he was preaching…
- Were described as the sick…those who were in pain…
- Who fought with demons…who were broken and late on their taxes.
- And those who had a number of ex-wives.
So…here it is: the salt of the earth and the light of the world are just the people who happen to be standing in the need of God.
- And standing in the need of God is standing in the way of blessedness.
- These people…the wretched ones left behind in the last verses of chapter four…
- They follow Jesus…in a way…that the least…the last…the lost and the lonely have always followed him.
I thought…for a long time…that to be the light of the world…
- To let my light so shine before others…
- I must be whole…and strong…and perfect.
- I had to be a certain kind of person that I would never be.
When I listen closely…there is nowhere in the Sermon On The Mount…that Jesus says
- Here are the conditions you must meet in order to be the salt of the Earth.
- He does not say: here are the standards of wholeness you must fulfill in order to be light for the world.
- He simply looks out into the crowd of people in pain…
- People who have been broken open…
- Who bear those spiritual cracks that let in the light…
- Who have the salt of sweat and tears on their broken bodies…
- And says…YOU are salt.
- You are light.
- You have that of God within you…
- The God whose light scatters the darkness.
- Your imperfect and beautiful bodies are made with holiness shimmering in them…
- You are made of the very breath of God.