It’s Not About You | 3/1/26
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When you think about the Beatitudes, which of those specific qualities—like being a peacemaker or mourning with others—feels the most relevant to your life right now?
Since salt was once used as a form of payment, how does viewing yourself as a "precious commodity" in the Kingdom of God affect your sense of self-worth?
If your primary allegiance is to Jesus, are there any political ideologies or personal preferences in your life that might be competing for that top spot?
How can you practice "good works" this week in a way that points people toward the goodness of God rather than drawing the spotlight to yourself?
Does being "salt and light" for you right now look more like a public stand for justice, or more like a quiet moment of kindness in your everyday routine?
The world really needs you to be exactly who you were meant to be; where is one specific place this week—like at a coffee shop or in your own home—where you can show up and be that light?
Transcript:
Well, friends, last week Marisa kicked off our series for the season of Lent, called The Way, with a message from the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. That sermon we find in the fifth through the seventh chapters of Matthew, is our guide for this whole journey of Lent this year. The opening passage in that sermon is what we refer to as the Beatitudes. And this morning I'm going to start by reading it again. For one thing, it helps set the context, because the passage for today is the next thing that Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. And so to connect those dots today, I'll read this to start with.
But the other thing is this morning, that it just feels like we need to hear them again in this moment, in this particular time in history, in the world in which we find ourselves. We need to be reminded of what we hear Jesus say about the character of lives that he calls blessed. So here at the beginning of chapter five:
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. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
And now the next thing that Jesus says in that sermon:
You are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world, a city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it under the bushel basket but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 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.
The Word of God for the people of God and God's people say, "Thanks be to God."
Would you pray with me? Come, Holy Spirit, and breathe life into the words that I speak, that they might carry a word from you into our hearts and lives this morning. Amen.
Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes, and then goes directly into the words that we just heard in today's reading. Because we don't typically read both passages together, it's easy to lose sight of the connection that exists between them. But did you notice it when we just read it? Now it is precisely those whom Jesus has just called blessed—the ones who will bear witness to the upside-down values of the Kingdom of God—who are now called salt of the earth, light of the world.
This is no small claim that Jesus is making. I imagine the disciples in that moment thinking, "What in the world is he talking about? Can he really be serious?" Remember that we're just talking about a few ordinary citizens of Israel at the time: tax collectors and fishermen and other day laborers who have gathered around this young rabbi, drawn into his message to come and see and to follow. But Jesus is the master of metaphor. You all know just a little bit of salt goes a long way, doesn't it? Just a little bit of light can make a really big difference.
A side note here: Jesus may also, in this moment, be reminding the disciples of their intrinsic worth—that they have great value in the Kingdom of God. Salt in those times was a precious mineral, often a rare commodity. In fact, salt was quite often used as a form of payment within the Roman Empire because it had such significance. "You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world." And then Jesus adds to those statements a warning: Salt can lose its saltiness. A light can be hidden. And when salt loses its saltiness and light becomes hidden, they become worthless. They become a failure at being what they were meant to be.
Eugene Boring, in his commentary on this passage, says this: "Salt loses its saltiness not by some chemical miracle, but by becoming so impure, so mixed with other elements that it loses its function." Friends, you and I do not come to Scripture or come to the good news of the gospel in a vacuum. We all come to it within a particular context of life. There are the traditions that we have each inherited from our pasts, from our families, from our churches, from our communities. There are strongly held beliefs and assumptions about the right way of doing things that we've learned along the way from people in whom we put our trust. There are political ideologies that we feel very strongly about. There are personal preferences for how we would like to live our lives on an everyday basis.
We lose our saltiness, our distinctive flavor as followers of Jesus, when we hold so tightly to these other elements that we are unwilling or unable to let go of them in order to follow faithfully. Eugene Peterson, in paraphrasing a verse from Romans 12, puts it this way: "Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking." Stay salty. Jesus says similarly, "Don't hide your light under a bushel. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a young German theologian and pastor living in Germany in the 20s, 30s, and early 40s of the last century. And Bonhoeffer became someone who felt, out of his conviction as a follower of Jesus, that he must stand up and resist what he saw happening with the Nazi regime in his country, and how it was impacting life for his neighbors. Before that resistance became a primary emphasis of his discipleship, he wrote a book entitled Discipleship, in which he invited followers of Jesus to really reflect on what it means to be a follower.
In one section of that book, he references the Sermon on the Mount. And in talking about this particular passage that we read today about being salt and light, he reminds his readers that Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world." Not "you might be" or "you could be" or "if you want to be, you can" or "if you try hard enough, you can." No, you are. He says this in that section: "Now they, the disciples, have to be what they are or they are not following Jesus. The followers are the visible community of faith. To flee into invisibility is to deny the call. Any community of Jesus which wants to be invisible is no longer a community that follows him."
You see, once you say "yes" to following Jesus, your allegiance to him overrides every other allegiance you might have in your life. The difference that we are meant to make as salt and light should be noticeable—noticeable enough, Jesus says, to impact the whole earth, the whole world. That's quite a bold vision Jesus has. And it's one that 2,000 years later, we embrace today as United Methodists. If you go to any public-facing communication of the United Methodist Church—if you go to the website or materials in print, or if you go to our Trinity website or look at some of our publications—you will see a mission statement that says this: that the mission of our church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Why? For the transformation of the world.
It's not just so that we can come together and be nice and happy and cloistered here in this space. Disciples of Jesus, followers of Jesus, are meant to be a part of the transformation of the world. John Wesley, the founder of our movement, saw this very clearly when he began to step out beyond the doors and walls of the church, and to minister to the poor and the hungry and the oppressed and those who were experiencing terrible working conditions in their day, and took the good news to them. When people asked him why he was doing that, he said, "Because the world is my parish." The world is our parish, friends. Salt of the earth, light of the world.
But before our heads get too big, we remember—and Jesus reminds us—that the goal is not to draw attention to ourselves. Too much salt? You know this, right? No bueno. Too much light can be annoying, blinding, harsh. It's not about you. It's not about me. We are vessels. We are channels. We are conduits. Jesus says, "Let your light shine before others so that they will see your good works." And do what? Give glory to God. Give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Douglas Hare says this: "The church's good works are to function in the secular world as indelibly etched pictures of the Father's love." The goal is to give people a glimpse of the goodness of God. So what does it look like to be salt and to be light? Well, sometimes being salt and light in the world calls us to go public. Just this past week, our United Methodist Church had a very public presence in the capital city of our nation, in Washington, D.C. Our General Board of Church and Society for our denomination hosted an event that brought more than 2,000 United Methodists to the capital for something called "Faithful Resistance," a public witness for immigrant justice.
You may be wondering why a public witness? I'm so glad you asked. Our Social Principles, which is a section in our United Methodist Book of Discipline—the organizing documents for who we are as a denomination and the book that provides order for how we are structured—also speaks to how we live in the world today. And in those principles, we are called to action, sometimes even in the political arena. Listen to this paragraph from that section of our Book of Discipline:
"Our involvement in political systems is rooted in the gospel imperative to love our neighbors, to do justice, and to care for the vulnerable. As United Methodists, we acknowledge that love requires responsible political action and engagement aimed at the betterment of society and the promotion of the common good."
A little further down, we read in the section that is specifically about immigration, why a public witness might be necessary in this particular time from people of faith:
"We oppose all laws and policies that attempt to criminalize, dehumanize, or punish displaced individuals and families based on their status as migrants, immigrants, or refugees. Additionally, we decry attempts to detain displaced people and hold them in inhumane and unsanitary conditions. We challenge policies that call for the separation of families, especially parents and minor children. And we oppose the existence of for-profit detention centers for such purposes."
Do you think that paragraph might have something to say to us right now? As that crowd of over 2,000 United Methodists gathered this past week to march, to pray, and to bear witness, Bishop Julius Tremble stood before them and reminded them of who they are and who we are. And he used this scripture text to do so. "You are the salt of the earth," he said. "You are the light of the world." And one of those 2,000-plus that was gathered there last week was our own Reverend Marissa Gertz. I am grateful to Marissa for responding to the nudge she felt to go and bear witness, to stand alongside our siblings in faith and in action, and to be there in this important moment.
Sometimes being salt and light means risking going out into public spaces to do so. Sometimes being salt and light takes us to faraway places, like just a little over a week ago, when six people from our Trinity community of faith went to the Bahamas to bear witness by showing up at the Kohaku Street Mission Center—the community that we have formed a relationship with, and where they serve the most impoverished people in their community and on their island. Our team members offered themselves to rehang drywall, to spend time with children, and to be present as a visible and tangible witness of God's love for them in that moment.
Sometimes being salt and light stretches us in a new way, like our friends whom we just commissioned this morning to be Stephen Ministers. For some of them, responding to that nudge to be a Stephen Minister meant stepping outside of a comfort zone in order to learn how to respond to people who are struggling with grief and loss and hardship of life—to learn how to be a good listener and a companion for the journey, and stand alongside folks in their need.
Sometimes being salt and light is just a matter of showing up right where we are in the everyday moments of our ordinary lives: The smile that we extend to a stranger. The door that we open—maybe not for just one, but two or three or four or five people who are all headed the same place that we are—and we offer a gracious moment. Or the cup of coffee that we buy for the person that's behind us in line. Or the kind word that we say to the server or the cashier that we can tell must have already had a really hard morning. Or the gentleness with which we respond to the person that we are engaged with, even when it may be met with harshness.
Showing up in the world with good works that point attention to the goodness of God. Followers of Jesus, you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. So go be who you are. Because the world really needs it right now. Amen.
