Today I was at Trinity Church in Whitinsville with two congregations that have shared a pastor for a while now; Trinity and St. John's, Millville. I preached while their interim priest presided at the Eucharist. And then we gathered to talk about the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for them. Today's readings can be found here.
It’s hard to know for sure exactly which hill Jesus and his disciples climbed for “the Sermon on the Mount.” The Sea of Galilee is surrounded by hills, and it could have been any one of them. As you may recall, Luke doesn’t even remember it as a hill – he calls the same sermon the sermon on the plain!
Such discrepancies are not troubling to most preachers I know. More often than I can count, I’ve met people at the door after a sermon who told me they heard “exactly what they needed to hear, as if I was speaking just to them.” I am often surprised, however, by what they heard me say! Sermons are meant to be heard, and internalized and those have as much to do with the hearer as the preacher.
In any case, back to Jesus. Most likely what we call “the Sermon on the Mount (or Plain)” wasn’t one sermon preached on one day. Both Matthew and Luke, after all, are reconstructing what we call “the Sermon on the Mount” some fifty years or so after these events took place. Jesus certainly went away with his disciples to escape the crowds more than once. And they weren’t always quick to understand so he probably had to say a lot of things more than once.
So maybe they went to various places around the lake – what we call the Sea of Galilee. Or maybe they did have one favorite spot. Either way, he taught them over time, and they remembered what he said and eventually the disciples passed those teachings on to the second-generation disciples who wrote it all down.
Now, having said all of that, there is a “however.” With Episcopalians there always is. We prefer both/and to either/or! At least since the fourth century, pilgrims who have traveled to the Holy Land have claimed one particular place as the Mount of the Beatitudes. Whether or not it was originally the holy place, it has become a holy place as pilgrims from north, south, east and west have gone there to pray for at least sixteen hundred years now. It is what is sometimes called in the Celtic spiritual tradition, a “thin place” where the hills are alive with the sound of music. I’ve been up there five times now, in pilgrimages to the holy land.
The current church built on that site was designed by an Italian architect named Antonio Baluzzi. It was built in 1938 and is run by the Franciscans. It’s a quiet and peaceful place that overlooks the lake (“Sea of Galilee”) and as you look down the hill you can see so many of the places prominent in Jesus’ ministry, including Capernaum, where he made his home. The gardens at that Church of the Beatitudes are meticulously kept and you can walk and think and pray. It’s quite conducive to “considering the lilies of the field” and the “birds of the air.” So whether or not it is the place, I can attest to you that it is holy ground.
On a warm afternoon I spent there in 2010, there was a large group of Chinese Christians who beat us there. Their spirituality was not nearly as contemplative as our group’s. In fact, they seemed downright boisterous! But as I watched them posing for a group photo, I was profoundly conscious of the fact that it cannot be easy being a Christian in China, and clearly being able to come as a group to the Holy Land made their hearts glad; and so once I got over my feelings of superiority it made my heart glad too.
The readings for last weekend, the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, take us to that place, the Mount of the Beatitudes. (Last week I opted for the readings for the Feast of the Presentation where I was preaching but I'm told you stuck with Matthew 5 here. A quick review:
Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…
Today’s gospel reading is a continuation of that time apart, as Jesus continues to deliver this teaching to his disciples. As Matthew tells the story, Jesus saw the crowds and was trying to get away…so he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. It is to them—and by extension to us—that Jesus goes on to say the words we heard today. Try to imagine yourself on the hillside, leaning in, with the lake down below and a soft breeze blowing, and the lilies of the field in full bloom, and the birds of the air singing:
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 lamp stand, 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.
“You are salt. You are light.” Elsewhere, Jesus will use the image of yeast as well: the Church as like leaven that makes the whole loaf rise. All of these are little metaphors, metaphors of smallness. If you want to make a loaf of bread you don’t just start opening up cakes and cakes of yeast. It doesn’t take that much. A little bit of leaven is all it takes to make the whole loaf rise.
And we all know the health problems that too much salt can cause us. But in the ancient world, before refrigeration, salt quite literally helped to preserve life. Low sodium diets are good and smart and healthy but even today you can’t live with zero sodium. In addition to being a preservative, salt just tastes good—as long as it’s in moderation. The late, great Lutheran Bishop, Krister Stendahl was fond of saying that Jesus told the church to be the salt of the earth, not to make the whole world into a salt mine! His humorous words suggest that our mission is not to make every person on the planet a Christian. Rather, Jesus challenges those of us who do claim him as Lord to act like Christians. Because “if salt loses its taste, then what good is it?”
Perhaps the most powerful of these metaphors, at least for me personally, is the call to be light. The Church is called to be a light that shines in the darkness, a beacon. You don’t need me to tell us about the darkness of this world. This world is God’s world and it is filled with beauty, to be sure. But it can also be a pretty scary place: a place or wars and rumors of wars, of violence and degradation, of lies and mistrust. Sometimes it can feel like someone has shut out the lights. Even darker still is the dark night of the soul. There are times in our lives when the darkness seems too overwhelming; and it’s not that external darkness, but the internal kind, that we most fear.
And yet: here are Jesus’ words, echoing down through the centuries from that Galilean hillside to this time and place. We have two choices when the world is dark: we can curse the darkness or we can let our little lights shine. And even though we are prone to forget it sometimes, one little candle in a darkened room really does change the whole space. What was scary and dark can, in an instant, become a holy and luminous place. One tiny little flickering candle can guide us on our way, and helps others find their way as well. It’s why every Advent as the days get shorter we light one candle at a time and pray for peace, and joy, and hope, and love.
These metaphors for being the Church are about small things: yeast, light, and salt. And I think that is truly good news. Even in that first setting, Jesus is away from the crowds and with just the twelve. Jesus doesn’t start a mega-church. Rather, he forms a dozen disciples. Don’t ever doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. The fact that you and I are here today is proof that it can be done, and it isn’t done with smoke and mirrors. It’s done one little step at a time. From day one of his public ministry around that Sea of Galilee, from the moment he called Peter and Andrew and James and John, Jesus was asking a small group of ordinary people to do extraordinary things—with God’s help. He called them apart to teach them how to be light and salt and yeast.
And of course that work continues to unfold, here and now, in this place and down the road a bit at St. John’s and across our diocese. That is the message, the good news: that we are entrusted as members of Christ’s Body to pass along to our neighbors. We are witnesses to the joy and wonder in all of God’s works. We are called to be faithful, one day at a time, in small ways. We need to show up and try to live into the promises we renew every time we come to share in the Holy Eucharist: that little tiny bit of bread and that little sip of wine that remind us of the promises we have made and that have been made on our behalf to keep growing into the full stature of Christ. One day at a time.
We live into our calling to be salt, and light, and yeast every time we show up. Every time we offer a smile instead of a scowl. It happens when someone knits a prayer shawl or sends a card to a shut-in or picks up the phone to reach out to someone who needs an encouraging word. Or goes to visit a friend in prison, or in the hospital. You and I are not called to do great things. We are called to small things well and with intentionality; the things that are right before us.
Jesus talks in the Sermon on the Mount about the Church’s vocation to be salt, and light, and as I mentioned, on other days he speaks of yeast. Elsewhere he also talks about the Kingdom of God being like a mustard seed. These are all of a piece. When we live these words, the Kingdom of God is very much in our midst: and we are transformed and healed and strengthened for the journey. By God’s grace, that mustard seed grows into something larger, but the work to which we are called is about the little stuff, the stuff it’s easy to overlook. What we discover (or at least what I have discovered as a pastor) is that when we focus on the small things, then together we truly can accomplish even greater things than we had imagined.
This is why the Church doesn’t need superheroes; just saints—the kind you meet in shops and in lanes and at tea, the kind who are fishermen, and doctors and teachers, classmates, snow plowers and insurance salesmen and nurses.
You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Don’t worry about doing big things. Just pay attention. Just keep listening to Jesus, who is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. Just keep on doing the work that God gives you to do today; wherever you may find yourself.
God will take care of the rest. God gets to be God. Thanks be to God!
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