Sermons

“Sharing Our Lampstand”

Isaiah 58:1-9; Matthew 5:13-20 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – February 5, 2017

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that we might grasp your truth with all our heart and soul, and hold fast to your blessing for the sake of our world. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

I want to take a quick poll here this morning. I want you to choose between sweet foods and salty foods. I know a lot of us love both, but if you had to pick: Raise your hand if you would choose sweet foods. Okay, now raise your hand if you would pick salty foods. Okay then. The salty-loving folks win the sermon. But the good news is that the sweets-loving people get donuts after worship as a consolation prize. So who’s the real winner here anyway? I’m not passing out pretzels in here. Sadly our salt is entirely metaphorical.

Salt is really a fascinating substance. It can be used to clean, to preserve food, to heal, and obviously, its impact on food is complex and wonderful. So what does it tell us that Jesus used it as a metaphor for the way we’re supposed to live out our faith? He wasn’t talking about salt’s preservative qualities; he was talking about what it does to flavor, which we know because he brings up its taste. What does salt do to flavor? It makes a difference. It’s almost like it makes the other flavors more strongly themselves. When a dish is tasting flat, you add some salt, and suddenly, it has flavor and complexity. Salt changes things. So what does that tell us about what Jesus expects of us?

It’s really the same message as we get in the next paragraph. Our faith is like salt. Our faith is like a lamp, which is supposed to be on a lampstand, not under a bushel. Our faith is supposed to make a difference in the world around us. It’s supposed to happen out loud. It’s supposed to shine brightly for all to see. I’m guessing this makes perfect sense to some of you and makes others of you kind of nervous. But what’s interesting about that is what comes next. Jesus starts talking about how he hasn’t come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them, as if someone had interrupted him to explain why he was doing it wrong. Really, where did that next bit come from? How is it connected to the part before about salt and light? It’s as if he’s arguing with someone whose lines we can’t hear. “No, no, no, faith is about my personal relationship with God. It doesn’t affect anyone else, and I can’t be expected to change the world. That’s not what the law and the prophets said. Why are you abandoning our traditions and holy scriptures?”

This debate we’re only hearing half of is similar to the one we read some of from Isaiah 58. There’s fasting and then there’s fasting, Isaiah tells us. Somehow, some portion of the population has gotten the impression that fasting and sacrifices are just practices, shortcuts if you will, to get God’s approval. They have forgotten that fasting is a spiritual practice, that is, that it’s supposed to be related to the state of your heart, not just something you do to get what you want. God is accusing them of using religious rituals as cover-ups for their immoral behavior. “Nope, not interested,” says God. “That’s not going to do it.” Here too, there is a debate about what religion is and what it is for. Is our faith about the rituals, or is it about the impact of the rituals on real life? And it appears that the Word of God being shared by Isaiah agrees with what Jesus said in Matthew: our faith is intended to make a difference. If we’re practicing our religion and yet somehow still able to ignore the hungry and the homeless and the oppressed workers, then we’re not really living out faith in God; we’re merely using the rituals of religion to make ourselves feel better. It’s not that God is offended by the act of fasting itself; it’s that the fasting needs to both emerge from and lead to righteous practices of living in relation to the rest of creation, in order to have any worth as an act of worship. Otherwise it’s an empty act, or even a mockery of God’s desires for us and our world.

Jesus wants us to live our faith out loud. He wants it to be loud and bright and shiny. He wants it up on a lampstand where everyone can see it. This is really hard for some of us. And it’s even harder when we’ve banded together as a congregation, and we all have to be up there on the lampstand together, living our faith out loud, and we’re not even sure we agree about the message we’re trying to communicate. Jesus is telling us that, because we are people of faith, the way we are living should be having an impact on the world. Isaiah is telling us that that impact should change the lives of the hungry and the homeless and the oppressed workers and our own kin (which probably actually means everyone!).

And when we try to argue that, No, faith is actually about the state of our hearts and whether we’re right with God, Jesus says, Well yes, but the state of your heart and whether you’re right with God is inseparable from this impact you need to be having on the world. There is no such thing as a private faith in Jesus, apparently, no matter how much we may wish there were. If we’re going to be Christians, we’re going to have to figure out how to make a difference. And since God has gathered us together as Vista La Mesa Christian Church, we’re going to have to figure that out together. We’re going to have to build ourselves a lampstand, and we’re going to have to figure out how to share it.

In so many ways, the Disciples of Christ, are truly a church for “just such a time as this,” to borrow a phrase from the Book of Esther. We have committed ourselves to being “a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.” When has our world ever felt more fragmented? When, in our lifetimes, have we ever been so divided as a nation? When have we ever been so wary of talking to our friends and neighbors about things that really matter? If we can figure out this wholeness thing, and find a way to share it, what a difference it would make!

But I’m afraid that we haven’t been living up to our calling as Disciples of Christ very well. We’ve been going through the motions and spending time in the same room with people we don’t agree with. We’ve been coming to the table together and serving one another the Bread of New Life and the Cup of God’s Mercy. But I’m not sure we’ve really been putting our faith in their reconciling power like we ought to be. I’m afraid we’ve been living together on the surface only, too wary of division to ruffle the waters of conviction. And when we avoid the issues that really matter in our lives here at church, then we end up with a faith that has very little impact on how we live, let alone the rest of the world. If we want to have a faith that matters, we’re going to have to trust in the power of Jesus to hold us together while we dare to share the true convictions of our hearts with one another.

If we could get even just a little bit good at that, it could truly be a gift to our divided, confused nation. It would be salt. It could help others be more truly themselves and make all of us better. And I believe we can do this, if we’re willing to invest the time and energy and emotional resources. It requires commitment. It takes time. But that is true of any calling from God. The question is whether we will answer or not.

In case you haven’t already guessed where this is going, let me invite you, once again, to join us for our new Wednesday night series, “Talking Faith”. Talking about things that matter is how we get started. But in case I’ve now scared you off, let me make clear that we will not be discussing “politics” in this series. That is not the point. We may get there some time later, but that’s not what this round is about. This series is about figuring out our faith together, thinking about what we need to know and what we’re content leaving as a mystery, about how we even know what we know about God, about how God works, and why bad things happen, and even just how we determine right and wrong. We will work our way through important questions of faith, figuring things out as we go. We will learn from each other, and we will learn from ourselves. And believe it or not, we will have a good time!

Jesus wants us up on a lampstand. I really hope that you will consider helping us build our lampstand and make it strong enough to hold all of us. The hungry and the homeless needs us to do this. The world and the nation need us to do this. And we need us to do this. May God bless us all. Alleluia and Amen.