Sermon at St. Peter’s Church,
Pitton -
Morning Praise – Sunday 5th
February 2017
Isaiah
58:1-12; 1 Corinthians 2:1-12; Matthew 5:13-20
Let the words of my mouth, and the
meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord. Amen
This morning
we have heard three very significant and long readings from each of the Old
Testament, New Testament Epistles and Gospel – and from perhaps the three
greatest contributors to the Christian scriptures we so lovingly read and,
hopefully, follow – Isaiah, Paul and Jesus. Although many centuries span our
first and second readings the ideas conveyed remain constant and if the
language used may seem to us today difficult or flowery even, the message is
very simple and I believe never more relevant to where we find the world in
2017.
The rebuke,
for that is what it is, in the reading from Isaiah is actually the very essence
of the Sermon on the Mount from which our Gospel reading is taken and as we go
into the last month before Lent, it is good to remind ourselves and reflect
upon what God expects of us in following Christ and leading Christian lives.
Isaiah is
admonishing those who would pay lip service to the law: fasting and undertaking
religious rituals and observances yet not caring for the poor or
oppressed. As Isaiah so clearly puts it “Is not the fast that I choose, to loose the
bonds of injustice; to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go
free and to break every yoke? “ (Isa 58:6)
In his
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes up Isaiah’s challenge and in the beatitudes
reminds his listeners of Isaiah’s statement and that it is the poor and humble,
the peacemakers, who will be blessed.
Isaiah continues “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless
poor into your house? : when you see the naked, cover them, and not hide
yourself from your kin. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and
your healing shall spring up quickly.”
Isaiah is
writing at a time when the Jews were in Exile in Babylon lamenting the fact
that they believed their unrighteousness, by not observing the Jewish law, had
led to their captivity and exile. They had a strong belief that a strict and
total adherence to the law alone would bring them salvation. Isaiah is saying that this is really not
enough we must help the poor and weak and moving forward to Jesus’s time their
country was yet again overrun by a foreign power, this time the Roman Empire.
Throughout the gospels we read of Jesus’s discussions and arguments about the
law and as we heard in the gospel reading this morning Jesus is at pains to
tell the Jewish authorities and ordinary people that he is not here to break
the law but rather to fulfil it because the leaders have not got it right. They
did not listen to Isaiah. Isaiah was at great pains to point out that they
hadn’t got it right several hundred years before too. The law is about
protecting the weak and vulnerable, about humility and looking after each other
and other peoples – as is encapsulated in the Commandments the greatest two
Jesus was quick to point out was to love God and to love each other as God
loves us.
We started
this morning’s service when the children were with us with the very jolly
little song “This Little Light of Mine”
and we shall end it when they return with the song which has as its refrain “Walk, Walk in the Light”. I think that the first hymn should actually
be entitled “This Great Light of Mine”
– although it wouldn’t scan quite so well - because that is the concept that
Jesus is putting so well in his great Sermon – we are all called upon to walk
in the light and shine with God’s glory. He is telling this to his followers,
his disciples and we, as modern day Christians must always remember that we are
his disciples today.
Jesus uses
another metaphor for how Christians should be – and here I emphasise that we
are talking about being and not
simply doing. The Jews thought that by doing – observing and doing religious acts they would avoid the
wrath of God and gain salvation, whereas Jesus is saying that it is by being faithful to God’s calling and being warm-hearted and loving our fellow
man that we really fulfil what God intends for us. Jesus talks about us being the salt of the earth.
I love that
term – whenever somebody says “he or she is the salt of the earth” we know
exactly what that means – a good and honest decent person, reliable and to be
looked upon favourably, having integrity but also being humble and kind. A wonderful epitaph for anyone to have.
Jesus uses
the examples of salt and light telling his followers that they are indeed “the salt of the earth and the light of the
world” (Mt 5:13-14). Both salt and
light are the very essence of and necessary for life to exist. Salt is vital to sustain life especially in
the hot countries of the world – so much so that in the last century the
British authorities taxed it in places like India where Gandhi carried our his
great march across the sub-continent to the sea to make salt in defiance of and
a mark of protest against British domination in his country. Salt, like light, is readily available but
can also be withdrawn. Salt makes food
taste better, it is also used to cure and preserve it and can also be used as
an antiseptic – indeed in Nelson’s navy salt was rubbed into the wounds of
sailors who had been lashed not to increase their suffering, although it can’t
have been very pleasant and from this experience we get the phrase “to rub salt into the wound” meaning to
make things worse - but actually it was
used to help cleanse and heal the wounds; but as Jesus says, if salt loses its
saltiness, if it loses its properties for whatever use it is normally put to,
it is of no use to anybody. It is simply thrown away and trampled under foot. Jesus is telling us that we have so much to
give by being “salt” but if we lose that ability to be as such – to add taste,
preserve or heal then we are no good for anything. We are human “beings” and not human “doings”
and by being the salt of the earth we are capable of sustaining and preserving
the spiritual lives of those God wants us to be and those around us. We can cleanse, add taste and heal others by
our Faithful lives – by being as God would have us be.
Similarly,
we are the light of the world. As
Christians we have received the light of Christ and through him the Holy
Spirit. In the Nunc Dimittis, the Song
of Simeon who, as an old man, was present at Christ’s presentation at the
temple by Mary, Simeon says of the child Jesus “[he will] be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of
your people Israel”. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is passing that
light on to all his followers and like the Olympic Torch that light passes from
one Christian generation to another in continuity – to all who follow Christ.
That is an immense responsibility and one we should never shirk from. Jesus is with us and remains with us, by us
and in us every day and by bearing or being his light we, as his disciples, are
expected to go forth and make further disciples. Pass the “Olympic Torch”. Wow,
what a wonderful and joyous responsibility. Simeon is also prophesying that
Jesus will not only bring glory to the people of Israel, as predicted by
Isaiah, but also will bring a light to all people, Jews and Gentiles
alike. Jesus’s light is available to all
just as is the ability for us to be the salt of the earth.
Today the
world is facing fresh and difficult challenges.
I don’t need to spell them out in detail – they are there for all to
read and see in the media; challenges facing Great Britain, Europe, the United
States, the Middle East and Asia in particular. In fact the challenges are
global because whether we like it or not we live in a global society.
We look for
heroes, men and women of action to lead and solve our problems. In the 1920s and 1930s the German people
looked for a hero, a man of action, a leader to come forward. He did – with
catastrophic and tragic consequences. Such people are doers – they get things
done but often with little regard for their ethical and moral character. As Christians, and particular those in
leadership in the church, we are called to be people of being – being of good
character, being ethical, being morally upright. It is not always easy – but
that is precisely what Jesus is telling us.
Things will get done but in a manner which accords with God’s desires
for the world and Jesus’s teachings and example.
Paul in our
epistle reading takes up the theme further by reminding his readers in Corinth
by asking the question “what human being
knows what is truly human except that the human spirit is within him?” (1
Cor. 2:11). He then answers it by saying
“Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from
God so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God and we speak of
these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit
interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual” [1 Cor. 2:12].
In other
words, to be fully alive as human beings is, as St. Iraneus taught us, to show
the Glory of God. God wants us to be
spiritual beings as well as human beings and by using the gifts which we
receive we can be true disciples of the living Christ.
Towards the
end of our service today we will sing the song “The Spirit Lives to Set us Free” with the refrain “Walk, Walk in the Light” the last verse
of which says “The Spirit Lives in You
and Me”. I encourage you, when you
sing this today, to reflect on how you can use the gifts given to you by the
Spirit, to keep you walking and shining in the light of the Lord for yourselves
and others.
Amen
89/01022017
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