Rev. Debbie Cato
Matthew
5:13-20
Fairfield Community Church
February 5, 2023
Lord God, we pray
that your light would shine on all the earth. However limited we are, let
our words and actions reflect the light of your love, in the name of Jesus the
Lord.
Salt
& Light
Today we continue with
Matthew’s recording of what are probably Jesus’ most important teachings
gathered together in what we know as the Sermon on the Mount. Like I said last week, these teachings take
up three chapters in Matthew, chapters five, six, and seven. Today’s passage is right after the beatitudes.
Right after Jesus says that his followers will be persecuted just for following
him and his way of teaching and living.
You are the salt of the earth – salt not for ourselves, but for the earth. We, as followers of Christ, must bring zest to the whole earth! You are the light of the world – for the whole world, not just for a closed fellowship of fellow believers. The church must genuinely proclaim Christ as Lord by living out his life daily in our communities. According to Matthew, it is the role that Jesus says is ours.
Our saltiness doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We cannot be the light by ourselves either. We cannot be either and follow Jesus’ example unless we are united with our Christian brothers and sisters – with each other. In other words, there is something about being in relationship with other believers that allows us to become who God intends us to be. We learn how to be salt and light as Christ’ church. We do it as Christ’s church. So first comes Christian community and then we can go out and be the salt and the light where God has planted us.
John Stott, a late theologian, said this more than 100 years ago,
“There are the standards, the values, and the priorities of the kingdom of
God. Too often the church has turned
away from this challenge and sunk into a conformist respectability. At such times it is almost indistinguishable
from the world, it has lost its saltness, its light is extinguished… Only when the Christian community lives by
Christ’s manifesto will the world be attracted and God be glorified. So when Jesus calls us to himself, it is to
this that he calls us. For he is the
Lord of the counter-culture.”[1]
Jesus teaches that it is the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek,
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are
persecuted because of him, who God will lift up. It is an upside-down world that Jesus teaches
and that we are asked to live into and embrace as followers. It is
this difference that makes us the salt of the earth and the light of the
world. It is because we embrace this way
of living and work to make this
upside-down life come about that gives us a different flavor and makes us light
in a dark world and that, Jesus says, brings glory to God. Because when we are salt and light, others
see Christ in us just because of who we are and who we represent. They see something different. They see the
love of Christ when they see us. It
brings hope and wonder.
Just by the very nature of being a follower of Jesus, we are to bring out the best in others — the goodness God has already created. We cleanse. We preserve. We bind. We are simply to allow our core essence to be made more evident.
I think that’s what we have been trying to do this last year. We have been working on growing as a Christian community – a church community. Each Sunday when we gather today, my prayer for us as your pastor is that the words we speak together through our liturgy – The Call to Worship, the prayers, the Confession, the songs we sing together; wrap around a theme that helps us grow closer to God and understand who it is He wants us to be and how it is He wants us to live. I pray that the scriptures we read and the sermons I preach will open up the Word in richer ways and help us each to live more deeply as followers of Christ.
A group of us have gathered together for Soup and Studies to learn more about the life and words of Christ. I think they are helping us to have a deeper understanding of who Jesus was and is and what it means to be His follower and to proclaim Him as our Lord and Savior. Our conversations bring us closer together as a Christian community and help us understand and love one another.
We are learning how to be salt and light and as a congregation, we met twice last year to figure out what that meant and how to faithfully do it here in Fairfield.
Many of us have stepped out of our comfort zones and become more visible in the community – something I hear about all the time when I’m out and about. Fairfield Community Church is alive! We are active in the community. We are doing things to help the community and people are noticing. We are doing things to engage the community and people are noticing. The Holy Spirit is moving, and we are moving with Her. We are learning how to be the salt and light in our community.
I don’t think it’s anything you really stop learning – how to be salt and light. Faith is a journey not a destination. You don’t get there and say, “Well, I know it all now. I have arrived.” The Spirit keeps prompting us, usually out of our comfort zone, it’s how we grow and how we learn the best. We do some things well, we make mistakes, we try again.
This is a journey we set out on together, we made the decisions to do the things we are doing together, and we need everyone to step on board. Just a few people cannot make this happen. If you haven’t joined us yet, I would ask you to ask yourself why you haven’t. Perhaps your health or ability to get around is stopping you. I can certainly understand that. Perhaps you are just a Sunday attender and you aren’t interested in being involved in other things. Or maybe the things we are doing are not really “your thing”. I would ask you to challenge yourself. To push yourself out of your comfort zone. To get involved. There is a place for everyone. Find a place to participate in what the Holy Spirit is doing to help us be salt and light in our community. To be the face of Christ. To be His Church.
If you have ideas for something new we could be doing, talk to me or a council member. April is the next month with five Sundays. How should we spend it? What can we do for the community? How can we shine our light? What are your ideas?
The Holy Spirit is calling us out of these pews. She is calling us into the community to be the salt and light of Christ. We don’t have to have it all together to go! We just have to go. We will continue to learn and grow together, and the Spirit will continue to guide and direct us. But our calling as followers of Christ is to go. Let us go in faith. Together. Amen.
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