"You Have Heard It Said" (Matthew 5:21-37)

 To some, it sounds like Jesus is doing away with the law, the teachings of ancient Judaism. As if Jesus is saying: “The law said this; but you can ignore it, because now I’m saying something else.”

To say it like that, it sounds as if Jesus is throwing out the law, and replacing it with something completely different.

But that’s not how Jesus sees it. That’s not what he intends.

In fact, just before he says all these things, Jesus says: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the teachings of the prophets; I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill.”

It’s not about abolishing the ancient teachings or casting them aside; it’s about living in to those teachings in a more complete way. It’s about expanding them.

It’s not about looking for loopholes; it’s about looking to go even further than the law demands, to follow through on the teachings to an even greater degree than you have been taught or have come to understand.

It’s not about limiting how much God’s teachings control your life and your actions; it’s about letting God’s ways control everything in your life and all your actions.

It’s certainly not about twisting and manipulating God’s teachings to justify your way of living, as so many do even today; it’s about bringing your way of living ever closer to what God wills; ever closer to the way of Jesus.

It’s about living in the kingdom of heaven. When I began preaching on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount a few weeks ago, I mentioned how the Sermon on the Mount is a description of life in the kingdom of heaven; an invitation to live in the kingdom of heaven. Right now.

And those who live in the kingdom of heaven seek to live lives of love to the fullest extent; to let love guide everything they do; to always grow in love, so that the love we express becomes ever more complete, ever more whole, ever more transformative, radical, revolutionary, liberating, life-giving.

The law says you shall not murder. Those who seek to limit the law might say: “Fine; I won’t murder you, you no good, dirty, rotten, filthy…”

Ah. No. Stop. You have failed to understand and embrace the love that is at the root of the law, the love that is the foundation of God’s law. If you fully lived in love, you wouldn’t even utter insults, and you wouldn’t call anyone names, because that isn’t loving. Go, think about this, and what it truly means to love.

The law says to not commit adultery. Those who seek to limit the law might say: “OK. I’ve never slept with any woman besides my wife…so I have followed the law.”

Ah. no. Stop. You have failed to understand and embrace the love that is at the root of the law. If you fully lived in love, you wouldn’t even look at another woman with lust in your heart. 

By the way, on this particular issue, notice how it is addressed to men, and talks about looking at a woman, but doesn’t say anything about a woman looking at a man. Why is that? Well, in ancient times, women were considered property. In the first century, adultery was wrong, because it involved “stealing” what rightfully belonged to another man.

Yet Jesus, throughout his ministry, treats women as well as men as human beings. When he sat and talked with the woman at the well, the disciples were astounded that he was talking to a woman. Did he get permission from her man before doing so?

No. No, he did not. Because his love compelled him to treat this woman as a human being.

The law says: when you make a solemn vow, you must honor the vow you have made. : When you place your hand on the Bible, cross your heart, whatever, you have to tell the truth. But those with a limited view of the law might say, “OK fine. When I’m under oath, I’ll tell the truth. But the rest of the time…”

No. Wait. Stop. Let all your words be true. Words have power; power to create, and power to destroy. For a person living in the kingdom of heaven, growing in love, all your “yesses” will mean yes, and all your “noes” will mean no.

If someone is mean to you, can you be mean back to them? If they steal your candy, can you turn around and steal their candy?

An eye for an eye, right? That is what the ancient law says…

But the ancient law was putting a limit on the amount of restitution one could demand.

To fully understand and embrace the love that is at the root of the law means realizing that love demands no restitution. No payback. Love turns the other cheek. Love says, when something is taken from you: “Do you need anything else?”

Now, in a way, this is kind of subversive. If the person who has taken from you has done so because they are desperate, because they are in need, them taking from you your coat or whatever may alert you to the opportunity to provide assistance, to care for them—something that love would do.

On the other hand, if they are taking from you, stealing from you, or doing any other thing to you viciously, vindictively, then your turning the other cheek, or offering them a second article of clothing, or going an extra mile, might, at the very least, cause them to rethink their actions, and might even spur them to remorse.

This is non-violent activism. And the key to understanding nonviolent activism is to first of all recognize that non-violent activism doesn’t always work—it’s not magic—but neither does violent activism. Both are capable of success OR failure.

But only one is rooted in love. Only one recognizes one’s opponent as a human being.

Which brings us to one more thing Jesus said: Love your enemies.

These are all hard sayings, but I feel like this is the hardest of all. 

There are a lot of people in the world right now I really don’t want to love. People who, I think it would be great if they just disappeared off the face of the earth.

In her last interview, Jane Goodall said there are some people she’d like to get rid of. People she’d love to put on a rocket ship together, and just send them off into space, away from earth, never to return.

And Jane Goodall was, I think, one of the kindest, most loving people on earth.

It’s so hard to love those who are against us; those who seem so intent on committing evil in our world.

But only love has even a chance of getting them to turn around. 

Hate certainly isn’t going to get them to change. Anger directed toward them isn’t going to get them to change. 

Hate and anger isn’t going to convince them to be more loving.

If there’s any hope of getting them to be more loving, we’ve got to be more loving ourselves.

Now, it may seem that Jesus is expecting the impossible from us.

Martin Luther, the 16th century reformer, said that the Sermon on the Mount offered an impossible ideal, for we can never truly love our enemies or be perfect the way Jesus wants us to be perfect.

I/you/we will never follow all these teachings perfectly. We can try, but it just isn’t going to happen.

***** But we can meditate on these teachings every day. We can spend time in prayer, seeking God’s guidance on how we can more fully live out these teachings and grow in love, every day.

And every day, we can get closer to the kingdom of heaven.

Remember a few weeks ago when I said that Gandhi read the Sermon on the Mount every day? I get why. 

“Love your enemies” isn’t something to which you can say “Yeah, alright…” And it’s done.

Every day, we need to think about what it means, to love our enemies… how we can better love our enemies… how we can turn the other cheek… and speak words that are true… and and honor every person we meet as a human being, not as property, not as a tool, not as an obstacle… and grow in compassion and kindness and empathy… and truly understand what it is that makes for peace in our world.

At last week’s elders meeting, Heather shared a devotion based on Philippians 4:8, which says: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable… think about these things.” 

The CEB says “focus on these things.” The Message Bible says “meditate on these things.”

I don’t think they mean to just do it once, and check it off your list. I think they mean to think about these things, focus on these things, meditate on these things… every day.

Every day, ask God to show you how you can be more loving; how you can be more true; how you can be more kind… so that you may be drawn closer to the kingdom of heaven.

***** This week, from a book I’m reading, I learned about Etty Hillesum. Etty was a Jew in Europe during World War 2. As things gradually got worse and worse, she saw her freedoms disappear, her rights taken away, and eventually, she died in a concentration camp.

And yet, throughout it all, she never lost her faith in humanity, and she never gave in to hatred.

Before going to the concentration camp, she lived in an upper-floor apartment, and from her window she could see the German soldiers marching in the streets. In her journal, she wrote down what she saw, along with some prayers that she prayed. 

One of her prayers went like this: “God, do not let me dissipate my strength, not the least little bit of strength, on useless hatred against these soldiers. Let me save my strength for better things.”

She also wrote: The only way to truly fight war is “by releasing, each day, the love that is shackled inside us, and giving it a chance to live.”

It was right for her to pray for the strength to love, for only with God’s strength is such love possible. 

These times that we live in are challenging times. There’s no doubt about that. 

Now, more than ever, we need these teachings of Jesus, to guide us, to lead us to a better world. 

If Etty can do it, so can we. As long as we practice, daily, and pray, daily… and as long as we rely on God to help us do what seems impossible.

To speak what is true. To keep our anger in check. To turn the other cheek. To engage in the struggle for justice, while at the same time, loving our neighbors and our enemies.

Seasoned with Love (Matthew 5:13-20)

 Being from California, Ginger and I love sourdough bread. The best sourdough bread in the world comes from San Francisco, though you can find good sourdough bread everywhere in California.

At Disneyland, they have their own sourdough bread factory—and it’s considered an attraction! You can walk through the bakery, watch the bread being made, and even get a free slice of sourdough bread to eat. Then you can purchase a sourdough bread bowl filled with clam chowder. It’s overpriced, of course, but still delicious.

Here in Illinois, good sourdough bread has been hard to find. The sourdough bread on the grocery store shelves (I’m sorry!) just doesn’t cut it. Not tangy enough. And the crust isn’t crusty enough. 

We had just about given up on finding decent sourdough bread, just as I have given up on finding good fish tacos in Illinois… but then we discovered the little store on Center Street, a few blocks from here, right across from the museum.

It’s only open on Saturdays. In the summer, when the farmer’s market is taking place, the lines can get long, and they sometimes run out of different varieties… because there, in that tiny little shop, is what I would consider to be really good sourdough bread.

Last week, that little market posted a lengthy update on Facebook, detailing some changes. When I started reading it, I thought, in horror: Oh no! They’re closing!

But they’re not closing. Whew!

Over the years, they’ve expanded, and in addition to bread, they sell cheese, yogurt, veggies, and meats, all from central Illinois farms, and so now they decided to come up with a new name that includes all the different things they do and all the different foods they sell. And that new name is Salt Fork Food Works. 

They chose that name because a tributary of the Salt Fork waterway runs behind their farm, and they always felt the name was a good omen for them. As they said in their facebook post: You can't make cheese or bread without salt!

*****  When I first started baking, I was surprised at all the recipes that call for salt. Salt goes in… everything! Even things that are sweet, like cookies… or the homemade granola I bake.

You may not notice the salt when you eat these things. But you would notice the difference if the salt was missing.

In most recipes, salt doesn’t draw attention to itself. Without salt, the food is bland. Boring. You want to spit it out.

Salt makes food enjoyable. We enjoy eating, and when we can, we enjoy eating together, with other people.

Salt is essential to that.

And although our modern diets sometimes contain too much salt, salt is actually a critical and essential mineral in the human body. It has a number of important roles including maintaining proper nerve function; and it's also used in the regulation of fluids in your body.

We need salt.

Jesus said to his disciples: “You are the salt of the earth.” That was his way of saying: “The world needs you.” Without you, this world would be bitter, bland, tasteless, unpalatable.

But with you, the world is complete and whole and good. You are needed in this world. You are the salt of the earth.

Not every salt is the same. There are different types of salt. I looked online and discovered that there is fine-grained table salt, coarse kosher salt, mineral-rich Himalayan pink salt, and ocean-evaporated sea salts (like flaky Fleur de Sel, which is also called Flor de Sal if it comes from Spain or Mexico). Other varieties of sea salts include grey Celtic Salt, and volcanic Hawaiian Black Salt.

There are also flavored/smoked salts; each offering different textures, flavors, and best uses in cooking, from everyday seasoning to gourmet finishing. (I bet they have a lot of these types of salt at Bloomington Spice Works, another great store we have here in downtown…)

In the same way, Jesus’ disciples came in all different varieties. You have Peter, “The Rock,” who, early on, tended to speak before he thought, but who became a great leader among the disciples. You have James and John, the “sons of thunder;” I always wondered why Jesus thought that nickname was appropriate for them.

You have Matthew, a tax collector, whose past had been one of accommodation to Rome, right there alongside other zealous opponents of Roman rule. How on earth they ever worked together despite those differences is something else I’ve always wondered about.

The point is, the disciples were a group of wildly different people coming from wildly different backgrounds, with wildly different gifts, abilities, and ideas.

By all accounts, it shouldn’t have worked, them working together to build and carry on the movement Jesus started. But it did.

***** I’ve told you before about one of my favorite camp activities: stargazing.

We look at the stars, I point out a few constellations, and then ask campers some questions to help them get an idea of just how incredibly huge our universe is. 

Questions like: How long would it take to travel to the moon in a rocket ship? How long would it take to travel to Mars? What about the nearest star? What about the farthest star we could see?

While humans have travelled to the moon, travelling much farther than that is impractical, because of how incredibly long the journey would take. To go to Mars would take about seven months. To go to the nearest stars would take 100,000 years.

In the world of science fiction, we imagine traveling at the speed of light. And who knows, maybe one day we will be able to travel at the speed of light.

If we could do that, a trip to Mars would only take 3 minutes—not 7 months. A trip to the nearest star would take about 8 years—a long time, but much shorter than 100,000 years. 

But it would still take 2 million years, traveling at light speed to reach the Andromeda galaxy, which is the closest galaxy out of billions of galaxies in our universe.

I really can’t comprehend these sorts of things, the vast size of the universe, and how many billions of galaxies there are, each one containing billions of star systems… 

And the point of all this is to realize that, in this vast universe, God still thought it important that there should be one of YOU. One and only one YOU.

You, the person sitting in a pew at First Christian Church, 401 W Jefferson Street, Bloomington, IL on planet earth, third star of our solar system, in a galaxy filled with stars and solar systems, in a universe filled with billions of galaxies.

Or, you, sitting wherever you are, worshiping with us via livestream…

This universe would not be complete without YOU. It would be lacking you and your unique gifts, skills, and abilities. It would be lacking the unique flavor you bring as a particular type of salt of the earth. It would be lacking the light that God has put inside of you, to illuminate the darkness and make this a brighter, more hopeful world.

*****  Sometimes people wonder why God doesn’t do something about the state of the world…

Well, God did do something. God created you: to love this world as only you can.

And when I say that God gave you a unique set of gifts, skills, and abilities, I mean that you should let all those gifts, skills, and abilities shine. Even the parts of you that the world tries to get you to hide.

Some of us were created by God to think differently, feel differently, love differently. 

Yet the world tries to get us to hide those parts of us that don’t quite fit with what the world expects of us. The world tries to take the salt out of us, the unique flavor of salt that only we possess.

And we hide the light of our neurodiversity. We hide the light of our sexuality. We hide the light of the uniqueness of our bodies and physical differences.

To shine the light means to be who God created you to be—fully you. When you let your light shine, you allow the world to see your gifts and your beauty. 

What if the world doesn’t want to see your gifts and your beauty? What if the world tells you to tone it down a bit? Isn’t that the same thing as telling you to dim your light?

Your light may be too bright for some… You don’t need to shine your light in their eyes so they go blind. But let it shine around them. Let it shine on the path, so they can see a way forward. Shine it gently if you need to…

But let it shine. 

As a church, how can we be a community that encourages people to let their light shine? How can we welcome people as they are? How can we help them use their gifts in ways that benefit the world?

I started this series on the Sermon on the Mount last week, with the beatitudes. Those blessings are, in their own way, saying what today’s scripture says: that you are salt and light.

And these blessings, these affirmations, give hope. 

And when Jesus speaks these blessings and these affirmations, he’s doing what we in the church should be doing. Providing hope. Hope that can even save lives. 

Speaking these words of truth, these blessings and affirmations, is suicide prevention. Jesus is saying to people who are frustrated with their situation (oppressed) or their identity (peasants & artisans, mostly—people devalued by the government and by society, people made to feel they aren’t important, that they are a burden, that they have no power or agency)...

Jesus is saying to them that they do matter, that they are blessed, that God affirms them as they are, and that, in God’s eyes, they are exactly what this world needs: salt and light. 

YOU are exactly what this world needs. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.