Second Sunday After Pentecost Year A 2008

May 25, 2008

Matt 6:24-34 (NRSV)

The Paradox

Have you gotten the email, one of those “forwards” entitled “the Paradox of our Time?”

“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less. We buy more, but enjoy less. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life, not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We've done larger things, but not better things. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships.”

Does anyone remember who it was attributed to? Well, whether you do or not, we’ll get to that at the end.

It’s a great thought, though, isn’t it? And it would seem to fit our passage so well. We’re so caught up chasing the almighty dollar, when we should be more focused on each other. End of sermon, everyone go home.

Our passage this morning is the last part of the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew. Great crowds had come out to avail themselves of Jesus’ healing power, and while they were at it, they stopped and gave his message a listen as well. Jesus was addressing his fellow Jews, fellow believers in God and practitioners of the Jewish religion. And his message was not about how to live or that what the world needs now is love, sweet love, but that God was actually coming into the world, and things were going to drastically change, and he was asking his fellow believers to get ready.

No, I am not a reader of the Left Behind series, though I probably should read it just so I know what kind of nonsense is being perpetrated out there. No, I don’t have any fundamentalist beliefs about plagues and battles and the anti-Christ.

But I do believe that our religion is not as much about going to heaven, as it is about heaven coming here.

Jesus came to announce to believers that God is coming to inhabit his people in the same way he came to inhabit his temple in the days of David. He is coming to light us up, to transform us completely, from the inside out.

It’s important to put this teaching in that perspective, because we too quickly domesticate this passage into a “don’t worry, be happy,” kind of message, and it isn’t that at all. It also isn’t really a condemnation of money or wealth. It is a call to the people who want to follow Christ, a call to people who feel within themselves the importance of the kingdom of God.

Jesus used the metaphor of salt. The people of God are to the world as salt is to a meal. The world tastes bad and it is spoiling. The people of God are the salt put into the meal to preserve it and to make it taste good.

Jesus is telling us that we, the priestly nation of God, are really here to flavor the world. Do you know what I’m saying? We aren’t here to force anything, to conquer anyone, to overthrow anybody. No, we are meant to season the world. The world taste bad. We’re here to make it taste a little better.

But if we don’t bear within ourselves the saltiness, why then, we don’t flavor anything. We taste just like everything else.

And so the sermon on the mount is about that flavor, that saltiness that we are called to have and be, and it basically is about not being anything like the world at all. While the world is caught up with the fine gradations of the law that everyone is trying to figure out a way to get over, we are to be people who want only to do God’s will. In a world of murderers, we are not supposed to even get angry. In a world of adulterers, we aren’t even supposed to feel lust. In a world of hypocrites, we are supposed to have perfectly pure motives. In a world that only gives lip service to God, we are to be his true servants. In a world full of people struggling for resources, we are to trust God for all our needs.

This is our saltiness, our flavor, and without it, we are nothing.

The saltiness Jesus is speaking about is our motives and not our deeds. We like to point to our deeds, because they are clearly visible, even if only to ourselves, and they are easily done even when our motives are cloudy. But isn’t it the difference usually perceptible? Don’t you think you can tell? It’s only when someone’s motives change that they really light up.

When it comes to wealth, Jesus is not telling us that wealth is bad. He is not telling us that being wealthy is evil. He is acknowledging that money talks and the rest walks. It is of tremendous importance. Whenever someone says to me, “Money’s not important to me,” I always respond, “Well then give me all of yours.”

Money is important. It’s terribly important. We may be discovering now that it’s more important even than guns and armies. It may be a nation can conquer the world with nothing but money. Our economy right now is going through a bumpy ride and it’s pretty scary. I would think for retired folks with limited means it’s particularly scary. And how can we say to people in Myanmar, “don’t worry about it?” We can’t say that.

This is not what Jesus is teaching. He is teaching you and me about how we are to be different from the world. While the world, quite normally and appropriately, desperately fears for its well-being, part of our saltiness in the world will be our fearless dependence on God’s care.

If this looks impossible, well, it is. God’s own being is the saltiness in the salt of God’s people. Money is desperately important to everyone on earth precisely because it is important. To be released from such a need is something only our heavenly Father can do, and he does it by sending his own Spirit to dwell in us.

To me, as a follower of Jesus, I look back over my life and see how I have always longed to serve him. I have always been ill at ease with the ways of the world and they have never worked for me. In fact, I felt myself trapped and bound and imprisoned, I felt like I couldn’t be who I really was meant to be.

The great joy of my life is to find that there is nothing wrong with me after all. I am meant to be different from the world around me. To be unconcerned about my wealth or property is abnormal for citizens of the world, but for me it is who I really am.

Barbara Brown Taylor said, “The opposite of rich is not poor but free.”

That email sermon was attributed to George Carlin with a little parenthetical remark that he wrote it after his wife died. Well it’s true that Carlin’s wife died, but he denied writing the passage, calling it a sappy piece of— well you know George Carlin. It was also attributed to a student who had witnessed Columbine. This also is not true.

It was actually written by a pastor whom I will not name, of a very conservative independent mega-church that I will also not name. The congregation’s website declares the inerrancy of scripture and that the bible forbids female leadership. This pastor eventually resigned over allegations he had sexually molested a number of male church members, allegations that were eventually confirmed.

So here’s my addendum to this poor pastor’s irrefutably good sermon: The paradox of our time in the church is that we have great certainty but no faith, lots of bibles but few readers, lots of fire but little light, impressive deeds but doubtful motives, huge churches led by small people.
And didn’t Jesus give us the most important paradox of all?

3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
—Matt 5:3-12 (NRSV)

Amen.