5
Ephiphany A February 5, 2017
Isaiah 58:1-9a, (9b-12) Psalm 112:1-9
1 Corinthians 2:1-11 Matt.5:13-20
I would submit to you that the Sermon on the Mount was an oracle of Christ given for the communities living under the various Caesars decades after Jesus, rather than for the immediate followers of Jesus, even though some of his immediate followers lived and were continuing leaders of the early churches.
What were the strategies for living within the Empire if one did not worship the Emperor as a god and if one has joined a community that lives with having experiences of the Risen Christ?
One could look at the witness of the minority community of the Jews. How did they live within the Empire? One could say they lived more as the Amish live now in our society. They lived a segregated and cloistered life with outward and visible markers of their identity. They had dietary rules, health rules, clothing rules. Their clothing rules would not be unlike the presence of Islamic women wearing burkas and hijabs in countries where Muslims are a minority. Hijab wearers get criticized for not blending into Western society. On the other hand, a person who wears a cross does not get criticized for marking himself or herself as a Christian. Why? Because where Christians are in a majority, a cross does not stand out as belonging to an "outsider."
In the words of the oracle of Jesus in those early communities, Jesus said that embracing the religious laws had to exceed the ways in which the scribes and Pharisees practiced rules in the Jewish community. How so? If the ritual rules of purity are elevated to the primary rules to distinguish a Jewish person from all others in Roman Society then one is not likely to have any impact in the conversion of the people in the Roman Society. For coping and evangelizing within Roman society required the adaption of the great principles of the law in a way that they would find correspondences in the lives of Roman Empire citizenry. The Christians were willing to compromise the Jewish purity rituals for what they regarded to be the great principle of the Holy Spirit being present in the life of people. St. Paul and others dispensed with eat kosher diets, wearing veils and circumcision. St. Paul was motivated by the success of the presence of God's Spirit within people of the Roman Empire. He gave up maintaining the outer signs of Jewish separatism. As such Christian had a strategy for converting the Roman Empire; the Jews of the synagogue had no interest in converting the Roman citizenry. In this way, the righteousness of Christian had to exceed the practice of the scribes and Pharisees. It had to be different. Why? The goal of Christians was converting everyone to the risen Christ. The law of making God accessible to everyone was the greater fulfillment of the law.
Can you know what salt can do to your food if you never try it? "I think that we'll put salt shakers on the table but not allow people to use it." You don't know how salt will taste on food unless salt is allowed on your food. So don't segregate salt from your food if you want the effects of its taste. If the Jews in the synagogue lived segregated lives because of their purity laws, how could the Roman citizenry know the value of living by the great Torah? The Risen Christ and the Holy Spirit created Christians as salt to go with life, all life, life in Palestine, life in Ephesus, life in Rome and everywhere. Christians, if you are salt, don't keep yourself away from being the distinctive taste and flavor of an otherwise ordinary life. Don't segregate your good news and good practice from the world. And I would say to us as Episcopalians: Don't segregate the Episcopal version of the Gospel from people in this world. We have a unique way to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to postmodern people in our world. We do not have to segregate ourselves like Amish in Luddite practices; we can be a salty influence in a very up-to-date manner in today's world. We don't have to be nostalgic about how good the good 'ol days were; we can know the converting relevance of the Risen Christ in new ways in new times today.
The oracle of Christ in the early church also informed the church that they would not convert the Roman Empire if they kept all of their wisdom locked up in buildings. You have to go the synagogue to receive the light of the Torah. You have to go into the church meeting place behind closed doors to hear about the Risen Christ and the receive the knowledge of the Holy Spirit. No. You don't light a candle in order to place it under a bushel basket. If people are traveling at night, you want them to see the lights of the city so they know what direction to go towards. If Pavarotti had said, "I'm going to bless this world with my singing by singing only in the shower," how would this world ever have been blessed by his singing? We can treat the practice of our Episcopal faith like an exclusive party that meets in a phone booth but then how can we get out our good news for the people who need to discover the fellowship which we have to offer?
The law of God does not mean elevating minor rules of segregation as the most important laws of all. The Amish aren't converting anyone except their own family members and they don't care about us, though we'd all love to take one of those horse buggies for a ride. The Shakers have left us nice furniture but they have died out as a community of celibates, since they did not even have births of new members. The oracle of Christ within the early Church was this: Don't segregate yourselves in the Roman Empire like has been in the practice of the Jews; if you do so you will only have influence within your own ethnic gatherings.
Today, opera lovers are glad Pavarotti did not limit his singing to the showers. People who enjoy eating are glad that we have salt. People who experience darkness are very glad when light is not kept from us.
We live in different times today with different Empire conditions. Let us be true to the salt of Christianity, the Risen Christ and the Holy Spirit in our lives. Let us share our very best good news, our best life practices as light to those who live in the kinds of darkness of uninspired lives. We are not to do the equivalent of elevating the rules of baseball to having greater importance than the U.S. Constitution. Let us not elevate some of our traditions of the Episcopal Church to the point of excluding people from the greater welcome to the table of the Lord and to our fellowship.
The Sermon on the Mount helped the early Christians cope with the varying conditions of the Roman Empire but not by segregating the very best of the Gospel message from the Roman Citizens. The Sermon on the Mount is proof that early Christians did not keep the tasty salt of the Good News from the tables of the citizens of the Roman Empire. The Sermon on the Mount is proof that a new light was not meant only for Christian household. The light was shared with all.
How is a law fulfilled? A law is not valid or fulfilled unless it is promulgated and accessible to all. The Gospel law is not fulfilled until it is accessible and shared with all. Let us live in this Sermon of the Mount tradition by being salt and light Christians in our world by adding the insights and the tastiness of Christ to this world. Let us make sure that we help fulfill the law of God by making it accessible to all. Amen.
Isaiah 58:1-9a, (9b-12) Psalm 112:1-9
1 Corinthians 2:1-11 Matt.5:13-20
I would submit to you that the Sermon on the Mount was an oracle of Christ given for the communities living under the various Caesars decades after Jesus, rather than for the immediate followers of Jesus, even though some of his immediate followers lived and were continuing leaders of the early churches.
What were the strategies for living within the Empire if one did not worship the Emperor as a god and if one has joined a community that lives with having experiences of the Risen Christ?
One could look at the witness of the minority community of the Jews. How did they live within the Empire? One could say they lived more as the Amish live now in our society. They lived a segregated and cloistered life with outward and visible markers of their identity. They had dietary rules, health rules, clothing rules. Their clothing rules would not be unlike the presence of Islamic women wearing burkas and hijabs in countries where Muslims are a minority. Hijab wearers get criticized for not blending into Western society. On the other hand, a person who wears a cross does not get criticized for marking himself or herself as a Christian. Why? Because where Christians are in a majority, a cross does not stand out as belonging to an "outsider."
In the words of the oracle of Jesus in those early communities, Jesus said that embracing the religious laws had to exceed the ways in which the scribes and Pharisees practiced rules in the Jewish community. How so? If the ritual rules of purity are elevated to the primary rules to distinguish a Jewish person from all others in Roman Society then one is not likely to have any impact in the conversion of the people in the Roman Society. For coping and evangelizing within Roman society required the adaption of the great principles of the law in a way that they would find correspondences in the lives of Roman Empire citizenry. The Christians were willing to compromise the Jewish purity rituals for what they regarded to be the great principle of the Holy Spirit being present in the life of people. St. Paul and others dispensed with eat kosher diets, wearing veils and circumcision. St. Paul was motivated by the success of the presence of God's Spirit within people of the Roman Empire. He gave up maintaining the outer signs of Jewish separatism. As such Christian had a strategy for converting the Roman Empire; the Jews of the synagogue had no interest in converting the Roman citizenry. In this way, the righteousness of Christian had to exceed the practice of the scribes and Pharisees. It had to be different. Why? The goal of Christians was converting everyone to the risen Christ. The law of making God accessible to everyone was the greater fulfillment of the law.
Can you know what salt can do to your food if you never try it? "I think that we'll put salt shakers on the table but not allow people to use it." You don't know how salt will taste on food unless salt is allowed on your food. So don't segregate salt from your food if you want the effects of its taste. If the Jews in the synagogue lived segregated lives because of their purity laws, how could the Roman citizenry know the value of living by the great Torah? The Risen Christ and the Holy Spirit created Christians as salt to go with life, all life, life in Palestine, life in Ephesus, life in Rome and everywhere. Christians, if you are salt, don't keep yourself away from being the distinctive taste and flavor of an otherwise ordinary life. Don't segregate your good news and good practice from the world. And I would say to us as Episcopalians: Don't segregate the Episcopal version of the Gospel from people in this world. We have a unique way to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to postmodern people in our world. We do not have to segregate ourselves like Amish in Luddite practices; we can be a salty influence in a very up-to-date manner in today's world. We don't have to be nostalgic about how good the good 'ol days were; we can know the converting relevance of the Risen Christ in new ways in new times today.
The oracle of Christ in the early church also informed the church that they would not convert the Roman Empire if they kept all of their wisdom locked up in buildings. You have to go the synagogue to receive the light of the Torah. You have to go into the church meeting place behind closed doors to hear about the Risen Christ and the receive the knowledge of the Holy Spirit. No. You don't light a candle in order to place it under a bushel basket. If people are traveling at night, you want them to see the lights of the city so they know what direction to go towards. If Pavarotti had said, "I'm going to bless this world with my singing by singing only in the shower," how would this world ever have been blessed by his singing? We can treat the practice of our Episcopal faith like an exclusive party that meets in a phone booth but then how can we get out our good news for the people who need to discover the fellowship which we have to offer?
The law of God does not mean elevating minor rules of segregation as the most important laws of all. The Amish aren't converting anyone except their own family members and they don't care about us, though we'd all love to take one of those horse buggies for a ride. The Shakers have left us nice furniture but they have died out as a community of celibates, since they did not even have births of new members. The oracle of Christ within the early Church was this: Don't segregate yourselves in the Roman Empire like has been in the practice of the Jews; if you do so you will only have influence within your own ethnic gatherings.
Today, opera lovers are glad Pavarotti did not limit his singing to the showers. People who enjoy eating are glad that we have salt. People who experience darkness are very glad when light is not kept from us.
We live in different times today with different Empire conditions. Let us be true to the salt of Christianity, the Risen Christ and the Holy Spirit in our lives. Let us share our very best good news, our best life practices as light to those who live in the kinds of darkness of uninspired lives. We are not to do the equivalent of elevating the rules of baseball to having greater importance than the U.S. Constitution. Let us not elevate some of our traditions of the Episcopal Church to the point of excluding people from the greater welcome to the table of the Lord and to our fellowship.
The Sermon on the Mount helped the early Christians cope with the varying conditions of the Roman Empire but not by segregating the very best of the Gospel message from the Roman Citizens. The Sermon on the Mount is proof that early Christians did not keep the tasty salt of the Good News from the tables of the citizens of the Roman Empire. The Sermon on the Mount is proof that a new light was not meant only for Christian household. The light was shared with all.
How is a law fulfilled? A law is not valid or fulfilled unless it is promulgated and accessible to all. The Gospel law is not fulfilled until it is accessible and shared with all. Let us live in this Sermon of the Mount tradition by being salt and light Christians in our world by adding the insights and the tastiness of Christ to this world. Let us make sure that we help fulfill the law of God by making it accessible to all. Amen.
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