“The Challenge of Forgiving”

A sermon preached on 7 Sept 2014, Pentecost XI, at New Hope, Oakville, CT, on Matt 18:15-20

I.                   Looking Out for One Another

For fifteen months journalist Sebastian Junger followed a single platoon of U.S. soldiers stationed in a dangerous part of Afghanistan. Living and working in the midst of a warzone made Junger realize how much the soldiers had to rely on each other. What you do or don’t do as a soldier affects everyone else in your platoon. Junger writes:

Margins were so small and errors potentially so catastrophic that every soldier had a kind of de facto authority to reprimand others—in some cases even officers. And because combat can hinge on [small] details, there was nothing in a soldier's daily routine that fell outside the group's purview. Whether you tied your shoes or cleaned your weapon or drank enough water or secured your night vision gear were all matters of public concern and so were open to public scrutiny.

Once I watched a private accost another private whose bootlaces were trailing on the ground. Not that he cared what it looked like, but if something happened out there—and out there, everything happened suddenly—the guy with the loose laces couldn't be counted on to keep his feet at a crucial moment. It was the other man's life he was risking, not just his own .... There was no such thing as personal safety out there; what happened to you happened to everyone.

I remember hearing a talk early on in my ordained ministry in which the speaker reminded us that we Christians might like to think that, as church members, we were passengers on a cruise ship – but the reality is, we are crew members on a battleship.  There are tremendous joys, great satisfactions, and enormous benefits to being a Christian, but they come to us not because we are relaxing in an atmosphere dedicated to giving us pleasure, but because we are part of a great expeditionary force to free captives and release prisoners held by the enemy.  We are at war.

It is, to be sure, a spiritual war.  As Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6:9, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”  Our weapons in this warfare are not bombs, bullets, and propaganda, but rather the spiritual weapons of prayer, love, and truth.

We are to use prayer, love, and truth as we reach out into the community around us in evangelism and service in Jesus’ name.  We are to use prayer, love, and truth as we worship the Lord on Sunday mornings.  We are to use prayer, love, and truth as we go to work on Monday morning.  And we are to use prayer, love, and truth in all our relationships.

II.                The Need for Church Discipline

It is with this in mind that I want to look at our Gospel reading from Matthew 18.  This is a passage where Jesus is looking ahead to the days when his ministry will be carried out by his people, gathered in local congregations.  He knows the human heart, and so he knows that we will hurt one another in various ways.  He provides a godly way to deal with those hurts – not with anger and revenge, but with care and compassion, so that relationships are healed and the body is restored to health.

Every denomination and most independent congregations have used this passage as the core of their church laws on church discipline.  “Discipline” is not a word that we particularly like, and few people want to be disciplined – but the truth of the matter is, we all need a word of correction now and then.  When Paul wrote of Scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16, 17, he said, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”  Note that Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, assumes that people will need reproof and correction.

The rules that Jesus gave for church discipline are often used in a harsh and heavy-handed way, as people, trying to be obedient to the structure Jesus has given us, read this passage – and often only this passage.  But the reality is that there are many other passages in the Bible that speak of how we are to deal with the reality that we are sinners who are forgiven but not yet perfect.  If we simply look at the context of the passage we read this morning, we see that it is surrounded by compassion and mercy.  Chapter 18 opens by noting that the disciples are engaged in a discussion of which of them is the greatest – and I suspect that it was not a calm discussion, but possibly one in which each put forth his virtues and pointed out the shortcomings of his fellow disciples emphatically.  Jesus intervened, telling them that their discussion was pointless, for, he tells us, we are to be like little children.  He goes on to remind them that presenting others with temptations is a dreadful thing to do, worthy of divine punishment.  He tells us that we are to avoid tempting situations even if the cost of doing so is great: “cut off your hand…”  Then Jesus goes on to give the Parable of the Lost Sheep, in which he says that each one of his people is of such great importance to him that he will search high and low to restore them, like a shepherd leaving ninety-nine sheep in the fold to go find one that is out in the wilderness.  Then following this passage on dealing with a brother or sister who has sinned against you, Jesus tells the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.  He reminds us that we have been forgiven far greater offenses against a loving God than any person could offend against us, and that therefore the only possible thing to do is forgive as we have been forgiven.

The context of the passage reminds us that church discipline is to be carried out in compassion and love.  We are reminded of this need by what Paul says in Galatians 6:1-2, “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness, lest you too be tempted.  Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.”  Correction must be clear, but it also must be careful and caring.

During the Reformation, many of the Reformers said that the three marks of a true church are the preaching of the Word, the celebration of the Sacraments, and the administration of church discipline.  They saw discipline as needed for several reasons.  One is that false teaching had to be pointed out, and the false teacher either corrected or removed from a teaching ministry.  Secondly is that sins against one another harm the Body of Christ – certainly those immediately involved, but also others nearby.  If you have ever been in a work setting where two of your co-workers were at odds with each other, you know how their bad relationship affects the whole workplace.  It is much harder to get the job done when tension fills the air.  Thirdly, a person cannot grow in the knowledge of the Lord and in faith unless they are able to know their sins and faults and deal with them.  Hopefully, we are sensitive to our own sins, but we can be blind and need another person humbly to help us to see our weaknesses.

Church discipline is not the easiest thing in the world.  It is, however, something that is needed for the health and growth of the church, individually and as a community.

III.             If You Are the One to Go to Another

The Gospel reading begins with Jesus saying, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between him and you alone.”  There are two things I want to note about what Jesus says here.  The first is that we are to go to the person in question – we are not to go to someone else and say, “I am so hurt!  You won’t believe what Sam did to me…”  I know that it is tempting to go to someone else and gripe, for talking to someone else about their sin is a very difficult thing, and it is comforting just to complain and not confront.  Jesus is clear, however: if we have been hurt, there is only one person to speak to, and that is the person who hurt you.

The second thing I will note is that Jesus is providing a way for the other person to recognize his sin, repent of it, be forgiven, and all the while keep his dignity.  If it is just between the two of you, then those who are not directly affected by the sin need not know about it.  The two of you can deal with it, it can be forgiven, and then you can both let go of it.  You and the other person will have grown in the process.  If he cares to share how he grew with others afterwards, that is fine; it is his choice – but do not share the situation with anyone else beforehand, and only with the other’s permission afterwards.

We are to go to the other person – and that to me raises another question: how are we to go?  It is important that we go in the right frame of mind, or we may do more harm than good.  As the passage in Galatians says, if we see another in sin, we are to go “in a spirit of gentleness.”  We cannot go in a spirit of anger, or in a desire to make the other person feel miserable.  Anger will only raise the other person’s defenses and make it impossible for him to receive a call to repentance.  A desire for someone else to feel miserable is also something that raises defenses and prevents a godly response to a word of correction.

There is only one way to go, and that is in the spirit that the unforgiving servant should have had: in humility.  You may well have been grievously hurt by your brother or sister in Christ – but what that person has done is nothing compared to what you have done to God.  To sin against the living God means that at a legal level, we have broken his law, and deserve death from him because of that.  Every sin is an act of treason against the Kingdom of God.  More than that, at a personal level, we have in effect said to God, “You may consider yourself wise, but you are not as wise as me – I know better than you.”  We have said, “If you really loved me, you would have allowed me to do this – and because you told me not to, it is clear that you do not love me.  Some ‘Father’ you are!”

Our sins are both a legal offense against the laws of the King and a personal affront to our loving heavenly Father.  We have broken both his law and his heart with our sins.  Yet in Romans 5:8 we read, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  We have done nothing to earn or deserve God’s mercy in forgiving us our sins and his grace in granting us the very righteousness of Christ so that we may stand before him as sons and daughters, fully accepted and called beloved.  We have not and we could not have earned such an enormous blessing – so when we go to another who has sinned against us, we go as forgiven sinners.

We need to go to someone who has sinned against us; we need to forgive, and they need to repent.  We both need to grow through doing so.  But there is only one way to meet an erring brother or sister: at the foot of the cross, for only in the cross do either of us receive God’s grace.

If your first, private, interview does not bring repentance, then you would need to follow with the remaining steps, of bringing two or three others to bear witness to the conversation and to encourage the erring person to repent – or, if needed, bring the matter before the whole congregation, since the sin affects them as well, if only indirectly.

If worst comes to worst, then the person will need to be excluded from the communion.  Jesus tells us to treat such an unrepentant person “a Gentile and tax collector,” which means that they are to be outside table fellowship.  But at the end of Matthew, Jesus sends us “into all the world,” to the Gentiles, to make disciples, so we are to treat them with love and respect, seeking to win them back to a full-fledged faith in Christ, so that they can be restored to full fellowship and enjoy the Christian community again.

I heard the story of a man who was a member in good standing of a church and who committed adultery.  He rejected all attempts to correct him and refused to reconcile to his wife.  Indeed, he divorced her.  He told the elders of the congregation to go away; the last thing he wanted to do was to darken the doorway of that church again – and he vanished.

Two years later, he called the pastor, anxious to restore his relationship to the church – and to his wife.  His wife was astonished.  She had been reluctant to trust him, but the obvious changes in his priorities and in his life opened her heart to him.  This man was active in the Army Reserves, and his unit had been sent overseas to process the bodies of the military who died in Iraq and prepare them for their return to the States. God's hand was working in his life as he was confronted on a daily basis with the brevity of life and permanence of eternity. Following this tour of duty, and upon returning home, he met with the elders, confessed his sin, and asked to be forgiven for his arrogance and the impact his life had on the local body.

The church had humbly and lovingly followed the directions of the Lord Jesus – and in due course, at a time when no one expected it, the Lord used their discipline and the man’s experiences to restore a heart to the Kingdom.

IV.              If You Are the One Approached

Let’s look at this idea of going to the one who has offended you from another angle: suppose YOU are the one who is approached and asked to repent.  What then?  It is hard enough to go to someone who has transgressed against you – what if you are the one who is thought to have done wrong?

As Pastor John Ortberg has said, “Trying to grow spiritually without hearing the truth about yourself from somebody else is like trying to do brain surgery on yourself without a mirror.”  If somebody comes to you and tells you that you have done something to wrong them, accept them and hear them out.  After all, we are all sinners and we sin every day in ways both large and small.  It is quite possible to do something to hurt someone else and never notice that we did.

Of course, perhaps we have done something wrong and recognized that we have harmed someone else a bit later – or, sadly, we have seen an opportunity to help ourselves at the expense of another person and taken that opportunity, hiding our actions as much as possible.  In Matt 5:23, Jesus tells that if we are aware that we have sinned against someone, to set aside even worship and go to the person we have harmed and ask their forgiveness.  But if we have ignored that instruction, and someone comes to us, we need to listen carefully to what they are saying.

Perhaps the perceived offense is really a misunderstanding.  In that case, if you have received the other person graciously, it will be much easier to see if it is indeed a misunderstanding and if so to clear it up.  As Proverbs 15:1 says, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”  After all, even if the person is mistaken about the offense, or comes with some anger or a desire for revenge, the intention is still to make things right, and that is commendable.

In the course of my walk with the Lord, I have had people come to me a number of times and say, “There is something we need to talk about.”  What followed has never been easy, and the first few times I entered into such a conversation, I fought their assertions tooth and nail.  I was blessed those first few times to be dealing with people who were patient and determined and who wore down my wall of resistance.  When I heard what they had to say, it was not easy, but it was good for me.  Sometimes I had offended them, and other times, the person noticed a pattern of behavior in my life that was harming others or getting in the way of my effectiveness as a servant of God, and they wanted me to know about it and repent of it.

It is a blessing to be corrected.  We do not like to think that, but it is true.  Part of what goes on within us sinners is that we believe, in our heart of hearts, that we are acceptable to other people and to God based on our performance.  We see people being applauded for achievements in school, or sports, or in other areas of life, and it is easy for us to believe that God operates in the same way, so that we must perform in order to be commended and accepted by him.  If we think that the basis of our acceptance before God depends on what we do and how well we do it, we are certain to protect our images by refusing to hear any criticism.  We will resist strongly, and what began as an effort to help us grow in grace and in love becomes a shouting match.

But if we recognize the reality is that we are indeed sinners whose only hope of acceptance before the living, holy God is the matchless work of the Lord Jesus as he laid down his life as a sacrifice on our behalf, then we can receive correction with graciousness.  We know that he has taken our sins and given us life and his own righteousness, so we need not defend our own accomplishments.

Jesus gave us these commands in Matthew 18, along with those in Matthew 5, because he knew that we are, like the disciples, prone to step on one another’s toes.  Since we are his chosen vehicle for reaching the world, he wants us to stay in fellowship and be partners in the Gospel, using our gifts to bring others to Christ, to train them, and to enable them to reflect his glory and reveal his character.  We need one another to fulfill the great commission that the Lord Jesus has given us.  We are in the midst of a great expedition to rescue captives and to free slaves – and it requires teamwork by a team who cares for one another.

There is great joy in being a Christian, for we are becoming what God created us to be as we grow in Christ.  We can know the Father, who loves us and cares for us, because of Jesus, his Son, who died for us, and we can serve him in the power of his Holy Spirit – but we do so not as a collection of individuals, but as a team.  As I said at the beginning, we are not passengers on a cruise ship but the crew members of a battleship.  Our weapons of warfare are not bombs and bullets, but prayer, love, and truth.  If prayer, truth, and love characterize our relationships with one another in the local congregation, they will also be seen in how we reach out to those who do not yet believe.

As crew members we encourage each other to be our best – to bring growth to one another and honor to Jesus as we become more and more like him.  It is for this reason that Jesus says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.”  When we speak the truth in love to one another, we are like Jesus, who always spoke the truth, and always spoke in love.

To the Lord who came to us when we had sinned against him be glory now and ever more.

"You Are The Salt of the Earth"

Preached at the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd, Forestdale, MA 

9^th February 2014; Epiphany V

Matthew 5:13-22

I. “You are the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World”

Thirty some years ago, when Mary and I lived in Virginia, we bought a Smithfield Ham.  If you have ever tasted one, you know that they are delicious.  Smithfield hams are not like most of the hams you buy at the grocery store, which are chemically cured and need to be refrigerated to stay fresh.  A Smithfield ham is cured the old-fashioned way.  It is rubbed thoroughly with a mixture of salt and spices, and slowly cured by hanging and smoking for six months.  It will keep indefinitely in a cool, dry place – and it is incredibly delicious!

In Matt 5:13, Jesus tells his hearers, “You are the salt of the earth.”  In verse 14, he adds, “You are the light of the world.”  In using these two comparisons, Jesus is telling us what results he expects from those who follow him.  Just as salt preserves perishable food from decay, so we are to act against the corrosive effects of an ungodly culture.  Just as light expels darkness and reveals things as they are, Christians bring the truth about sin and about salvation to a world that is sin-sick and filled with sorrow.

I want to look at two things this morning.  The first is what Christians can do, according to Jesus, to act as salt and light to a decaying and dark world.  The second thing is to look at how we are enabled to act as salt and light.  When you consider that we are not dealing with simply the few people right around us, being salt to the earth and the light of the world means we have a large and formidable task given to us.  We need more than human methodology to do that.

II. How Our “Salt” and “Light” Can Bring Change

American culture has changed a great deal in the last 50 years or so.  Mary and I watch a number of old comedy shows with Netflix – things like The Andy Griffith Show, I Love Lucy, Leave It to Beaver, and The Dick Van Dyke Show.  They are creative, hilarious shows.  We really enjoy them.  We do not watch currently produced comedies, and haven’t for quite a few years.  The level of sarcasm, denigration, and explicit sexuality is horrendous.  They may be somewhat funny, but if so, it is in a sick way.  The comedies that are broadcast now would never even been considered for production in 1965.  Many of the other shows on TV, such as crime shows, specialize in the bizarre and outlandish.

Of course, the corruption of our culture is not limited to TV shows.  It shows up all over the place – the rise in single-motherhood, the idea that marriage is the invention of the state and can be defined and re-defined at will, the rise in drug use, the legal acceptance of abortion, the idea that religious liberty is restricted only to how we worship and not to how we live, and many other changes show the decline of our culture.

In many ways, this decline should not be a surprise to us.  Human beings are inherently sinful and have been since the rebellion of Adam and Eve.  We cannot expect those who are in rebellion against God to welcome and obey his way of doing things.  We who have been redeemed, forgiven, and restored to a positive relationship to God with the aim of living in obedience to him should indeed stand out in the world and be an influence for good, helping to preserve from corruption and showing the light of God’s love.

How do we do that, however?  I know that one way that has been popular is to be politically active, seeking to have Christian candidates for office, forming lobbying groups, groups to educate the public, and so on.  I get mail from half a dozen such groups on a regular basis.  This method has had some effect; we have seen progress in the area of making abortion less popular and less accessible.

In the early 1800’s in England there was a group of people who became known as the Clapham Sect.  They were people from the nobility and upper classes who had become Christians through the Evangelical Revival that had begun under John Wesley and which had continued for some time afterwards.  William Wilberforce was a member of the group, and he led a movement that first stopped slave trading in Great Britain and throughout the British Empire in 1808 – and by 1835, ended slavery completely.  The group also worked to revise labor laws, provide a variety of educational opportunities, and provide for the poor.  They prayed hard and long, and worked well within the political system of the time.  They did an amazing amount of good out of their Christian concern for their nation.  Political action is one way to be salt and light.  But it is not the only way, and may not be the best way.

When one considers the situation at the time of Jesus, it is clear that political activism was not the means which Jesus had in mind as the primary way his followers were to be salt and light.  Political activism was not an option for the early Church.  They lived in a dictatorship, not a democracy, so they had no voice in governing.  We in America do live in a democracy, so we have political involvement as an option – we can use it but we must keep other means in mind and use them as well.  The political process can tempt us into pride, stubbornness, and the lure of power for its own sake.  Politics subjects us to pressure to find money, and tempts us to raise it by devious means.  We can become angry, mean, and deceptive as we engage in political action.  To try to influence the culture by political means is a tool that we can use, but it does have dangers.

Jesus had something else in mind than the political process when he spoke of Christians being the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  The Beatitudes come just before the passage we read today, and I believe that the Beatitudes tell us how to be light to a dark world and salt to a decaying one.  The concluding verses of the Beatitudes tell us that we shall encounter opposition in our seeking to live in a way that honors Jesus.  Indeed, we shall be persecuted if we determine to be loyal to Jesus in a culture that seeks to ignore him or honor him as simply one good man among many others.

In the first nine verses of Matthew 5, Jesus tells us the qualities of character that are blessed by God.  The one who belongs to God will exhibit these qualities: 1) a poverty of spirit, knowing that one is unable to please God and has failed him often; 2) a mourning for one’s own sins; 3) a humble spirit; 4) a deep desire to have righteousness in one’s heart, thought, and action; 5) a forgiving and merciful attitude towards those who hurt one; 6) a heart that is totally fixed on God and his glory; 7) one who works for peace between others and between themselves and others when they have relational problems of their own; and 8) a heart that will prefer suffering for God to disloyalty to God.

Let me read those qualities again: (repeat).

The main reason that the Clapham Sect was able to be effective in their political efforts within England was not only that they were politically astute, but because they were men and women of prayer who cultivated the attitudes of the Beatitudes within their own hearts.  They were good at politics – but a large part of their political success was not because they were devious, underhanded masters of the political move, but because they were people of unimpeachable character, great humility, and a love for God that let people know they sought only to honor the Lord.

As we seek to let our lights shine, not for our honor but for God’s glory, with humility and patience, our character will do more to change lives and hearts than any political action we might undertake in our own merely human wisdom and strength.  Those who are poor in spirit and who long for righteousness for the honor of God make an impact upon those around them.  Sometimes it is an impact that brings persecution, but often it is an impact that brings positive change, at least in individual lives, and quite possibly on a wider scale. 

III. Tempting to Blend In

In speaking of our role in the unbelieving world as salt and light, Jesus lets us know that we need to actively engage the world.  We must be humble, but we also must be intentional.  In the latter half of verse 13, he says, “If salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?  It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”  Then in verse 15, he says, “Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand.”

In Jesus’ day, the salt people used came from the Dead Sea, and that salt was not only sodium chloride, but also other chemical compounds.  Sodium chloride, the salt we use and our bodies need, is very soluble, so if a batch of that “salt” got wet, it could lose the table salt part but still look as it did before – and be utterly useless to preserve food or even flavor it.  If a Christian fears persecution or even simply does not want to be regarded as a “religious nut,” it can be tempting to hide his light in order to blend in with whatever the larger society is doing, whether that is pleasing to God or not.  And in today’s culture – it won’t be.  A century ago, our culture was based on a Christian worldview.  Today, it is not – and often intentionally not.

Jesus warned us that we would be tempted simply to blend in and adopt the views and values of the unbelieving world around us.  And he told us that we must not succumb to that temptation, or we would be worthless to the Kingdom.

IV. Being Enabled By God as Salt and Light

In verses 13-16, Jesus tells us that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world – and that we must remain salty salt and a light that is in the open.  We can’t blend in or hide.  We know from the verses which precede our reading today that the way we are salt and light is to have what is described in the Beatitudes becoming more and more true of our character and lives.

Our reading continues in verses 17-20.  In these verses, Jesus tells us that the Law will continue to apply, for all time.  He has not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.  Until the world ends, the Law will stand.  We must teach the Law to one another, because it has come from God and he has not set it aside.

That is a tall order – and to underline how greatly he means it, in verse 20 Jesus says, “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  Since the scribes and Pharisees were regarded as the holiest and best of people in all Jewish society, the people who heard this must have felt their hearts sink.  To use a sports metaphor, it would be like being told, “All you have to do to win a gold medal in figure skating is to score a perfect 10.”  Even the most-practiced skater would feel how high a standard that was.

While we haven’t read the rest of chapter 5 or chapter 6 this morning, Jesus goes on to explain what the requirements of the Law really are – one is guilty of murder not only by committing the actual physical act of killing someone on purpose, but simply by nurturing hatred in one’s heart.  One is guilty of sexual immorality not only by engaging in sexual relations outside marriage, but by day-dreaming of doing so.  Jesus goes on for most of the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, telling how high the standards God has, and how deeply we must observe them – not only in action, but in thought and desire.  The Pharisees were outwardly obedient to the Law, but what Jesus says reveals that no one, not even the Pharisees, are perfectly pure and holy from the depths of their hearts on out.

The Sermon on the Mount is a beautiful description of Christian values.  It tells us what God expects of us.  The trouble is, mere information is not really a help.  I’ve heard some people say, “In my life, I seek to follow the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.”  They speak as though they were basically successful in this attempt.  I know that such people may talk about the Sermon on the Mount, but they only know the name, not the actual teachings.  They could not speak so glibly about following the Sermon on the Mount if they really understood it.

Jesus tells us the absolute purity required to please God for a very simple reason: the very first Beatitude is “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  If pondering the requirements of the Sermon on the Mount does not make you recognize your own poverty of soul, your own incapacity to do what God requires, then you simply do not know the Sermon and your own heart.  C. S. Lewis has said, “No man knows how bad he is until he tries really hard to be good.”

The Sermon on the Mount brings us face to face with the reality that we have nothing in ourselves to commend ourselves to God.  We are so far from righteousness that we are hopeless.  We could not get close to even the outward holiness of the Pharisees, let alone the inner purity that God requires.  When we know God’s requirements and our own hearts, it drives us to our knees.  If we must be that pure, what hope do we have?

In knowing our spiritual poverty, we can begin to be blessed by the riches of God’s grace.  We mourn our sins, our defiance of the God who created us and who loves us.  We become meek and humble, for we know we have no standing before God in ourselves.  We long for righteousness as a thirsty man seeks water, a starving woman looks for food.  We recognize that we have nothing to call ourselves better than others, and so stand ready to give mercy to our fellow sinners.  We long for our hearts to be made pure and holy.  In all this, we are opened to the blessings of God’s grace and mercy.

Earlier, we read from 1 Cor. 2, in which Paul said of his time in Corinth, “I was determined to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified.”  Later on, in 2 Cor 5:20-21, the Apostle Paul speaks of that crucifixion and tells us, “Be reconciled to God.  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Jesus Christ, God incarnate, lived the perfect life that God demands of us.  He was utterly obedient to God’s will from the depths of his heart.  But our sin was laid on him, and he became regarded as a sinner when on the cross.  When Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” on the cross, he was bearing the due results of sin, being banished from God’s presence – not for his own sins, but for ours.  When Jesus rose from the grave, his perfect life and perfect sacrifice were vindicated as acceptable to the Father.

God the Father counted our sinfulness to Jesus on the cross – and as we rely not on our own righteousness but on Jesus in his death and resurrection, his righteousness is counted to us.  We have, by God’s mercy and grace, not the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, but the very righteousness of Christ himself, which far exceeds any human accomplishment.  Therefore, we may enter the kingdom of heaven with confidence and joy.  As Jesus says in John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.  He does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life.”

The Sermon on the Mount is a good guide for life – but the more fully we understand it, the more we recognize that we have no hope whatever in ourselves to live out its requirements.  That leads us to recognize our spiritual poverty, and from that recognition the blessings of the Beatitudes can begin to flow.  It is only when we know our own helplessness that we find the help we need – and we find it in abundance.

It is when we know the reality and the depth of God’s mercy to us that we become the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  Our very lives and how God is changing them to be more like Jesus enables us to have a quality that preserves against the corruption of society and an inner light that glows with the loves and glory of the Lord Jesus.  We may get politically involved to try to stem the tide of a further falling away from good order and decency, but simply being more and more like Jesus in his humble, prayerful strength will have a powerful effect.  It changes how we interact with others, how we view them, how we care about and care for them.  No one of us can change the entire culture – but each one of us, through prayer and mercy, can be the Lord’s agent of change in the life of another person.

Mary and I thoroughly enjoyed that old-fashioned Smithfield Ham we bought long ago.  It was over six months old, yet the salt had preserved it from decay.  And it was delicious!  As we discover our need for God’s mercy and grace, we find that he is fully faithful in extending that grace and mercy to us – and as he does, he “salts” us with the Holy Spirit so that we become salt and light to the world, transformed from being selfish to being men and women who are more and more like Jesus, and who touch the lives of others with the love and truth that Jesus extended to all.  We light the world with the love of Christ in us.

To the Lord who preserves us and keeps us whole and safe for his kingdom be glory now and evermore.  Amen.