You are the salt, you are the light

Listen to this sermon at: https://4allpeople.sermon.net/21533605

All of it, every bit, everything
We got it all
Nothing’s changed, feel the same, everything
We got it all

We got it all

We are the blessed people of God.

Blessed

Not blessed because we have all the stuff in the world. As we just heard Chuck D from Public Enemy rap, we may not have mansions, restaurants, or yachts, but we have it all.

We are blessed.

Two weeks ago I shared the story of Abraham and Isaac and the pattern that repeats throughout scripture of people who have shown great faith and receive a great blessing.

Another example of this would be Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary who has the faith to respond to God’s call in her life by saying  “let it be with me according to your will” and is described multiple times as blessed. Among our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters she is called the Blessed Virgin Mary, blessing has become her name

Blessed, not because she had a path before her that was comfortable or easy. Just the opposite. She would take on the role of being a pregnant teenager with a child not from her fiance. She would choose to become the outsider among her own people. But blessed because she was the theotokos, the God bearer, the one who gave Jesus life so that we could all have life.

Blessed, the word Jesus uses to describe people who have gone through hard times in the Sermon on the Mount: the poor, the hungry, the meek, those who mourn and are persecuted.

I would like to offer you a fresh reading from the first part of the Sermon on the Mount from The Message translation.

Listen anew to the type of people whom Jesus calls blessed:

3 “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
4 “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
5 “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.
6 “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.
7 “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.
8 “You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
9 “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.
10 “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.
11-12 “Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.

Blessed

Not blessed as the world would define blessed, not blessed because we have simple lives, but blessed because we have experienced the power and the glory of a God who provides, a God who makes a way when we think there is no way.

Today’s scripture continues this blessing.

As preachers, we cut the scripture up in to bite size chunks that make it easier to digest. We can’t read the whole thing so we put this small piece in the bulletin each week. But when we do that, we often lose the full picture of what God is trying to say.

Today’s scripture is what Jesus says right after the beatitudes. It is what comes next after the list of people who have everything, people who Jesus calls blessed.

Jesus was standing on the side of a mountain, calling the people around him blessed, and then he looks at them and says: you are the salt, you are the light.

Not just any people, but you people.

Not the pastors or the priests, not the politicians or the powerful, not the celebrities or the heroes—you.

You are the salt, you are the light.

This is a continuation of Jesus pronouncement of blessing. Too many times we have heard this scripture as an instruction or a commandment to be the salt and the light. Jesus doesn’t say be the salt and light, he says you are the salt and light.

To call someone salt is to say that they are valuable.

Today, salt is abundant, easy to find, and cheap. In fact, today we have so much salt that we’ve given ourselves high blood pressure and most of us eat twice as much salt as we should.

But this has only happened in the last 100 years. In Jesus’ day salt was expensive and rare. Salt was used to preserve and season food. Wars were fought over salt.

When Jesus looks at the crowd and says, you are salt, he is saying you are valuable. You are precious. You are important. You give life.

People still use that phrase to describe a good person as one who is the salt of the earth. In God’s eyes, you are that person. You are salt of the earth people.

You are the salt that brings the world flavor.

And you are the light.

Have you ever experienced someone as light? Someone who walks in to a room and just lights the place up?

It is what happens when Carol Calloway walks in to a room singing, or when you see Markai smile, or the pride Faye has when she shares some food she has made.

You are the light. The light that overcomes the darkness around us.

There is a light that shines in you because it reflects the light of Christ. The light that came in to the world and the darkness could not overcome it.

That light lives in you and comes out in your words and actions and in your very presence.

Every time you show someone a kindness.

Every time you hold someone you love.

Every time you offer a good word.

Every time you show up.

You are the light.

You are the salt, you are the light and together as the United Methodist Church for All People we are the shining city on a hill offering the hope and life we have found in Jesus Christ.

When Jesus calls the poor and mourning and persecuted blessed, he flips our understanding of the word. He changes what we think it means to be blessed. He teaches us to see that we have it all.

When Jesus says you are the salt, you are the light, he changes our understanding of who is powerful and where our hope is found.

Our ultimate hope is not found in any political party. We know that many of the promises by any candidate will go unfulfilled.

Our ultimate hope is not found in businesses or corporations. We know that their motivation is the bottom line and their god is the dollar bill.

Our ultimate hope is not found in passing the right laws to bring justice. We know that when injustice lives in people’s hearts it finds a way to adapt and the old Jim Crow becomes the new Jim Crow.

Our ultimate hope is in Jesus Christ, the one who came promising “to bring good news to the poor… release to the captives… recovery of sight to the blind… to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”

And yet, while our hope is in Christ, what Jesus is saying here is that his hope is in you.

Just as Jesus has flipped our understanding of the word blessed, he flips our understanding of where change comes from.

You are the salt who can make the world taste different.

You are the light that can overcome the darkness around us.

Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer we pray that God’s kingdom would come on earth, as it is in heaven.

This hope of the kingdom of God is mentioned over 150 times in the New Testament. It is not only a vision of the world that is to come, but it is what happens when God’s will is lived out and realized in the here and now.

As a people who live in this diverse and unified community, in the middle of celebrating Black history month, how can we be the salt and the light? How can we bring about the kingdom of God?

We bring the kingdom of God every time we sit down and share a meal with someone who looks different from us.

We bring the kingdom of God every time we read a book by Alice Walker or Toni Morrison or James Cone or Cornel West that changes our understanding of the world.

We bring the kingdom of God every time we celebrate the work of black artists in our community.

We bring the kingdom of God when we step in to a voting both, knowing our one vote counts just as much as anyone elses one vote.

We bring the kingdom of God when we look in the mirror and realize that the person we see is a child of God, beautifully and wonderfully made. You have sacred value and divine worth! You are blessed. You are the salt. You are the light. You are the change we have been waiting for.

Amen.