Sunday, February 9, 2020

The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
Isaiah 58:3-9a
Psalm 112:1-9
1 Corinthians 2:1-12 (13-16)
Matthew 5:13-20

But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.

What is a theologian? One definition calls a theologian an expert in the subject of theology, which is the study of what is taught by God, teaches of God, and leads to God. There are people in this world who are professional theologians. They get paid to talk about the things of God. They write books and give lectures. I have to admit that I’ve sat in lectures by theologians that make my head hurt. They use Greek and Latin words I don’t understand. One speaker spoke so quickly that I could barely comprehend the fifty-cent words he used before he moved on to the next topic in his lecture. I was dazed and confused!

Yet, I love to sit in those lectures because through the big words and high concepts, God speaks to me by the power of the Holy Spirit about what He has taught, what is being taught about Him, and what leads me into a deeper and fully relationship with Him. There is a place for those professional theologians, but theology is not just for them. Theology is for anyone who talks about God.

It is so exciting when our Sunday school class discovers some great idea about the character of God. Our discussions have left us breathless, in tears, laughing with joy. While people may be afraid to do theology as it is done among the doctors of the Church, the simple reality is that talking about God helps us to see Him, hear Him and understand Him. The Holy Spirit works among us during those conversations, revealing to us the God who loves and forgives us with such grace as to send His own Son for our salvation.

It really is that simple, but we often make it so complicated that people will reject it. Then we blame them for the rejection. I experienced too many people doing online ministry who convoluted the Gospel and would then say, “I don’t need to explain it to you. If you had the Holy Spirit, you would understand.” They made it seem as if you couldn’t possibly be saved if you didn’t understand what they said.

Isn’t it funny how the Church has been discussing the nature of God and His will for this world, and yet today we are no closer to understanding Him than the disciples were when they lived with Jesus? It is good that we have these conversations, discovering together the character of God and the fulfillment of His promises in and through Jesus Christ. There are things about God, however, that we will never fully know. We can talk about the things we know, the things we believe, the things we see and understand. We can believe in the things we will never really understand. That’s faith. Faith is trusting that God’s promises are true and that our hope is found in Christ.

Did you know that only about 6% of the salt produced around the world is used for food? More salt is used to condition water (12%) and de-ice highways (8%). Another 6% is used in agriculture and a whopping 68% is used in manufacturing and industrial processes. Did you know that they use salt to make PVC, plastic and paper? It is also used to make aluminum, soap, rubber and pottery. It is used in to drill, to tan hides and to dye fabric. It is also used as a preservative.

There are many different types of salt. It used to be easy to buy salt at the grocery store, since there was usually just a few choices. Now you have to decide what type of salt you want. You can buy regular table salt, but there are other possibilities. Kosher salt is used for all types of cooking and contains no additives, so it has a better flavor. Sea salt comes in coarse to be used in cooking or flaky for use at the table. Fleur de Sel is a specialty salt, and is considered the caviar of salt. It is used at the table for a wonderfully melt in your mouth experience of saltiness. Pickling salt is used for preservation. Rock salt is used in making ice cream and can be handy on these icy winter days.

Salt is no longer just white; you can buy salts that are red, pink or black. It comes in coarse and fine. It can be cheap or you can spend a fortune on it. Each type of salt has a specific purpose, some are added during cooking and others are designed to enhance the flavor at the table. Salt does add a salty flavor, but it is also used to enhance the other flavors of food. Salt controls yeast growth in bread so that it will rise properly. A little salt on a margarita makes the tequila pop and it suppresses the bitter flavors.

I’m sure we could talk for hours about the qualities and purposes of salt. We know that too much salt is not good for our health; it leads to heart disease and stroke. I don’t use much salt in my house, a practice that would quickly get me kicked off most of the cooking shows. The judges are constantly complaining about the lack of salt. I don’t avoid salt completely, but I use it sparingly, because we get so much salt in so much of our foods these days. I found it interesting that animal products have a naturally higher salt content than plant products. We can’t live without salt altogether; it is a necessary part of our diet. We just have to learn how to balance our need for salt and how we get it.

Salt has always had a spiritual or religious dimension, too. Salt is often found on an altar or is used in ritual. Salt is used to ward off demons or to honor gods. According to some, salt is one of the four blessings from heaven, which included fire, water, iron and salt. Salt is the center of some ideas about hospitality. In ancient religions, the value of salt made the offering a covenant between people. If someone at the salt at your table, they became your responsibility while you were in their home. You had to protect them from any harm.

You didn’t know salt was so important, did you? It is hard to put such a high value on a commodity that we can purchase so cheaply and that we use so unsparingly. After all, how could something we just throw on the roads to melt ice be so valuable that the use of it at the dinner table offers a promise of protection and good will? In some places salt was so valuable that it was minted into coins and used to pay soldiers. As a matter of fact, that’s how we get the phrase, “He is worth his salt” and the term “salary.” It is interesting that salt comes from both land and sea, some harvested by evaporation and others through mining.

I came across all these facts about salt because I typed in the question, “Does salt really lose its saltiness?” This is a question that often comes up during bible studies focusing on today’s Gospel text. After all, I’ve never known salt to lose its flavor. According to my research, this is true. Salt is a very stable chemical, and it is only by a chemical reaction that it can lose its saltiness. However, it has been discovered that some salt, especially that which is harvested from marshes along the seashore, can lose its saltiness when it is in contact with the ground or is exposed to rain and sun. It isn’t that the salt itself loses its saltiness, but that the salt is contaminated with impurities collected with it. It is likely that this is what happened to the salt that they would have eaten in Jesus’ day, as their salt generally came from the shore of the Dead Sea.

What did Jesus mean in today’s Gospel lesson? The listeners knew the importance of salt, its rarity, its significance, its value. They also knew that if salt were left drying too long on the side of the sea, it would be useless. It was not only useless, but also hazardous. They could not keep this salt in the house because the impurities might be harmful, and they could not throw it into the fields or gardens because it would wreak havoc on the growth of the plants. It was not just tasteless; it was dangerous, and good only to be trampled underfoot, so it was thrown into the streets.

We do not understand as they did because we don’t usually throw our salt into the street, and when we do it serves an important purpose. Those who have had to walk on ice covered sidewalks are thankful that the salt can make it a little easier and safer. The same is not true of the salt to which Jesus refers.

Jesus was warning the disciples that they have a purpose and that they should not wait around too long before they go out to do that work. See, we are tempted to wait too long. We want to be ready. We want to have all the information. We think we need to be smarter. We think we need to know the scriptures better. We think we need to overcome our sins. We think we need to be perfect to go out into the world to share the Gospel message, we think we should let the theology to the theologians.

Jesus warned the disciples that if they waited too long they would no longer be of value. While they are trying to make things right in their own lives, they succumb to cares and worries of the world. Or they fall for the temptations that abound. Or they conform to the ways of the world around them. These are the impurities that make us, as salt, worthless.

The religious rituals that are mentioned in Isaiah were commanded by God, but they had become something much different than God intended. The people saw their actions, their obedience, as the source of their salvation and their blessings. Jesus says, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, there is no way you will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Too many people are confused by the word righteousness. The world thinks it means being good, doing good things. Like those in Isaiah’s day, they think being righteous is doing all the right religious practices. “I fasted, so I deserve to be blessed.” The religious leaders in Jesus’ day were the same. “I keep the Law, so I deserve to be blessed.” Today people work so hard to be right with God, and never realize that the things they are doing will never make them right with Him. We can’t work our way into righteousness: that’s called self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is the very thing that divides us from God and from one another. When we think we are being obedient, following all the rules, then we think we deserve favor from God.

The righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees is manifest in the person who is in a relationship with Jesus. The people in Isaiah’s time were acting righteous, but they were not in that right relationship. They were going through the religious motions while ignoring what God was calling them to do in the world. The same is true of the religious leaders in Jesus’ day, and in the religious lives of so many today. The Gospel lesson tells us what it would mean to be a Christian once Jesus fulfilled the Law. The question is, “What is our focus?” Unfortunately, when our focus is on being good or righteous, we tend to do things that try to manipulate man and God. God desires the kind of religious practices, including fasting, that will glorify Him.

We are three weeks from Ash Wednesday, and many Christians are thinking what they want to do for their Lenten discipline, including fasting. The discipline is a good thing, but the fasting can also lead to positive changes in our lives and our lives of faith. Does it do any good to give up something for seven weeks and then gorge on them on Easter Day?

As theologians, it is important that we look to all God’s Word for understanding and we are blessed with more than hope because all God’s promises have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Of course, this isn’t so obvious to those who do not believe. They think our hope is foolishness because they can’t see or hear the Gospel as it has been made clear to us by the Holy Spirit. We have faith and therefore we rest in the knowledge that God has prepared something beyond this world for us, but the world does not understand. In a sense, the online ministers who claim to have some sort of special knowledge are right; the people of the world don’t understand the Gospel because they aren’t in a right relationship with God. Unfortunately, those online ministers don’t understand it either when they spout their self-informed false spirituality.

Paul writes, “Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” It doesn’t make sense to our natural man to live the Christian life. We want to follow rules and earn our reward. We want to get what we deserve. We think we are entitled to God’s blessings because we are righteous. So we do what we do to earn our place in God’s kingdom. However, we can never earn our place; we can’t manipulate God into giving us what we want. Righteousness is not a matter of works; it is a matter of heart.

Unfortunately, many have a worldly understanding of what it means to be spiritual. That might sound like an oxymoron, but I once read an article that defined someone who is spiritual as one “whose highest priority is to be loving to yourself and others. A spiritual person cares about people, animals and the planet. A spiritual person knows that we are all One, and consciously attempts to honor this Oneness. A spiritual person is a kind person.” This is not what Paul means when he talks about being spiritual.

The author of the article suggested that one could follow different types of religious practices like attending church and doing yoga and not be spiritual. This is true, but as many in today’s world, the author used scripture but removed God completely from the equation. Paul tells us that we need God’s Spirit to know the things of God. That’s what it means to be spiritual. The worldly definition of spiritual makes it about works, about doing good things to and for others.

Paul is not referring to the spiritual man as being non-religious. Paul is talking about those who are focused on God, who live lives that glorify Him. The man who lives by faith will live according to God’s Word, doing what God calls us to do, living the life of discipleship. The spiritual man is the one who lives the Christ-centered life, who has the mind of Christ. The world would rather remove Christ from the equation, reducing Him to some sort of great force of which we are all a part. The world would rather be self-righteous rather than right with God.

So, while the author of that article is wrong about what it means to be spiritual, she was right that ultimately it all comes down to love, peace, joy, truth and kindness. The difference is this: she contends that it is by our power we can heal and change the world, but we know that it will only come about through God’s power. We are salt because He makes us salty and we are light because He shines in us. It is by faith, trusting that God has given us all we need, that we can go out into the world to share the Gospel in word and deed. We are spiritual because we have been given His Spirit, and we can trust that God will answer when we call, accomplishing His great works through our lives.

No matter how much theology we do, no matter how much we seek to understand God, there are many things about God that we will never know or understand. Everything we know comes from the Spirit of God. God has prepared so many good things for us, has given us incredible gifts. Both Isaiah and the psalmist show us what it is like to live the spiritual life. We are blessed when we delight in God’s commands. He will bless those who dwell in a right relationship with Him. We will not be moved or shaken when our hearts are steadfast and trust in God.

The whole message of Christ, the message of forgiveness and mercy, is beyond our vision. The idea of God the Father giving His Son for our sake is just crazy. Why would an all powerful God do that? Why would He have to? Though there are still things about the spiritual realm that we do not fully understand, we have a wisdom that is greater than anything in the world because we have a connection to the source of all wisdom. The Spirit of God dwells in our hearts and reveals to us that which God would have us know. We no longer live in the flesh, but in spirit. We are no longer uncertain, but have confidence in the promises of God. We don’t live in darkness, but in the Light. We aren’t worthless salt good only to be trampled underfoot, but we are the salt that will enhance and flavor the world.