To be Christ’s Presence in our Community
Matthew 5:13-16
"Let me tell you why you are here. You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You've lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.
[14] "Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. [15] If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. [16] Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.
CCI: What does being Christ’s presence in our community look like?
Intro: For the last several weeks, we have been looking closely at the mission statement that New Hope Baptist Church adopted when we were founded 7 years ago. Equipping God’s People to be Christ’s Presence in our Community. It is a mission of discipleship and witness. It is based in the call of Jesus to make disciples of all nations. We sought God and identified a unique mission for our congregation so that we could maintain a clear focus in our work in this community. Sometimes we have focused well, other times we have let our attention go to many other things.
To be Christ’s presence is to be like Jesus. That means to have his heart of compassion and peace and purpose. He has given us a new heart and written upon it his new Law, the new commandment, “Love one another, as I have loved you, so you also must love one another.” Now, because we have been given the heart of Jesus, we can be like him. So the final question we must ask as we conclude this series on our mission statement is “what will it look like if we are Christ’s presence in this community?”
I am afraid that many times we have watered down what it means to be like Jesus. Being Christ’s presence is not about helping a person across the street, the Boy Scouts do that. Being Christ’s presence is not about having a positive attitude, the Optimist Club does that. Being Christ’s presence is not about maintaining the peace in a neighborhood, Bull Conner’s police dogs did that during the civil rights movement. Being Christ’s presence is not about getting together with friends and finding solutions to your problems, the Spinning Wheel Tavern can provide that for you. Being Christ’s Presence is not about convincing people to change their behavior a debate team can do that. While all of these may be relatively good things, they are not at the heart of being Christ’s presence.
Jesus said, you are the salt of the earth, and you are the light of the world. I would suggest that at the heart of being Christ’s presence in our community is our function as salt and light.
Eugene Peterson, in the Message, translates verse 13 as “You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth.” The ways salt was used in the ancient world were numerous. It was medicine, it was a flavoring, it was a preservative, it was symbolic of purity, and it was even used as money. History tells us that wars were fought over salt. In the 20th Century, one of the most significant protests on the continent of India was the pilgrimage to the sea that poor Indians took to make salt for themselves.
What was Jesus saying when he told the multitude that they were the salt of the world? First, he wanted them to be pure in the world. Salt has an antiseptic quality. It can cleanse infection. To be Christ’s presence is to be pure in thought and purpose. It is to let Christ, scrub our lives with the salt of his truth. The purity to which we are called was defined by Soren Kierkegaard when he wrote, “Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing.” To be single purposed. As the salt of the earth, we are to have just one purpose, to be like Jesus.
Second, to be the salt of the Earth, is to preserve life. Some have suggested that this occurs when we stop people from deviant behavior. Others have suggested that we function as a preservative when we irritate the world around us (like salt in a wound). However, to function as a preservative is to transform what is rotting into something that will last. It is to share the good news that we can change, it is to provide people with examples of transformation. To be the salt of the Earth is to be a beacon of hope to a world that is rotting all around us. It may mean fighting for the environment. I may mean being involved with an alcohol recovery program. Being a preservative may mean investing in the life of a child whose parents have ignored them. It may mean working at a crisis pregnancy center.
To be Christ’s presence is to be salt that preserves and transforms.
But Salt also enhances the flavor of food. God has revealed himself through this world. The Psalmist wrote, “the heavens declare the glory of God and the Earth shows forth his handiwork.” All around us God has flavored the world through his creation. However, we are so busy with our own priorities and goals and plans that we often do not see God’s glory. Oh, at times a rainbow will call us back and remind us of God’s promise. Or perhaps the awe of images from the Hubble Telescope will remind us of the wonder of God’s care that transcends the seemingly limitless universe and touches us as individuals. These moments though are rare. However, as Peterson translates it, We’re “here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth.” As followers of Jesus who have been transformed by his work of salvation, our task is to make the glory of God stand out to this world. We don’t do that by making ourselves obnoxious to the world. We don’t do it by smothering people with the Four Spiritual Laws. Rather we do it by living in that glory. Leonard Sweet, in the book “the Jesus Prescription for Healthy Living,” suggests things like, take a long walk each day, hang out with friends, learn to laugh, come apart from your concerns so that you can connect with God’s concerns. You see, by living in a community of faith where we depend on one another and choose to trust one another we help the world to see God’s colors in this black and white world.
Rebecca Manley Pippert, a number of years ago wrote a book called, Out of the Saltshaker and Into the World where she called on believers to stop living in a saltshaker that is separated from the world and to get out to where we can make a difference. We are called to be Christ’s presence in our community, not in a church building or a bible study. These are OK things, but if we are going to be salt, we must get into the world.
Jesus also said that we are to be light for the world. Light provides direction, reveals what is hidden and illuminates nuances in color and hue. First, Jesus said we are to be a city on a hill. Pastor Chuck Curtis was in Rome this year for New Years. After his return he spoke of the beauty of standing on his balcony in the hotel and watching as countless fireworks exploded all around them. There on the hill, the light of the display made the day bright long into the night. Wherever you were in the city, wherever you were surrounding the city, you saw the illumination. You could not miss it. And Jesus says, “You are a city on a hill.” As Christ’s presence in this community, we can not be secret agent believers. (Illustrate the foolishness of SA Believers).
On Monday, to remember the life and ministry of Martin Luther King, I read once more his personal reflection on the Summer of 1963 when the attention of the nation was focused on Birmingham AL, Why We Can’t Wait. It is true this man was afflicted with many of the weaknesses of the flesh that affect others in our world. However, he believed that his life and ministry were to reflect the life and ministry of Jesus. He believed that Christians were to be the Light of the world. He believed that they were to be Christ’s presence in their community working for justice. In the chapter, Letter from a Birmingham Jail, King replied to eight clergy who had published an article critical of the protests in Birmingham. In this response he reminded the leaders of the church that the silence of people of good will was just as destructive as the attacks of evil people. About half way through the letter he addresses his disappointment with the church. King writes:
“I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, unbiblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.
“There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators"' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide. and gladiatorial contests.
“Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.
“But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.”
What does it mean to be the salt of the earth? What does it mean to be the Light of the world? What does it mean to be Christ’s presence in this community and around our world? It means to stand for what is truth. It means to love one another as Christ has loved us. It means to believe that God can change women and men and girls and boys and use them for His kingdom. It means turning our backs on the values of our world and building our lives around the values of Jesus Christ.
If, as a church, we are going to be Christ’s presence in our community, we must put an end to gossip in the Body of Christ. We must stop shooting our own wounded. We must be willing to cross boundaries and embrace one another. The church of the 1st Century was known by the love they shared with one another. With the passage of time, God has placed the responsibility in our hands. We can not wait, all around men and women are dying without Jesus Christ. Let us obediently be salt to flavor and preserve our world and light to provide direction and to reveal truth in all we do.
