Being Daring

 

This week we are continuing to swim in the sea of the best sermon ever, Jesus’ sermon on the mount in Matthew 5-7.  Today and tomorrow, I want to dive and dwell in longer passages.  I invite you to first take a deep breath and check in with yourself.  Where are you physically, emotionally, spiritually, and relationally?  If you are hurting, you will bring that to the text.  If you are frustrated, you can find plenty in scripture that feels like salt being rubbed in a wound.  So, if it is not, “Well with your soul”, you don’t have to read the passage below.  As a matter of love, don’t!  Breathe, take a nap, enjoy a walk outside, listen to music, do what nurtures your soul.  There are no badges for your heavenly sash for being a martyr and pushing through a morning mediation. 

 

If you are in a place of curiosity and want to keep holding Jesus’ words and wisdom, slowly savor this:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Matthew 5:17-20

 

Please remember that the word “righteousness” is not being a Sneetch on the Beaches with stars upon thars who stuck their noses in the air.  Righteousness in Matthew means Joesph, who risked the hostile stare and dared to enter the mystery of God becoming flesh.  Righteousness is a Micah 6 shaped life ~ where we seek justice, live loving kindness, and walk humbly with God.  Not that I don’t do this perfectly or naturally all the time.  But I commitment and covenant to this way of life with God’s grace. 

 

What questions do you have about the above words?

What insights do you have?

Where do you want Jesus to explain more because you are confused or curious?

Where are you bored by the words above (it’s okay to admit and accept that you suppressed a yawn while reading)?

Where do the words above feel like truth and where do you resist what Jesus is saying?

 

Hold all of this.  I encourage you to email or call me if you want to talk more.  Studying scripture is not a game of solitaire, but a group sport.  Studying scripture as an isolated individual can leave us stuck in our own ways of thinking, we need others’ questions and insights.  Find some folks or join the bible study as we seek to find God’s wisdom in these words for our lives today.  Amen.

Being Light

 

You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden.  People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Parent in heaven.  Matthew 5:14-16

 

Yesterday, we played with the spice of salt, today we ponder the metaphor of being light.  The spark of the sacred God lit at your baptism.  The flame of faith God fans by pouring love and grace and mercy into your soul every day ~ as the resource to feed and fuel your life.  Where are you letting your light shine?  Today, get out a candle and your calendar.  Light the candle ~ a symbol of God’s love ~ and look back over the first month of 2025, where did you shine and share your light?  Name and notice what filled your days.  If you had to categorize your life, what are some of the boxes your experiences and encounters fit into and fill?  For example, for me, I can have a box labeled, “work”.  How many hours did that consume?  How about sleep?  How about having fun, being playful?  How about prayer?  How about volunteering?  How about being bored or just being ~ rather than doing ~ all the time?  When we look, listen, and lean into our lives, how we construct a day is how we make a life.  Last month, I said that the questions, what are you seeking, how are you seeking, and why are you seeking, are always at work in you and through you ~ whether we realize it or not.  What does your calendar say you were seeking?  For me, it might be to prove my worth, that I am valuable and that I am in control.  For me, it can be that I love my family.  For me, it can be that I am God’s beloved when I finally stop trying to look so competent and in charge.  Hold your one wild and precious life in the light of God’s love, not trying to be the light, but absorb the flame of the eternal shining on you. Amen.

Being Salty

 

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot.  Matthew 5:13

 

I invite you to go get some salt. 

Seriously…don’t worry I will wait for you.  (Insert me humming, “It’s a Small World after all” because I want to make sure that will be stuck in your head all day long.  You are welcome).

Got some salt?  Good.  Put on the tip of your tongue.  What do you taste?  What words awaken within you to describe and define the sensation of tasting salt?  Is the salt a pleasant taste for your or maybe makes you want to reach for a glass of water?

 

Salt is added to increase flavor and zest.  Salt plays and participates with other ingredients.  Salt collaborates.  Salt can be preserved, making something last long.  Too much salt can ruin the soup, or so my grandma used to say.  Rarely do we sit down to a heaping pile of salt for dinner.  Unless we are feasting on McDonald’s French fries, but that is another morning meditation.  Salt is not the main thing but is an important thing.  And too much salt, or salt in the wrong place, can be hurtful.  For example, if you have a sore in your mouth right now and followed my invitation, it probably hurt.  Or, to quote Grandma again, “Don’t pour salt on a wound”.  In the best sense salt adds, plays, preserves, and collaborates. 

 

Jesus calls us to be salt.  To add zest.  To participate and part-take, not seek the spotlight.  And to realize that each of us, as featherless bipeds, hurt and harm one another.  We can all be a drain rather than a fountain to each other.  When we ask, “How can I be salt”, you rewind back to verses 1-12 in chapter 5.  The Beatitudes that we prayed last week are instructive and inspirational to how we seek to be salt. 

 

Today, I invite you to set an intention and attention to one place where you will be salt, seek to bring zest, add flavor, and seek to heal rather than harm.  I am thinking about that meeting on your calendar, that phone call you have been wanting to make, that trip to the store where you will encounter other humans out in the wilderness of life.  One place (not the whole day).  May you find ways to live your saltiness that stirs and swirls and adds Jesus-flavor to these days and those around you.  Amen.