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Introduction to Worship for 2/5/2017

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Letting the Light Through

Jesus tells us that we are salt and light as we seek to live as God’s people in the world. With the Spirit’s help, we offer our gifts and talents to extend the reach of God’s realm. With Isaiah and the psalmist, we learn what it means to practice righteousness and restore beauty in community as we live out the heart of our faith.

Matthew 5:13–20

This week, we continue to read from the collection of Jesus’ teachings known as the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus uses powerful images of salt and light as he describes what it means to live according to the ways of God’s realm. The same images of salt and light are used in the Hebrew Scriptures to describe covenant and law. David and his descendants are called a lamp before God. Jesus continues and expands the message found in the scriptures.

Jesus tells his followers that at this very moment they are salt – cleansing, preserving, adding flavour. At this moment they are light – revealing what is hidden, allowing all to see. God’s reign is not only a future promise; it also is present reality. We participate in that reign as we live in God’s ways. Our light should shine before others, not so that they can applaud our piety, but so that our works can direct others to give thanks and praise to God. God, through us, gives light to “all in the house.” The word translated here as house is the word for “the established world” – it is a big house!

Jesus is accused by the scribes and Pharisees of not keeping God’s law, but he is faithful to the law’s intent. Jesus comes not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Jesus calls followers to live righteous lives, showing justice and mercy to all. Jesus calls followers to go to the heart of God’s law, fulfilling the spirit of it. Those who break God’s law and teach others to do so are least in God’s realm; they are not banished from God’s reign, but need to change and be restored to a right relationship. The concern of the scribes and Pharisees was obedience to God’s law. Jesus’ followers must be just as whole-hearted in following the intent and spirit of the law.

Jesus calls us to lives of “righteousness,” the ethical actions expected of those who believe in and follow Jesus the Christ. John P. Meier states, “Matthew stresses that the disciples’ light, which is meant to be seen by all . . . can be smothered only by the disciples’ own failure . . . The disciples can cause the failure of their mission if they ignore others and live only for themselves” (John P. Meier, Matthew, Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1980).

Ministry is bringing Christ’s light into the world in the daily life of each Christian and in the corporate witness of the church. Where are the challenges in responding to the Sermon on the Mount?

Connecting scripture and life

Read “Wounded Healing.”

• What beauty are you seeking to have restored within yourself? 

Our scars and woundedness are important, because they have played a role in defining who we are/have become as individuals (and as church). Some scars are the result of things that just happen to us, and some are the result of choices we have made, both harmful choices, but also choices to stand in solidarity with others who may be suffering, and for which we paid a price.

It is fear – of differentness and “otherness,” of our own frailty, of the judgment of others – that most often keeps us from embracing our woundedness, and thus our wholeness. It is the work of the church to embrace a wholeness that includes our brokenness and woundedness… the crack that lets the light in.

• What is needed for us, as individuals and as the church to “grow into our fullest, most compassionate identity, our greatness of heart”?


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