Sunday Praise & Worship 10:00
Christian Education - 10:00 - Casual Dress - Loving Childcare
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Key Verse: Matthew 5:16 “In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.” If our faith outreach begins with reaching toward God (our focus for last week), it cannot help but reach out to people around us, beginning with members of our inner circle (our family), and continuing to enlarge this family circle as anyone with whom we come into contact experiences the love and power of God that drew us to follow Jesus—as they experience relationship with us. For our conversation this week about how this process of faith sharing happens, we turn to the opening of what Christians call Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5. Jesus poses two questions to the disciples and those gathered to hear him teach. The first strikes us as whimsical; the second rhetorical. “If salt loses its “saltiness”, how will you season it?” The Latin phrase “sine qua non” means “without which, nothing” and refers to the most essential quality of the subject to which it refers. Saltiness is the sine qua non of salt. Without saltiness, of course, the substance in question is no longer fit to be called salt. In his New Interpreters Bible commentary on Matthew, M. Eugene Boring notes that Jesus did not have some magical chemical transformation in mind when referring to the loss of saltiness. Salt would have been harvested from the Dead Sea in Jesus’ time, for use in sacrifices (Lev. 2:13 and Mark 9:49), loyalty oaths and covenant relationships (Ezra 4:14 and Numbers 18:19), purification rites (2 Kings 2:19-22), seasoning (Job 6:6 and Colossians 4:6) and as a preservative. The way it would lose its saltiness is to be inundated with impurities (non-salt substances, like dirt and sand). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has already referred to the “pure in heart” (Matthew 5:8—these will “see God”). He may have been recasting Psalm 24:3-4, referring to worshippers who are not devoted to idols or who do not swear falsely. Psalm 86:11 asks God for an “undivided heart” in order to revere God’s name. When asked to name the greatest command (Matthew 22:37), Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 (“love the Lord with all”). But he joins this quote to Leviticus 19:18 (“love your neighbor as yourself”). In Mark’s version of this teaching (Mark 9:49-50), Jesus links saltiness with being “at peace with one another”. For Jesus, personal holiness absolutely had to translate into social holiness. He could not comprehend a private faith in God—apart from a faith lived before a witnessing world. His second riddle (phrased as an implicit and rhetorical question) confirms this teaching: a city built on a hill cannot be hid; light illuminates the house—no one hides the light. Then comes a command (our key verse, above): “Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so everyone will praise your heavenly Father.” In that word: “Let”, Jesus embeds a promise and a guarantee from heaven. You are light. It’s a fact. God has created your life as light. You cannot choose whether or not to be light (or salt). But you can choose to allow God’s light to radiate from your life, to season everyone around you with peace and works of goodness. Then we all become family—with God as our Father and Mother. Questions for Reflection 1. How does this passage call you to purify your love and devotion to God? In what ways is your love diluting your saltiness? How can the riddle (if salt loses its flavor, it is good for nothing) encourage you to live in peace with everyone? With your family members? 2. In this passage, the metaphors of salt, lamp light, and a city on a hill make a mockery of these symbols failing to accomplish their purpose (try hiding a light in the darkness—it’s hard!). What do these metaphors teach you about your ability to share your faith? 3. For many of us, our faith is intensely personal. Society encourages us to keep our faith to ourselves. What kind of faith sharing does this passage encourage (command) in your life? In your family? 4. How has the Holy Spirit spoken to you in worship today?
For Next Week: Please read John 15:9-17 (key verse is 16). Our theme is “Outflow to Community”. The teaching statement is: “Jesus loves us as friends and chooses us to love others, obey God, and to bear lasting fruit.” What fruit does your faith produce? |
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