Sunday, February 27, 2011

Pink Elephants

sermon by Carrie Eikler
Matthew 6:24-34 Isaiah 49:8-16

Dramatic reading of Matthew 6:24-34:

Carrie: Imagine you are present at the Sermon on the Mount and feel emboldened to interrupt Jesus as he attempts to teach. It goes something like this:

Martin: "You cannot serve God and wealth" (Mt. 6:24b).

Carrie: Why not?

Martin: "Because no one can serve two masters. A slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other" (6:24a).

Carrie: I don't know if I agree with that or not. It seems overstated.

Martin: "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear."

Carrie: Seriously? Isn't your advice a little naïve? I do need to plan ahead and know where my next meal is coming from and make sure my family is clothed.

Martin: "Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?"

Carrie: Yes, when you put it that way, but . . .

Martin: "Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" (6:26)

Carrie: Yes, but . . .

Martin: "Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?" (6:27)

Carrie: No, I guess not, but . . .

Martin: And why do you worry about clothing?

Carrie: Well, because I need to be appropriately dressed for various occasions and at least try to be somewhat up to date. And all the people in church are looking at what I’m wearing and…

Martin: "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these" (6:29).

Carrie: Why do you keep making these nature analogies? Those are flowers. I'm a person.

Martin: "If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith?" (6:30)
Carrie: It would be nice to think so, but don't you think worry serves a useful function sometimes?

Martin: "Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?'" (6:31)

Carrie: All right. I get that you're not going to budge on the worry issue. But tell me this: what am I to do with all that mental free time I used to spend worrying?

Martin: "Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (6:33).


Sermon:

It is clear to me that Jesus never came across the concept of “The Pink Elephant” theory. You probably know this one. The joke is of course, if someone tells you not to think of pink elephants, that is exactly what you are going to think of. In my experience, it is also known as “tell the two-year old not to touch something” challenge. Inevitably…he does. And I knew he would. Why did I think he wouldn’t?

And I think that Jesus isn’t acquainted with the pink elephant theory because of what happens on the Sermon on the Mount today. As we have progressed through the Sermon on the Mount the lessons have gotten a little harder for us, haven’t they? A bit more challenging. It’s nice to think about being blessed or blessing others in the beatitudes. Being salt and light…lovely images, that feels good. Love your enemies. Gulp. And now, the coup de grace – “No one can serve two masters…. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

And then…then he continues, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry…,” and I really don’t hear anything else because I’m already worrying if I’ve made the right decision on the first thing he said, about money. I’m now wondering if I make a master out of money. Don’t worry? He tells me I can’t serve God and money and I’m not supposed to worry?

Rhetorically, it’s like he is setting up a whole line of pink fluffy elephants, elephants that squeak, elephants that are banging cymbals and doing flips, and then telling me not to think of pink elephants. It’s like…putting a beautiful tree with delicious fruit in my garden, a garden where he said everything is good, and telling me not to eat it.

Jesus gives us something to worry about, and then tells us that we shouldn’t worry. Really…it’s not very fair. It throws me off balance and I’m forced with hard questions: what is my focus? What is at the core of my life?

These sayings of Jesus are known as some of his “impossible questions.” Alyce McKenzie notes, “If Jesus had stuck with rhetorical questions, questions with obvious answers that listeners like to answer, he might have lived longer. But Jesus was a subversive sage,” she continues, “undercutting the comfortable assumptions of his audiences. So Jesus isn’t expecting us to have an answer, at least an easy one. Jesus is expecting to create a pit in our stomach by confronting us with our loyalties between God and money and then deepens that pit, rather than filling it in with good things. He deepens it by telling us not to worry. Doesn’t that seem a bit…callous and insensitive?

But maybe it’s all part of it. Maybe Jesus gets us at our most vulnerable, gets us where it really hurts and then has us try this on for size. One more radical teaching. One more task that we are simply sure we cannot do, no human can, not on our own and maybe that’s when Jesus says “yes! You’ve got it! You can’t do it…on…your…own.” So maybe, just maybe, Jesus is very aware of the pink elephant theory.

To be honest, it’s not the God and wealth part that is so hard for me to swallow, it’s the worry part. Worry? I was born to worry. At least, I was born to seek security. From my parents. From my teachers. From airport security who never seem to take our fear level down below the color yellow.

For many years we are dependent on the security of others, and even Isaiah recognizes this, asking a rather rhetorical question: how can a nursing mother forget her child? And then he throws us off balance by giving us a very real, sad answer. Sadly, she can. We can. Bonds of trust fail. Between parents and children. Between friends and spouses. Between ourselves and our bodies when they go awry, housing diseases we never invited in. These informal contracts that we are to be secure in can dissolve at any moment. And the only response we can seem to muster is…worry.

As an activity in preparation for this sermon I decided to make a worry log. I was going to wake up in the morning and for one whole day I would write down when I worried, what I worried about, how long the worry lasted, and how I felt about it. Talk about pink elephants.

Well, it didn’t last long. But long enough for me to get a glimpse at the things I do indeed worry about on a daily basis. Without getting mired in the details of minutiae, and without writing off sweeping worries that I’m sure are universal like, I worry about the safety of my children, I worry about money, I tried to find a balance that was real and tangible. And this is what I came up with. On a daily basis I worry that

a)this decision I'm making or action I'm taking towards my sons is going to harm them in some way (am I being too permissive/too strict/too inconsistent, is this hour of TV going to do damage, am I not encouraging too much of "this" and letting too much of "that" happen)

b.) What impact will this particular action I am doing right now have on the environment and in perpetuating injustice in our global economy?

c) contracting a fatal disease and dying young. Or dying in a car accident. Or dying by an act of violence. OK, basically I’m scared of dying.

d). Am I a "fraud", or a hypocrite, or well-intentioned but lacking substance as a pastor, socially-conscious person--that is “does my walk not match my talk”

e). Am I doing a "good job" as a pastor? And please, I’m not fishing for compliments. It is probably similar to your worries about job performance and reviews. I daily worry about small numbers and unmet budgets which may lead me to job insecurity, which is, yes, I’ll admit, a worry about money.

Don’t get me wrong. I can, and do, worry about much more than that: about unrest in Libya and earthquakes in New Zealand and about the cocoa trade in Ivory Coast. But those five things I mentioned are the daily things. Every day, in a big or small way. The things that don’t just trouble my mind or my conscience, but they trouble my gut…my soul.

The word worry appears six times – in one form or another – in these nine verses, relating to the very basics of human life: food, drink, and clothing. And I don’t think Jesus is wanting us to ignore those things. In fact, the three items he mentioned - food, drink, and clothing - come around again when he talks about entering into the kingdom of heaven: did we give food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked?

And I do recognize others have more desperate worries. How will I pay the mortgage this month? How will I feed our family on $50 these two weeks? How will I get to work if my tires go flat? What if my husband comes home drunk again? It probably does give us a glimpse at privilege if we can get a glimpse of people’s worries. But Jesus doesn’t tell us to judge our worries, whose are more legitimate, more justified. No matter what they are, worries are our masters.

And Matthew uses imagery to tell us what we already know, at least already experience. Worrying today only brings more worrying tomorrow. And isn’t that what worry is? An endless cycle of dividing one’s attention and energy between living life and fretful concern about life.

I think you probably know this. I don’t have to tell you worry begets worry. But do you know how it really affects you? What are your daily worries that divide your attention? That has you spending energy feeding fear, than living life?

When Elesha Coffman led some of us in yoga at our Women’s Spa day last week, she had us assume a balance position known as the table. You get down on your hands and knees; you raise your arm up, point it forward, and extend the opposite leg back. It’s challenging. You feel like you’re going to fall over and the more you worry that you’re going to fall over the more off balance you get and the more sure you are that you’re going to fall over and the more off balance you get…

And at about the time that it seemed like collapse was imminent, Elesha reminded us to focus on the core of our bodies, our center, that place where we gain balance. And she said, “You’ll notice that when your attention is focused on maintaining balance, focused on your core, you can’t think about much. There isn’t a lot of room in your head for much else…and that’s kind of nice.”

I doubt Jesus did much yoga…. Maybe he did, there are theories that he may have spent time in India in his young adulthood. But even if he didn’t, he certainly knew something about what it is that throws us off balance and what we need to do to help find it again. He knows about what is at our core. At least, what should be.


So probably, that’s what he’s doing here. He’s asking you, me: do you have at the center of your life something that is strong enough to keep you from collapsing? When the world throws at you what it will, what will bring you back into balance?

Jesus doesn’t test our faithfulness by whether or not we worry. But he does invite us to free ourselves, calling us back to our core. And if we respond, we will likely find that the life of the spirit is there. No matter how much we may try to crowd out God with our worries, Christ is there, holding all our pink elephants, telling us, “You don’t need all these.”

And I hope…I pray…that we will believe him.

[waiting worship]

Merciful God.
There is no denying it. We worry.
Some of our worries are true worries. Worries that tear us up. That create deep and painful pits in our stomachs and souls
And we know some of our worries are frivolous. Superficial worries. Worries where…we know better.
But we are familiar with our worries. We perceive them. While they somehow overwhelm us, we know what to do with them.
Maybe…you aren’t so familiar to us, God of mystery. Maybe we haven’t perceived your love.
Maybe we don’t know what to do with your inescapable, and yet incomprehensible presence.
We don’t want to worry, or to be anxious, or to live divided lives.
We want to be free in you, to see your promise.
We want to know, not just in our head, but in our gut, that your love is stronger than our fears and worries

But we confess, it is hard to do.
And we know it can’t happen with one prayer.
But we pray anyway that you will help us.
We pray that you will stick with us as we try.
Amen.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Enemy Mine

sermon by Torin Eikler
Matthew 5:38-48 Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18

A couple of weeks ago I was reading an article in the Christian Century or Sojourners or some other such magazine (I don’t remember which) that talked about the well-known teachings Martin just read for us. The author talked all about how Jesus wasn’t actually saying anything new. He was reaching back into Jewish scriptures and traditions and asking his audience to look at them with new eyes – eyes that would reinterpret them in a new light.

Those of you who have heard Carrie and I preach very many times before will recognize that this exegetical process is not particularly new either. Jesus teachings are strongly marked by a commitment to upholding the authority of the prophets and the law while questioning the established interpretations taught by the religious elites. He looked beyond the particularities of the text to the spirit in which it was written and applied that understanding to the time and place in which he lived, looking through the lens of his vision of the Kingdom of God.

It sounds like a complicated process, but it’s actually one we are all familiar with. It’s what Carrie and I do each week as we prepare for worship. It’s what we all do each time we pick up the Bible, read a passage of scripture, and try to apply it to our lives. If we only had Jesus’ understanding of God’s vision we could figure it all out. (You’ll let me know, won’t you, if it ever comes to you? Wouldn’t that be great?!)


Back to the text at hand…. All my life I have heard sayings like “let your ‘yes’ be yes and your ‘no’ be no” and “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” – sayings that remind us of the admonitions in this part of the Sermon on the Mount. And, if there is one thing that a dye-in-the-wool Brethren grows up with, it is “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies!” I know it all by heart, but what struck me when I read that article was how mundane it seemed to me … and how little it connected with my life. And that made me a little sad, though it may seem strange to be unhappy that I don’t really run into Al Qaeda as I walk down the street.

This week, though, I heard Dr. Scott Atran speaking on an NPR program called “On Being.” He was talking about the violence and upheaval in Africa and the Middle East, and the interview got me thinking in a new way. Dr. Atran comes at the situation from a sociological background, and he begins by looking at what groups people form and why.

People form groups, he says, because they have a need to belong to something greater than themselves. Building that sense of kinship is an evolutionary urge that provides security, and it can give meaning to lives that might otherwise seem hollow. Ultimately, though, it’s an urge that grows out of our foundational experience of family that shows up in the way that “all political movements [or religious] or territorial movements or even transnational movements … consider themselves in terms of brotherhoods or sisterhoods or fatherlands or homelands or motherlands.” These movements use the sense of attachment and loyalty that grow from those terms to define who is “us” and who is “them,” who is “good” and who is “evil,” who is a “friend” and who is an “enemy.”


A colleague of mine offered this story for black history month….
One of our evening Sunday Schools, he said, recently had a guest speaker who had participated in the March for Voting Rights in 1965. He told us how he’d watched the television news with his fifth-grade daughter, and how she had said to him, “We have to do something!” He wanted to respond to her compassionate plea, but did not know how.

Shortly after that a friend of his called him and said, “We have to go to the march.” His first response was that he couldn’t possibly get away from his full schedule, but he thought better of that excuse in the end. And he went to Selma with his friend.

As he talked about the experience, he described a three hour argument between the police and the African-Americans they prevented from crossing into the white part of town. He went on to tell about some of the horrific things that were taking place. People were beaten by bystanders for no reason at all. Police rode their horses through and over crowds of people without regard for the lives they ended. The marchers were spit on, yelled at, and insulted.

Then, he told us about the training the demonstrators had received in preparation for the march. At first, he said, he resented the mandatory meeting. "We're marching,” he thought. “How much training do we need for that?" But as he listened, he began to realize that what they were about to do was something much different, much more challenging than the “march" he had pictured in his mind.

The marchers were instructed on the peaceful and non-violent method of resistance. They were told:
•to march together, and not to separate under any circumstances,

•not to return insult for insult, but to march peacefully, remembering their
purpose,

•to cover their heads if someone came at them with a club or a fist, but not to
fight back,

•to wipe it off when people spit on them or threw things on them, and to
keep marching.

The most difficult instruction by far - and one that brought tears to the man's eyes lo these many years later because he witnessed it - was the final directive:
•anyone standing near someone who fell to the ground or who was beaten to
the point of unconsciousness was to carefully nudge their way over and lay his/her body over the person. By doing this they were presenting their own body as a sacrifice to save another’s life.

I didn’t live through the years of that struggle. I don’t know what it was like to see or hear stories of everything that was happening. Some of you do. I can only imagine that if this story moved me, it must be even more powerful for you.

Most of the demonstrator survived those marches, but there were people gave their lives protecting others exactly as they had been taught. Instead of fighting back, they turned the other cheek. They loved their friends enough to give their lives, but did they love their enemies so well?

I don’t like to think of myself as having enemies, and I certainly have not experienced the kind of hatred and denigration Civil Rights activists lived through. But I have to admit that there are a few (well more than a few) people that I just don’t like. They rub me the wrong way. It may be because we disagree about something that’s important to me or I know they have talked badly about me behind my back or something about how they look or act sets my nerves on end. Whatever the reason, being around them makes me feel like I’m not safe and I have to be on my guard all the time.

One of those people was my seminary nemesis, I’ll call her Fran. I met Fran on the second day of classes. As we sat together in Old Testament, I grew frustrated by the frivolous comments she made and the way she interacted with the professor as if she was somehow special. Later that semester we had a conversation about holy war as presented in the historical books of the Old Testament. Things quickly devolved into an argument, but it was not because either of us supported war. It was because Fran thought it was just fine to throw out anything she didn’t like in the Bible. That was a perspective that I couldn’t understand and wasn’t prepared to accept, especially in another seminarian. And so began a long and torturous animosity … at least on my part.

For four years, I tried to avoid her, but in such a small community that was impossible. So, I sat in worship, at meetings, and in classes with Andrea, and every time I found it stressful. It was an exercise in self-control to avoid arguing with her or disparaging her comments just because she had made them. I even found it a struggle to be worshipful in her presence.

I suppose that Fran was less my enemy than I was hers, but finally, in my last year, we were assigned to be partners in a project. As we sat and worked together, I began to learn a bit more about her, and I discovered that my prejudices had blinded me to the truth of who she was. During those two weeks, I came to appreciate her insight and to understand the insecurities and experiences at the heart of her style of interaction. In the end, we never became close, but there is a part of me that wishes I had gotten to know her sooner rather than later. We might have made good friends instead of one-sided rivals.


How do we love our enemies?

The author of Leviticus gives us some basics for loving our enemies: take care to provide for them, do not bear false witness or take what should be theirs, and set aside vengeance. Jesus takes us farther down the road, saying: turn the other cheek, give to them if they beg from you, and pray for them. But he doesn’t stop there. He connects loving your enemies to treating them as you would a friend.

For me that means overlooking faults that might otherwise drive me mad. It means looking beyond the surface to see what pain they might be suffering or how they might need my help and support. It means opening myself up, being vulnerable to them, and forgiving them when they hurt me.

None of that is easy to do … even with friends. It is much harder to do with people that we don’t like – people we might even hate, but Jesus was quite clear that the road he invites us to travel is not an easy one. More than changing the world, it involves challenging ourselves to live more fully as God intends: to show compassion, to give forgiveness, and to recognize everyone as a child of God. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are meant to love one another as family.

Once, after receiving flak for speaking kindly of the Southern Rebels instead of trying to destroy them, Abraham Lincoln replied, “do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" I think that’s what Jesus was getting at … in his teaching and in his way of interacting with those around him. Whether or not others accept it, we are called to treat them as friends, to show compassion, to give forgiveness, and to accept them as family. Enemies or not, we are called to love them.

There’s a challenge in that. There’s work and love and peace and struggle, but there is peace in freeing ourselves from hate and retaliation, vengeance and fear. In the end, there is joy in loving even our enemies as friends.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Black History Month Worship Resources

On February 13 our congregation will celebrate Black History Month. We are a predominately white congregation and the challenge for shaping worship was to blend thanksgiving with confession, hope with forgiveness, recognition both of our racial unity as well as our racial diversity.

Our continued call is to unearth the White American's complicity in maintaining systems of racism and racial predjudice that denies the full recognition of the divine in one another. We pray we will be open to humility as we call on God to be our help and our guide. And we ask God to grant us grace when we are corrected, called out, and invited into a world beyond black and white.


Litany of Thanks
In Celebration of Black History Month

by Carrie Eikler

Leader: God of all people, all races and nationalities, all able and broken bodies, all people who breathe your sweet air of life.
People: We give thanks that you have made us in your image.
L: Today we are called to give thanks for the great gifts of our Black American sisters and brothers that make our lives richer and fuller.
P: Thanks be to God!
L: For the writers: WEB DuBois, Audre Lorde, Langston Hughes
P: Thank you God for their words!
L: For the healers: Harriet Tubman, Dr. Charles Richard Drew, Dr. David J. Peck
P: Thank you Jesus for their healing!
L: For the peacemakers and justice seekers: Sojourner Truth, Fredrick Douglass, Coretta Scott King
P: Thank you Spirit for their passion!
L: For the scientists: Percy Julian, Patricia Bath, George Washington Carver
P: Thank you God for their ingenuity!
L: For the government officials: Thurgood Marshall, Barack Obama, Carol Mosely-Braun,
P: Thank you Jesus for their persistence!
L: For the professors and educators: Cornell West, Ruth Simmons, Charles L. Reason
P: Thank you Spirit for their intellect!
L: For the musicians: Marian Anderson, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday
P: Thank you God for their creativity!
L: For the athletes: Jackie Joyner Kersee, Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe
P: Thank you Jesus for their agility and strength!
L:For these and all our African American brothers and sisters who surround us this day we give thanks.
P: Amen. And Amen!

*Some of these names are likely very familiar to you. Some you may not recognize. As a response to our celebration, take time this month to learn about some about these Black Americans that you are less familiar with.

Prayers of the People
Prayer” by Maya Angelou

Father, Mother, God
Thank you for your presence
during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence
during the bright and sunny days,
for then we can share that which we have
with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence
during the Holy Days, for then we are able
to celebrate you and our families
and our friends.

For those who have no voice,
we ask you to speak.
(silence)

For those who feel unworthy,
we ask you to pour your love out
in waterfalls of tenderness.
(silence)

For those who live in pain,
we ask you to bathe them
in the river of your healing.
(silence)

For those who are lonely, we ask
you to keep them company.
(silence)

For those who are depressed,
we ask you to shower upon them
the light of hope.
(silence)

Dear Creator, You, the borderless
sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the
world that which we need most--Peace.
[Amen.]

Prayer of Reconciliation
adapted from United Church of Canada Black History worship materials

Gracious God, we thank you for creating all of us in your image,
even though outwardly we look different.

We thank you for being faithful.
We thank you that in you there is no superior race; we are all the same in your eyes
We thank you for your justice.

Help us, O God, to look to you for guidance.
We thank you for reconciling us.
Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, for inviting us to you, the spring that flows with living water.
We thank you for giving us water to drink.

Help us to accept one another in love,
like you did for us,
when you accepted each one of us in your love.

Thank you for your love that is from eternity to eternity.
As we come together to remember Black History Month,
We give thanks because you have made us equal in your sight.
You are calling us to rise and look forward,
and to serve you in justice and peace.

Thank you, loving God,
for giving hope that last forever.
Thank you, for making us to be part of this journey;

We know that you will make all things new. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Benediction from 44th Inaugural Address by Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day
when black will not be asked to get back,
when brown can stick around
when yellow will be mellow
when the red man can get ahead, man
and when white will embrace what is right.
Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen
[Amen!]

Hymns:
Yonder come day
Precious Lord take my hand
In Christ there is no East or West
Lift every voice and sing

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Salt and Light

sermon by Torin Eikler
I Corinthians 2:1-12 Matthew 5:13-20

In my high school youth group there were three big things we did every year – three events around which our calendar of fund-raising and planning revolved. One was the ski trip we took every February. One was the summer work camp. And one was the annual musical.

The musical was the most work and the least fun, but it was a pretty big part of the fund-raising we did. And to be fair, it managed to bring us all together more than the other two – at least those of us who participated.

My Sophomore year, we made the extremely ambitious decision to put on “Godspell” which promised to be quite a challenge given the size of our pool of capable singers. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this musical, it is a creative retelling of the Gospel of Matthew in which most of the action is narrated in song. So, basically, all of us who could read music and hold a tune were going to have a part, but we had auditions anyway to see who would get which role (though I suspect the director had already cast us before we even started).

I got the part of Herb which was fine with me since Herb gets most of the funny lines and doesn’t have to sing too many solos. One song I did have to learn, though, was musical’s summary of the Sermon on the Mount – “The Light of the World.” It was mostly based around today’s scripture, and the best part – the part we all really loved – was that we got to sing the line: “We all need help to feel fine. Let’s have some wine.”

Can you imagine twelve fairly inexperienced high school students nervously trying to get through all the lines and choreography of a somewhat racy Broadway musical on the 25x40’ chancel in front of family, friends, and all the rest of the members of the congregation? We struggled through all the rest of it with a kind of resigned determination, voices cracking at the edge of our ranges and feet trying to move through tricky dance steps without getting tangled up. BUT, when we got to this song, we let loose.

I’m not sure what wine really has to do with being the light of the world or the salt of the earth, but I have to say that Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak gave a gift to every high school kid who has been part of “Godspell” when they put that line in there. It was just the thing to take the edge off the challenge of singing “You’ve got to live right to be the light of the world” to your parents and your pastor.

But let’s set aside the wine for now because we really are dealing with a challenge … and it’s a very important one…


“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?”

Among the emails sent between my colleagues and me on our list serve this week was a sad story that comes from Andrew Foster Connors "Preaching on the Word.” It seems there was a wealthy, well-known urban congregation with several devout members. Some of the wealthier members decided to spend a night with homeless friends on the street as a part of their Lenten discipline one year. Their goal was to clear away the assumptions and prejudices that kept them from recognizing the suffering Christ in the face of those who spent their days suffering hunger, disease and rejection – a worthy goal.

The night they were to hold their vigil turned out to be cold and rainy, and the group went looking for shelter. As they walked the streets, wet and shivering, they came upon a church holding an all-night prayer vigil. Now, the leader of the group was a respected pastor, and to her the church looked to be an inviting sanctuary.

As she stepped through the doors of the sanctuary, a security guard stopped her.
The pastor explained to him that they were a group of Christians who were wet and miserable and had no place to stay. Could they, she asked, rest and pray?

The doubtful look on the guard’s face made her aware of how the rain had made her look more than a little disheveled, and as she looked down at herself, she realized that she bore little resemblance to what one might expect of a pastor. In that moment, she gained a new understanding of how little it took to transform anyone into the image of a street person like those in her group. Still she looked up at the guard with some hope.

The security guard was not a cruel man, but he had a job to do. "I'm hired to keep homeless people like you out," was his reply, and so the group dejectedly made its way back out into the weather, surprised and deeply saddened to find their suffering turned away by Christ’s church.


“You are salt for the earth….”

“You are the light of the world…. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand [where] it gives light to all….”

Another story … one that has stuck with me since I heard it as a junior in high school. My pastor, Susan, was a born, bred, and baptized member of the Church of the Brethren. In high school she had a friend – a good friend – who was not a Christian. The two girls were interested in lots of the same things, and they spent a lot of time together. Susan cherished the friendship … all the more so because this girl was not part of her youth group, and they could talk about anything together without religion hanging over their heads. As they grew closer, Susan was surprised to find that though her friend seemed to be well-adjusted and have lots of friends, she often felt lonely and depressed. Life, to her, seemed to be a pointless progression of days leading to death.

Susan was worried. She didn’t know what to do or say to help her friend, and though she thought about inviting her to church more than once, she resisted the impulse. She was afraid that bringing the church into it would alienate her friend or that she might lose the friendship all together. Instead, she listened and talked and tried to keep things happy and light, and that’s the way thing stayed until her friend moved away.

Some years later, the two met again. Susan was excited to rekindle the friendship, and she began to ask the kind of questions that you ask to catch up. It was a good conversation. Both women had found rewarding work and had loving families. But as they talked about the years that had passed, the smile faded from her friend’s face, and eventually she asked, “Susan, you were part of that Brethren church when we were in high school weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you ever invite me? Why didn’t you tell me about Jesus?”

“I don’t know. I guess I thought you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with that, and I was afraid you wouldn’t want to hang out with one of those … “Jesus people.”

“Susan, when I discovered Jesus, it saved my life. It gave me hope. I wish you wouldn’t have hidden that from me.”


“You are the light of the world.” “You are salt for the earth.”

It’s hard to see friends struggle. It’s hard to look at the suffering around us. It is … harder … to be salt and light in the world, and we feel inadequate or uninspired or scared of the costs.

Who are we to take that on? It’s too big for us. What special wisdom do we have that could change the system that makes people suffer. We wouldn’t even know where to begin the task of helping people rediscover the taste of life. Who knows what would happen, what damage we could do if we waded in with our ungainly, uncoordinated efforts? We aren’t trained to address that kind of darkness. So, we often find ourselves turning away – averting our eyes, avoiding painful topics or dispirited friends. We hide our lights and water down our flavor, piling up justifications to excuse our weaknesses and ease our feelings of guilt.

Then we hear the words Jesus spoke all those years ago, and, if you are anything like me, you begin to wonder. I’ve lost my flavor. I’ve hidden my lamp until it’s on the verge of going out. How can I be salt and light any longer?

Yet into the shame that I feel, Paul speaks words that bring me comfort and hope. Even he, the great evangelist, was not beyond all of this struggle. For all of his training as a scholar and a speaker, he knew weakness and fear. All of the wisdom he had learned at the feet of rabbi’s and priests and even his vision on the road was not enough to wipe away his doubt.

And now we come back to the wine. Paul knew a way to renew his light, to bring the saltiness of back into his life. The foolish wisdom of a crucified Christ, the reviving touch of the Spirit’s breath, and the promise of God’s grace … we accept these things when we share the bread of life and the cup of grace. These things give us back our courage. They provide all the knowledge and inspiration we need.


The light of Christ was drunk by a crowd on a mountain top. The salt of his wisdom and understanding fed those he met throughout his ministry on the bread of life. People from all walks of life and all stations of society witnessed the new way it revealed. The multitudes he spoke to … touched … healed were lit on fire with the knowledge that God was with each and every one of them. They were inspired to share the power of that new vision with others, and when the wisdom and the light of Christ is offered from one to another, people are fed, spirits come back to life, and community grows as we welcome everyone to come and celebrate life together.


You are the light of the world. You are the salt for the earth. When your light is hidden under a basket or you allow your flavor to fade away, everyone suffers. People – lonely depressed, angry, hungry people – move through life without hope or relief or the bread of life to fill them. The sad and worried world remains sad and worried, filled with relationships that are coming apart at the seams while we are preoccupied with our own little struggles that leave us sad and worried.

Jesus calls us to shine the dazzling light of God's grace and vision for the world and the transforming salt of foolish wisdom into places of challenge and difficulty. Put your light on a lampstand so that it can illuminate the shadows - allowing hope to shine into the darkness. Share the salt of your being so that the savory touch of Christ’s love can transform our life together.

Be salt.

Be light.

Be the city of God that welcomes all God’s children out of the world and to the table of life in joy and love and peace.