You Are the Light of the World

February 9^th, 2014

Matthew 5:13-20

This is the beginning of the second part of the

Sermon on the Mount. The “not as popular” part.

Right before this, Jesus has delivered his often quoted

Beatitudes or blessings.

Sermon on the Mount
Michael Brien

Blessed are the poor

Blessed are the meek,

blessed are those who hurt,

those who hunger for justice,

blessed are you and people just like you.

That part is easy going down so we hear it a lot.

Especially because the people he’s talking to are poor,

they are meek, they are hurt, they do hunger for justice.

They are told they are blessed.

But then the second part, if you are blessed, what are you supposed to do with that blessing?

Not as easy.

Now Lutherans don’t sit too well with requirements.
Maybe it’s our heritage of stubbornness –

we just don’t like to be told what to do.

But we can probably legitimately

 trace it back to our main uniting theology

that it’s grace and not works that save us.

In other words, whether we go to heaven or not

is not determined by what we do.
So when Jesus comes up with all of these requirements

it make us Lutherans a little uncomfortable.

But notice that Jesus said, “You are the light of the world.”

Not – “if do these things and you will be the light of the world.”

It’s light by faith all around here.

But then Jesus goes into what you should do if you are light.

 

Jesus told the people gathered around him,

You are blessed. You are the light of the world.
And because of your blessings, you are the ones who will lead.

You are the ones who will make a difference in the world.

The ones who will help people see the Kingdom.

The Pharisees and the scribes aren’t going to do it,

you have to do it, you have to be better than the Pharisees.

You are God’s hope. You are the light of the world.

And the people who were listening, we don’t know too much about them, but we do know that they understood darkness.

We do know that they understood how the system, the government, the religion the whole world was crushing them
with poverty, with death, with violence, with a lack of opportunity.

The darkness of injustice was their daily experience.

They longed for someone else to come in and make it go away.

But Jesus said you are the light of the world.

No one else. You are.

God said through the prophet Isaiah in the

Old Testament reading today,

“Why do you fast but you do not see?
This the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke.

Share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, cover them,

and not hide yourself from your own kin.

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn”

More requests. And God is saying it there too,

There is darkness, but

You are the light of the world.

And some things might have changed since Biblical times. We live in America, the land of opportunity.

Many of us can afford to buy our way into good neighborhoods and schools and remove ourselves from certain realities.

But the truth is, there is still darkness all around us too.

I had another sermon mostly written this week,

but I went to a justice ministry conference and I had to tell you what I heard. There were churches from Ohio, Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma there and what struck me was that the stories in each of the cities

was so much the same,

I heard so many stories about Children – predominantly black males - being incarcerated and put in the criminal justice system with other violent offenders, giving them criminal histories that followed them forever destroying their future prospects for jobs,

military service, college.  And they were incarcerated

for non-violent crimes.

One pastor told the story of a young man who was arrested for domestic violence for throwing cheese fries at his brother.

Another boy, with his friends, had broken a neighbors window.

Now who didn’t do something like that when they were young?

Instead of getting a citation and having to pay for the window,
he was charged with “throwing a missile into a dwelling.”

I heard a story from Jacksonville Florida

of a public school system using a failing curriculum that was continually leaving children without reading skills and letting children fall further and further behind because the system’s superintendent was being paid off by the publishers of the curriculum.

He eventually joined the publisher full-time

after he resigned from the school system.

There were stories of people with mental illness

repeatedly going to prison instead of getting help.

Their families desperate

because there were no services available except prison.

I heard about immigrants in Columbus and other cities facing confusing and contradictory rules regarding ID and drivers licenses

being detained and penalized because of them.

 

I heard about predatory payday lending

places that in some states can charge up to 1900 percent on loans

they garnish wages and keep working people in desperate poverty.

These are things that we don’t hear about

in most of our circles.

But these things are adding up to darkness for people around us.

And we might think this doesn’t effect us, but it does.

It effects our cities, our schools,

it creates crime instead of eliminating it.

And even if it doesn’t effect us now,

there is evidence all around that the

middle class is disappearing in America.

Wealth is being contained by a select few.

And I ask, which end of the spectrum will our children

and our grandchildren end up? The super rich, or in the darkness?

The darkness is all around us and coming closer.

And if we’re waiting for someone else to come and fix it

it’s almost as good as giving up.

The light won’t just magically come to us one day,

And doing justice isn’t easy, it isn’t simple, it often gets messy,

But it’s God’s call to us.

You are the light of the world.

Now, one person can shed some light.

But we have a justice ministry team here at Gethsemane.

And we are part of a group of 53 Churches in Columbus called BREAD.

Maybe there’s some other effective way to follow God’s call to

do Justice but I don’t know about it.

And I know Lutherans don’t like to be told what to do,

but do something. Be in our Justice network.

Come to our Justice Network meeting on February 17^th.

Be on our Justice team, support justice financially

Say yes when someone calls you and asks you to show up

at the Nehemiah Action in May.

Be part of the light.

“This the fast that I choose:

loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the yoke,

let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn”

Be the light that helps the world little by

little fulfill the laws and the prophets,

the hopes and dreams of God.

You are the light of the world.

We have been blessed. We are loved by God.

We have Christ’s light in our life.

We are the light of the world,

Let your light shine before others,

so that they might see it

and give their glory to God as well.