The Gospel Reading: Matthew 5:13-20
Jesus said, "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.
Jesus said, "You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but 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 Father in heaven.
"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."
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Are there any Golden Girls fans here? I’ve been one since the first episode aired in 1986. These were gutsy women willing to face all sorts of taboo issues of that day. My favorite character was Sofia. Sofia means “wisdom” and Estelle Getty did a great job in being the voice of wisdom on the show. But I loved it when she’d tell a story. She’d start, “Picture it! Sicily, 1912…” and then proceed to launch into a tall tail about how she and another girl in her village had been rival pizza makers, the other later known as Mama Celeste. Or my favorite was her alleged romance with a handsome young artist who later was known as Pablo Picasso.
So, I want you to picture it. Nazareth, about 15 AD. A carpenter and his sons are heading off to work in the nearby building project of Sepphoris, a Greek city being built about four miles away. Joseph was a carpenter, the New Testament tells us, but he was no ordinary cabinet maker. Joseph was a tekton which is a term that suggests that he was also a building contractor. He and his sons more than likely worked on the building of the city, the ruins of which can still be seen to this day. With this information, we can easily speculate that Joseph and his family were not poor as later Tradition tries to portray the Holy Family. They were probably at least middle class, had enough to live on comfortably with a little left over and did quite well. We recently hired a contractor to do some work on our ninety year old house. They aren’t cheap now and they weren’t cheap then either.
So, even though Sacred Tradition tells us that Jesus was raised in abject poverty, Scripture doesn’t bear this out. Joseph and his family didn’t live in economic poverty but they did live in social poverty, the margins of Nazareth’s society because of his wife. Jesus’ most Blessed Mother, and our most Blessed Mother, was always a source of embarrassment for the community. No matter the great dogmas which grew up surrounding her in later centuries, the reputation of Our Lady in Nazareth would’ve been that of a fallen woman. People in those days had much better memoires than we do. Most women were illiterate and most men knew just enough Hebrew, not even their own native tongue, to read the Torah in the synagogue. So everything was committed to memory. And they never forgot… especially that Mary had conceived and given birth to her firstborn outside of wedlock. Mary would’ve early to draw water at the well in the morning before the “righteous women got there at a later, more convenient hour. On market day, she and her ilk would not be allowed to shop until late in the day, after all the produce had been picked over and the flies had had their fill of the meat. And those with whom her family associated would’ve been her own kind, people with whom Jesus and his siblings would’ve been raised: tax collectors, the poor, the disabled, the other fallen women, the theater people…you know the type. And as he grew up, for Jesus, these people became not just friends but people who he trusted and loved. And these were people who knew Jesus, knew him well and loved him.
It is no wonder, then, that after his baptism in the Jordan by John that Jesus begins to attract a great following – of primarily his own kind. And in pretty short order, he has such a following that in order to speak to them and be heard he has to climb up on a hill and really project his voice. Matthew takes all these important teachings and compiles them in the Sermon on the Mount.
Now, take note of Jesus’ audience. These were not the “righteous” people of the community. These were not the rabbis or the scribes or the Pharisees or the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem. These were his own people who flocked by the thousands to hear this man that they either knew or knew someone who knew him. These were the great number of marginalized people in Jewish society at that time. And Jesus knew it. And he knew his audience.
In many ways, these were people with little to no hope. They had no hope of rising up the economic ladder because there wasn’t one. And from a religious standpoint, these were the people outside the Law, the Torah; those who couldn’t keep the law in its entirety because they had to eek out a living instead. These were people who had been taught that in God’s eyes they were of little significance since by not keeping the Torah they offended against the Covenant with God.
And yet, through the years, sitting in the very back of the synagogue where people of his kind sat, he would hear the great words of the Prophets as in this morning’s reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah who reminded the People of Israel that such people had a special place in the heart of God. So, when Jesus gets to the Mountain to give his Sermon, these people, not the priests, the rabbis, the Pharisees and the like, whom he has the audacity to call “blessed.” These people, whom society rejects, are the blessed ones. In the heart of God, they have a firm and welcome place. In the mind of God, they matter. And when the moment comes that they know their blessedness, their lives are transformed from oppressed people eking out a sparse living to lives of abundance and joy. And that abundance and blessedness is lived out in their pureness of heart, their compassion, their thirst for justice, their working for peace, their taking great risk and even in their poverty.
Unfortunately, but for obvious practical reasons, the Beatitudes stop there at least textually. But Jesus continues the thought process in this morning’s Gospel. He tells these blessed ones that they are the salt of the earth. Actually, salt can’t loose its saltiness. Rather, salt permeates everything with which it comes into contact. It’s infectious. That’s why enemies used to sow salt in the ground of those they’d conquered. Once in, it spread like wild fire.
Then he says, “Don’t hide your light under a bushel basket.” What happens when you put a candle under a basket? It sets the basket on fire! All you do is burn a perfectly good basket you could’ve used for something else! This light is like the salt. It’s infectious and invades every place including the darkness. And Jesus is telling us that you can’t hide the light because it’s not even yours. It belongs to everybody for deep in the heart of God there is a place for all.
By now, I’m sure that you’ve figured out that Jesus wasn’t just talking to the rabble of his own day but that he’s talking to us in our own time and place. First, he’s making sure that we know that we are among the blessed and, like the people of his own time, that means warts and all with no strings attached. And you know what, folks? Jesus is telling them and us that we’re free; that because we know that in God’s heart we matter, we’re free of the labels and stereotypes and categories that society may place on us. And we’re free: free to lived out our blessedness and mourn and work for peace and justice and mercy; free to take risks for the sake of Christ and live the kingdom he so graciously proclaims; free to live transformed lives so that others may see our lives and have their lives transformed too.
And the reason we come to this parish Church each week is to reaffirm our commitment to the One who calls us and all people blessed, to the one who feeds us with his very self in the bread hope and wine of gladness, in word and song and in the eyes and arms of each other. We come here to bolster our blessedness so that we can go back out into a dark and frightened world in order to be light and salt: to give life and to give hope.
In one episode, Dorothy and Sophia are having one of their heart to heart conversations. Dorothy says, “Ma, you mean you’ve always loved me?” Sophia takes Dorothy’s knee and says, “I’ve always loved you, Pussy Cat. I’ve never stopped. At times, I didn’t understand you. At times, I even thought you were nuts! But I never stopped loving you. And I never will.”
Listen to those words of the voice of Holy Wisdom. Be salt! Be infectious! Burn your baskets! And shine with the light which enlightens our hearts and yearns for all take residence in the heart of the One who calls us to be light and salt, the Incarnate One, the One we know as Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
The Gospel of Sofia always hits home. I loved that show. And the messages that you give, priceless...
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