May
the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable God my
strength and redeemer.
A couple of a days ago at the radio
station I was having a discussion with a colleague about Jesus Christ, the Bible
and most importantly which interpretation and exactly which Jesus Christ do we
believe in, accept and embrace. The
conversation reminded me that our hermeneutic or interpretation of the biblical
text is key to our personal, and communal liberation and the issues and
concerns of social justice we engage on a daily basis. As we engage today’s message we should be
mindful of the text even as we give glory and honor to Jesus Christ, our
savior, who, through no fault of his own, was born an enemy of the state and was
crucified, dead and buried an enemy of the State and Jewish authority, but was
resurrected and lives today. It is his
Good News that we share.
The
text for today is Matthew 5:16. It reads
6 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.
Before
we look at Matthew 5:16 I want to look for a moment at verses 13 and 14, to gain
some context for today’s text. In Matthew 5:13 Jesus speaks of the Salt of the
Earth. He says “You are the salt of the
earth: but if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be
restored? It is no longer good for
nothing except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men. In 14-15 Jesus says, You are the light of the
world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it
under a bushel but on a stand and it gives light to all the house. Verse 16,
the text for today says, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see
your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” When we look at verses 5:13 through 5:16 there
is the question of The Relation of the Disciples to the World. This
is the underlying question as Jesus introduces the one who would have ears to
hear to an inner divine light imparted by God to all creation which illumines a
profound and intimate sacredness. While Matthew 5:16b does focus on good works,
as the active and powerful witness of a life in Christ, I would suggest that
the first part of the verse, 5:16A is the origin of the whole matter. The words of Jesus intimate that there inner
divine light is God’s illumination in us.
It shines everlasting, exemplifying a magnificent awe inspiring grace
which calls forth the good works in 5:16b, which are hopeful, joyful, peaceful
and loving. These are tenacious and relentless pushing away the darkness. The 16th
chapter of John verses 13-16 tell us
13 When the
Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not
speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you
the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, because he
will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the
Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and
declare it to you.
This
is the root and the ground of an overwhelming gratitude which awakens and
sustains soul, mind and body to live and mature a life of liberation, freedom
and justice. We are compelled, like
generations before, by the inner divine light to fight for a world just and
sustainable.
I
remember when I was in the Navy, I had a conversation with a good friend,
colleague and fellow chief petty Officer about our teenagers.
They had begun going through their changes, transformation, you might
say a metamorphosis. During our
conversation I shared with him that I considered the teenage years, to be a matter
of rites of passage, where the former child is leaving childhood and preparing
to become an adult. It can be a dynamic,
complex, complicated, at times confusing, yet in the long run hopeful as the human
being, one created by God, is ever more revealing the work God is doing amidst
family, friends, church and community. You could say it’s God’s coming out
party. It is a time when the shape, contour, depth and boundaries, as a means
to reveal or uncover an inner divine light are being defined more often than
not on God’s terms. Yes, this can be a most challenging time for parents and
for the teenager transitioning into adulthood and hopefully maturity. This didn’t sit well with him. Mindful of the advent season, the celebration
of the birth of Jesus Christ, each of us is called to welcome, nurture and
empower the inner divine light so that it might shine with a bold and searing
brightness for the world to see.
The
welcoming, nurturing and empowerment of the inner divine light, through all the
stages of life, is central to the processes of acceptance, strengthening, embracing
and loving of ourselves and all of God’s creation, and a heart which enables the
good works of Matthew 5:16. It is the underlying facility of an authentic life.
It is important to the fruits of the Spirit which are love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self-control, in Christ Jesus written by the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the
Galatians in chapter 5:22 and 23. These are particularly important living in a society
where movements such as the Black Lives Matter movement, the Metoo movement,
the poor people’s campaign, the sanctuary movement, and many more are
unfortunately necessary.
Seeking
the divine inner light within (1) empowers a particular mitigation of
oppression and injustice from within (2) strengthens and enlivens the soul to
engage and overcome a spiritual warfare evidenced by cultural, social, economic
and political concerns (3) One’s
apprehension of their divine inner light becomes a means, I suggest
somewhat organically, towards solidarity as they more and more embrace the
divine inner light in all people. They realize that all people are connected to
God, and this understanding allows them to interact with people from a
thoughtful loving point of view. (4) Matters of meaning and sectarianism
gradually loose scope and intensity enabling the divine inner light to overcome
those spaces where knowledge, truth, and things ethical are become
of Transformation, at least for this writer, is about seeking the divine
light within and thus it is finding that authentic sacred space of the heart
and in this sense peace beyond all understanding. Philippian 4:7 (NRSV)
The
daily injustice, oppression and abuse in American society, the embrace, by
some, of extreme ideological concerns for nostalgia, alternative facts, violence
reminiscent of Nazi Germany, and a longing for times now past, and, according
to a Washington Post article on racist Voter ID laws dated August 3, 2016, a federal
appeals court concluded that North Carolina’s voting strictures “target
African-Americans with almost surgical precision.” I suspect this extreme ideology
was meant to make America great again. From my perspective this ideology presents
me with what God called the Israelites in Exodus chapter 32 verse 9, a stiff
necked people. In focus group after focus group what is seen is a people who don’t
want to change. There are some who don’t
want life to change or move, even for what might be considered a better more
sustainable life, even if it means voting for a man accused of being a pedophile.
I ponder what else to call this time we are living through but a tragedy.
In
light of the tragic, there is an unfolding divine grace which uncovers a heart
and soul broken and contorted and in need of a religious and spiritual renewal.
This need for a religious and spiritual renewal is evidenced in the overhaul of
the tax code in favor of the 1%, their corporations and the president’s cronies
based on the discredited trickle down economics theory. It’s evident in a persistent attack on the
Affordable Care Act or Obamacare and the removal of the mandate putting the
healthcare of millions at risk. It is evident in a democracy, and its
institutions, as complicated, complex and at times wanting in the face of
corporate desires, shifting and waning amidst the cold winds of injustice.
The
tragedy of our times, those cold winds of injustice, call for those with an inner
divine light nurtured empowered and bright to bring the Good News to those held
captive and enslaved to norms established by their foreparents. To be God’s
instrument of a love unfettered by the oppressive regimes and norms which, more
often than not, codify the collective sins of a society seemingly unable, as a
whole, to accept the fullness of its history. Mindful of Rev. Theodore Parker’s
words, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice”,
the Good News of Jesus Christ is generational and strategic with the ongoing challenging,
risky and at times deadly mission to break the curse brought on by the actions
of the foreparents of this nation while setting the captives free.
I
presume no secret or grand scheme here but a simple sacred truth as received in
Matthew 5:16, that letting our light shine is about breaking down those
historical barriers which seek to deny the liberation and freedom of God’s
people. Each of us here today should seek
to nurture, nourish and empower our inner divine light, imparted to us by God, so
that a just and sustainable society might flourish in Christ. It is about serving God’s people, sharing in
their joys, sorrows, to give the most generous gift of attention.
