10/3/2023

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE READING:

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” (Matthew 5.13)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Jesus never preaches, teaches or manifests the righteousness of God by accident. He is intentional, purposeful and obedient to the will of God. What is God’s will? God’s desire is that all people would accept the truth of authentic living comes in pursuing righteousness which only comes from Him. In that regard, mighty ones of God and followers of Jesus the Christ, we are invited to know that the life of Jesus was both truth and authenticity. The revelation of God to humanity that our humanity is not the culprit of our depravity is the very person of Jesus of Nazareth, born of a woman from the House of David, obedient to God in word and deed who “walked the walk, talked the talk, talked the walk and walked the talk.” Thus, I invite you to see the intentionality which Jesus puts forward in the progression of pursuing such righteousness. It exists right “in the beginning” of Matthew’s remembrance of the Sermon on the Mount, or Luke’s remembrance of the Sermon on the Plain. It can be plain for us to see and thus have our remembrance of it lifted up from the ground to the heights of earth and Heaven.

“In the beginning…,” no, not “…God created the heavens and the earth” (He did); no, not “…was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (It was); but “…blessings come to those whose focus on life is living as it was meant to be” (the be-attitudes.) Jesus affirms all those who recognize that living life in this world by the world’s standards will always fall short of expectations set on exceeding one’s current situation. If the world is broken by sin, then the world’s standards are equally broken with exponential chaos. If we recognize “this world is not our home,” then we also can conceive that our home is not broken, not of this world and cannot be transformed nor endured by any means which this world proposes. Faithfulness to God alone was Plan A in the Garden of Eden. It never was about “not asking questions of God” as to why or why not. We are encouraged to ask questions. I invite you to consider the danger of not asking questions and not seeking clarification as it happened in the Garden. Adam and Eve operated under the shadow of doubt already before the Serpent ever slithered up in a tree to garner their attention. God was accepted as a “natural event.” God walked with them. God talked with them. God created them, imbued His Spirit into them, fashioned them with purpose and meaning and gave them the opportunity to live out the only truth they knew. They never questioned it. And that may well have been the problem: they never asked God, questioned Him or considered the “why” things were as they were. It is not a sin to ask “why and why not.” It does not mean that you are filled with doubt or evil intent to “question authority.” Such questions show a value for the truth and the desire for authenticity. If there is a real problem in this world that is singular in its existence and manifestation, it is that people have forsaken asking questions and operate mostly by assumption. Jesus did not work by assumption. Jesus lived intentionally. We can see such intentionality in His words which we have been reflecting on.

First, Jesus addresses the people who have gathered in great numbers to hear and experience Him. They are there because He has healed many and offered words of truth that many had never heard or had not heard in a long time. If we look close enough and deep enough, the “truth” they heard had been used against them by the rulers of both the Jews and the Gentiles. Jesus was in Galilee when this message was offered as a revelation of truth. They were the poor, the broken, the lame, the lost, the downcast, the suffering, the mourning, the bitter, the angry, the anxious, the confused, the outcast and put down. Jesus affirmed them and welcomed them all (as we should in each of our communities of faith). However, Jesus would not leave them as they were to go their own way. He was there to transform them, using the words of Paul, “…by the renewal of their minds.” Jesus gave them a new framework by which to receive the truth about themselves and to evaluate that truth as it would change their lives (or not.)

Second, Jesus made it personal by helping them to start connecting the dots between living in the world and not living by the world or of the world. If the people truly wanted this “new life,” some would call it the “old or original life,” then they could not remain as they were. Change was inevitable; as inevitable as flesh becomes dust as life becomes death. But, dust and death is not all that the people of God were or were meant to be. That is what the gospel really offered: there is more to “you” than meets the eye. Jesus was, in the flesh, the image of God by which the people of God were first created. A vital part of that image was the ruach, or “breath of God.” The difference between the kingdom and the world is that the world denied such a truth. The world promoted external first and then internalized it. However, Jesus promoted the internal and showed how it should be externalized. Jesus was the “truth made known.” Thus, following the eight beatitudes came the connecting truth of “persecution because of the choice to believe in the truth which Jesus taught and was.” It was more than the persecution of “sin” as the Temple leaders, scribes and Pharisees promoted those outcasts as the victims. They were the victimizers of the people by promoting their own truth as God’s truth. The people were victimized by sin but could be liberated by the truth that Jesus was, is and will always be the Christ, the Son of God.

Third, Jesus describes the new identity of those who would believe the truth and seek to live an authentic life of righteousness. To be sure, they would not be perfect. They would be perfected by seeking the truth and attempting to live authentically. It is the natural progression from confessing who we were (sinners in need of salvation), who we are (sinners in need of a savior) and who we will become (followers of the Way, the Truth and the Life.) So, from the be-attitudes (God’s Plan B) to those who are be-coming (God’s restored people following after Christ regardless), the people would have their new and renewed identity: salt of the earth, light of the world. Living righteously with the One who lived righteously without measure transforms one from being salt-less and light-less. And that is where we shall reflect upon tomorrow: to be salt and light.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN LIGHT OF GOD’S WORD:

Father, You have revealed to us best in Jesus the Christ. By Him and Him alone shall we gain the eternal life and our place in eternal rest, living for You always. Show us more and by Your Holy Spirit instruct us in the way we should go, the truth we should reveal and the life we shall live with you forever. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.