Introduction
For the past couple of weeks I have been talking with you about being the Church, being faithful Christians, and living counter to the culture we find ourselves immersed within today.
We kicked off the new year in the life of the church two weeks ago and in the sermon for that day I encouraged us all to follow the teachings of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans to strive to present ourselves as living sacrifices to God, to renew our minds by focusing not on the ways of the world, but on the ways of God. Do these things, Paul says, and transformation will come—do these things and we will be “all in Christians.”
Then last week we continued to go deeper into the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, looking at it as a kind of textbook with practical and real life instruction to live out and share our Christian faith through the commandment Jesus gave, and was being emphasized by Paul, to love our neighbor as ourselves. Paul was reminding us that while it is critically important to love, it is even more important to show that love, to express that love, to share that love, for it is love that is the foundation of our faith and how we live and enact our faith.
The Apostle Paul was establishing the church in the first century, and these were chief among his instructions for the church to be Church—noting that this is the Christian way of life even in times when it is really hard to be the church. Paul’s words are just as relevant and true today as they were in the first century.
I recap all that because we are at the end of September, days away from tipping over into October, and there are some matters regarding the church and being the church that are critical for us to grasp and be prepared for as we move deeper into the Fall season. Next week is World Communion Sunday, and then we get into focusing on our Consecration Campaign, and then before we know it we are starring the first of November in the face, which means today is when we need to get ourselves ready and focused for the next several weeks—weeks that will be critical for followers of Christ to be ready and focused on being the church because there is a crucial need for the church to be Church and for followers of Christ to follow Christ.
And this is true because the time has come, and the time is now. And what time is it? Well we’ll get to that, but first we need to consider what time it has been.
Move 1
This past week we saw the total of coronavirus related deaths surpass 200,000, all while we keep hearing more and more talk about an approaching “fall surge” of COVID cases. And yet there still remain debates and fights—verbal and physical—over the idea of wearing a mask.
Then there is the political environment that is only getting more and more vicious and surreal. The death of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg has revealed next level political posturing. The news around Brianna Taylor has sparked outrage that has sparked outrageous reactions and unthinkable violence.
And then throw in for fun people who are literally defacing and stealing presidential signs from yards, some even to the point of putting them in mailboxes and blowing them up. Akron Beacon Journal writer Bob Dyer, wrote a September 17 piece entitled “What is wrong with us?” citing numerous local accounts of this ongoing and ever increasing string of vandalism, defacement, and menacing being perpetuated against signs from both major candidates.
Then throw in the ongoing struggles, as well as the disregarding, of race relations in our country AND right here in our very own community of Stow-Munroe Falls. You might recall I am serving on a community task force, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Committee, created to address race relations in our community, and there are some who feel the work of this committee is senseless and unnecessary. I wish I was joking.
We are living in divided times. But not only are we divided politically and racially, we are living in a time when we are divided physically one from another, unable to come to the one place meant for us to not only be safe, but nurtured and cared for; inspired and motivated; comforted and made confident—all by God our Creator and Christ Jesus our Savior.
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Now maybe you’re thinking, “Gee Rev., now I feel even worse. Thanks.” I couldn’t blame you if you were thinking this because this is not a happy message. But if you stick with me a little longer, I think you’ll find it is a faithful one, because here is the thing…
Maybe you are like me and you look back on where we have been, and you look ahead to what’s to come, you prepare to flip the calendar to October with a heavy heart, with weariness, with trepidation. There is a lot happening in our country, and it seems like October 2020 is going to be a most revealing month for it all. If that is the case for you—and there is heaviness, weariness, and trepidation in turning the calendar to October—then I hope you will prepare to turn the calendar like me… with welcomed indignation.
This is the reality of our day, and we need to not just be aware of it (and not just beware of it) but we need to see it for what it is, what it really is, and get to work doing the faithful work that we have been prepared to do throughout our entire spiritual journey. This time we are in, right now, this hard, ugly, unimaginable, divisive time we are in, is EXACTLY why we have been going to church for all these years. This, right now, is EXACTLY why we have been deepening our faith, drawing closer to the divine, offering our gifts in service to God and others. All of it—each and every moment of our faith development, of our spiritual walk, has been so that in a time such as today, and the coming weeks, that we will live and share and be who God has been crafting us to be. This is the time when everyone needs us to be who we say we are.
And this is what fuels my welcomed indignation. And I hope it fuels yours too, because it’s what Jesus wants of us.
Move 2
In the middle of his Sermon on the Mount Jesus looks out over his followers and proclaims, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” (v. 13)
Those are tough words, but in order to understand them, we need to grasp them from a first-century perspective. While salt in water is largely a pain for us humans, salt minus the water has long been a blessing for us humans. It’s proved so valuable because of its many uses that it has, in history, been used as currency and fought for in wars. Salt could be used to cure and store meats, disinfect wounds and make food, pottery and more.
And although it’s tempting to isolate one of its usages as the central meaning behind the metaphor Jesus used, to do so would be to oversimplify. Salt, in general, was loved not for just one of its uses but because it had so many uses. It was an unexpected blessing in a thousand ways. Understand this about salt, and we hear what Jesus is saying differently.
Jesus’ point is that those who belong to him, who live out his teachings, are just like salt— incredibly useful and astonishingly valuable. Not because we enhance a great steak but because we can make the kingdom of God known on earth as it is in heaven. We have the ability to tell people about God’s grace and love through the way we cling to Christ, the way we love our enemies, feed the needy, strive to keep our promises, the way we admit our faults and shortcomings, and so much more—which Jesus goes on to outline later in his Sermon on the Mount.
The body of Christ, those who have willingly accepted God’s grace and have been brought to life in Christ’s love, have an astonishing usefulness in this hurting world when we respond to that grace by walking in love, by offering love. And we do this when we recognize the time has come for Christians to be Christians. The time is now for Christ followers to follow Christ and be what Christ has called us to be—salt of the earth, light of the world.
Conclusion
Retired Episcopal bishop and academic, Rev. Stephan Charleston recently wrote,
Now is the moment for which a lifetime of faith has prepared you. All of those years of prayer and study, all of the worship services, all of the time devoted to community faith: it all comes down to this, this sorrowful moment when life seems chaotic and the anarchy of fear haunts the thin borders of reason. Your faith has prepared you for this. It has given you the tools you need to respond: to proclaim justice while standing for peace.
Long ago the spirit called you to commit your life to faith. Now you know why. You are a source of strength for those who have lost hope. You are a voice of calm in the midst of chaos. You are a steady light in the days of darkness. The time has come to be what you believe.
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If you are like me and you’re looking at the weeks ahead with a heavy heart, with weariness, with trepidation, then I hope you are preparing to turn the calendar like me… with welcomed indignation.
Let us welcome the heaviness because it will move us to act. Let us welcome the weariness because it will remind us others are too. Let us welcome the trepidation because it will make us lean into our faith that tells us “with God all things are possible.” It is what we have been prepared to do our entire spiritual lives.
The time has come for followers of Christ to be the salt of the earth. The time is now for the church to let the light of Christ shine bright. The time has come; the time is now, for us to be what we believe. With God’s help, may it be so. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer, September 27, 2020
Gracious God, we thank you for the high calling in Christ Jesus to be your people. We praise you for the privilege of embodying your life of love, forgiveness and justice to the world. We gladly receive the responsibility to be salt and light, knowing we will often fail to live up to who you have called us to be, but thankful nonetheless for the opportunity to respond to the mercy and grace you have poured into our lives.
So as we prepare ourselves for whatever may come in the next few weeks Holy God, we pray you make us ready to not add to the chaos and vitriol, but to be counter cultural to it by sharing the mercy and grace you have poured into our lives.
Help us to raise awareness of the fact that too many of your children are hurting and begging to be heard and accepted.
Help us to be a non-anxious presence in an anxious time—but not in a way that dismisses the reality around us, but rather acknowledges it, while offering a word of hope and encouragement—speaking from the faith we as your believers hold: that you are at work, and your work is always for good.
Help us to know truth from lies, to know love from hate, and then to counter the lies and hate with truth and love.
Arouse within us then, we pray O God, such joy in serving you and others; such compassion for the friendless and downcast; and such empathic indignation at the plight of the abused, exploited and stigmatized that we cannot remain silent, will not remain uninvolved and will not accept life as usual. Convict us in our comfort, and inspire us to a new vision of what it means to bear witness to your kingdom and to salt this world with the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Hear now, we ask, the prayers we have to lift to you in this time of Holy Silence.
All this we pray in the name of Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior, who taught us to pray, saying, “Our…