What we do matters - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Matthew 5:13-20 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Salt and Light

13 “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.

14 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 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. 16 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.

The Law and the Prophets

17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 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. 19 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. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

________________________

The following is the sermon originally preached by me, Rev. Sarah Locke, at Redeemer Episcopal Church for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany on February 9, 2020. You can read the manuscript below, or listen to the sermon (with infusions from the Spirit) at this link. You should definitely listen to the sermon, though, because it's way better than this manuscript. 

God of everlasting light, encourage us to reveal your love and Christ’s holiness to the entire world through our actions every day. Sustain us by your own grace and mercy. Amen. 

I think I have said it in every sermon during this season, but it worth repeating: the season of Epiphany is all about Jesus being revealed as the Son of God and the savior of the world. This season is about the proof that God came into this world to save this world through Christ Jesus. It is a joyous season, and one that is full of good imagery of light and revelation. 

But this gospel text doesn’t seem to have much of anything to do with Jesus. On the contrary, the text is part of the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus teaches his followers. It seems that this text is less about Jesus and a whole lot more about us. 

For a season that is supposed to focus on the spreading of the gospel to the whole world that Jesus Christ came into the world to save the whole world, this text doesn’t really seem like it fits. 

But when Christ comes into the world as a tiny baby on Christmas morning, it is not Christ himself who goes around telling people what has happened. It’s all of the faithful people witnessing the night— it’s the wise men and the shepherds, it’s the innkeeper. 

When Mary brings Jesus to the temple for presentation, it’s not Jesus himself proclaiming that God has done marvelous things, it’s those who have waited and watched for so long, Simeon and Anna. 

When Jesus begins his ministry near the Jordan, he is not the one pointing to himself and causing a raucous. It’s someone else, this voice in the wilderness called John the Baptizer. 

It seems, throughout history, there are countless voices calling out and proclaiming that Christ is the savior of the world, come to save the world. Even now, we hear people proclaiming this truth in every aspect of our lives. 

Our very own mission statement for Redeemer is “Love God and bring people to Christ.” We are called to proclaim this truth as well. But how to we do it? I think it’s one of those questions that might take the entire year to tackle, and I definitely know I’ll be talking about it again next week. How, exactly, do we bring people to Christ? 

During our first dinner on campus this semester, I bought tons of pizza and drinks for the students and we had a party. It was wonderful. People had caught wind of the pizza party— or they could smell it from down the hallway— and we had over twenty students at our very first dinner. It was wonderful. As we were eating and catching up, another student walked in and asked if he could grab some pizza. “Of course!” We exclaimed! “Come join us!” He grabbed four pieces of pizza, a cup of soda, and promptly left. 

My students were furious. But not for the reason you might think. You see, they wanted desperately to share their fellowship with him. They wanted him to join because they love the community they’ve created there.

The students wanted to tell this student about their love and their community, but instead they had to simply demonstrate it by allowing someone to come into their community and be welcomed, regardless of his response. All they could do was let their light, the light of Christ, shine through their radical hospitality for this student. About twenty minutes later, in the middle of our conversation about this radial hospitality we are called to share with all people we encounter, the student came back— with his girlfriend— and grabbed two more slices of pizza. But instead of being angry, or perhaps in spite of being angry, our students smiled and greeted them, inviting them to take a cookie or two as well. 

There’s no telling whether or not that student and his girlfriend will come back to any of our gatherings or if they could name their experience as a proclamation of the fellowship of Christ Jesus, but that is what our group students demonstrated that evening. Instead of simply saying we are a welcoming community, they demonstrated it. They put their light on a lamp stand for the whole household to see and let their light shine before others, so that they may see their good works. Good works that reflect the love that Christ has for the entire world.

It does, of course, matter what we say and what we believe. This is of utmost importance. It is why we spend so much time learning about Jesus on Sunday mornings, in our small groups, and in catechism class. But what the world sees are the things that we do. 

What Jesus describes in his sermon on the mount is not about the proper way to talk about the coming of the kingdom of God. He doesn’t give us an outlines of how to construct a good sermon or the points we need to make to convince someone of the gospel truth. Perhaps it would be easier for us to talk about our faith if he had. “Top seven things to say to convince someone to become a Christian!” 

No, what Jesus teaches in the sermon on the mount is not about words. It’s about action. There’s a reason the bishop’s Way of Love consists of seven VERBS. Revealing God’s love in Christ Jesus to the entire world has very little to do with our words, and almost everything to do with our actions. 

I’ve been here at Redeemer for almost a year, and I am so encouraged by how we share God’s love with the world through action. The light of Christ shines so brightly through ministries like the food pantry and the support you give to the campus ministry. You can taste the good wonderful saltiness of this congregation in the HOPE outreach ministries the partnerships nurtured there. It would be easy to hide our light under a bushel basket or keep it to ourselves, but instead we have Ladies Night and Grill and Chill that invites people in from the community. We have a youth ministry that so faithfully shares the love of God with young people. 

And in our individual lives, I have heard beautiful stories of God’s light shining through you. And what I think he truly beautiful about this community is that we do it because we want to share the love of Christ with people. We are truly devoted to the mission of the church in loving God and bringing people to Christ. 

Let us continue to go forth into the world, revealing to the world God’s incredible light, the son God gave to us and to the whole world for the salvation of all people. Amen. 

Point to Christ - Redeemer Episcopal Church

John 1:29-42 

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, "After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.' 31 I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel." 32 And John testified, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, "He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' 34 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God." 35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" 39 He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. 41 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed). 42 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter).

___________

This sermon was originally preached by me, Rev. Sarah Locke, at Redeemer Episcopal Church on January 19, 2020. You can read the sermon below, or listen to it at the link here. 

God of grace, give us the courage and strength to point to you in everything that we do and how we live our lives, so that others might come and see that Christ Jesus is the messiah, meant for the whole world. Amen.

I have always been a very visual person. I have a hard time remembering anything unless it is written down or put into a picture. Perhaps that is why, of all of the things we studied when I was in seminary, what I remember most are the pieces of religious artwork. 

One painting in particular comes to mind whenever we talk about John the Baptist, not only because it is one of the most famous, but because it says the most in its detail. 

Fifteenth century artist Matthias Grunewald painted a particularly graphic depiction of the Crucifixion of Jesus called the Isenheim Altarpiece. On Jesus’ right is his mother Mary, being held as she faints, by the beloved disciple. To the left of the cross is John the Baptist, which is a little weird since John was dead for several months or even years before Jesus’ crucifixion, but apparently he was taking some artistic liberties. 

Anyway, John the Baptist is standing there with the Hebrew Scriptures in his left hand and with his right, he is pointing with this long bony, unnatural looking finger to the cross where Jesus hangs. At John’s feet is a snow-white lamb, and out of his mouth comes the Latin script, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” 

This painting of John the baptist pointing to Christ is what the Gospel narrative is all about. 

All of John the Baptist’s ministry is about pointing to Christ, taking the attention away from himself, and putting Jesus first. 

Imagine this scene: John the baptist is a fairly popular preacher and prophet at this point, baptizing people in the Jordan River day after day and preaching about the coming of the son of man. He has crowds surrounding him and people following his every word. But as soon as Jesus shows up, he continues this preaching while pointing directly at Jesus. “This is him! This is the one I’ve been talking about!” I can almost imagine him jumping up and down and waving his arm frantically to get everyone’s attention: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” And immediately, some of John’s disciples leave to follow Jesus. I imagine it take a lot of humility to watch that happen— to watch the people who have been following you for years leave to follow someone else. But then again, everything that John is, is caught up in who Jesus is. John is because Jesus is. There is no separation from that. 

The season that we are in, the season of Epiphany, is about the manifestation of Christ to the entire world, it’s about pointing to the light of Christ and saying, “it’s him: he is the light of the world, he is the messiah.” Or as John the Baptist proclaimed, “"Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” 

This painting of John the baptist pointing to Christ is what a life of discipleship is all about. This is what is means to be a disciple of Christ, this is at the heart of what it means to be Christian. We are called to point to Christ in all aspects of our lives. 

Increasing our proclamation of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection to the point that people can’t separate our identity from Christ’s identity. 

This is not an easy call. It is a call that put the disciples into hiding and ended up making many Christian martyrs. It is something that must be practiced and disciplined constantly. And the only way we can orient our lives toward Christ is if we know Christ. And to know Christ, we must know this story: the story, that from the beginning, points toward the incredible life-giving grace of God. It requires study, and prayer, and relationship. It is, quite literally my job to point to Christ in how I live my life, and even I’m not that good at it!

But friends, the good news is that no matter whether we are always pointing vehemently to Christ, whether we are led astray by the temptations of the world, or whether we are just too darn defeated to point or be pointed toward our God, the Messiah still comes.  The lamb of God still enters the world to take away the sin of the world.  The light still shines in the darkness… and the darkness will not, can not overcome it.  God promised a Messiah, and regardless of ourselves, God keeps God’s promise. 

  

Karl Bart wrote, “all of theology is in that single, bony, finger.”

Our call every day is to take every opportunity as an opportunity to point the bony finger.  Point to Christ.  

Baptized in the waters we cannot help but raise a bony finger pointing to Christ.  Pointing to the Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Baptized in these waters, we can’t help but invite people into this community and into this new way of life. And all we have to do is follow Christ’s example and say, “come and see.” Amen.