Jesu Juva
“Be Who You Are”
Text: Matthew 5:13-20 (1 Corinthians 2:1-16; Isaiah 58:3-9a)
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
You are . . . That’s what Jesus said today. Not you should be or must be or need to be - you are. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. These are not commands, but realities. You are these things because you are a child of God. This is what Jesus made you when He baptized you and gave you His Spirit. This is why God has not only saved you, but blessed you. Not just so you can sit there and be blessed in your blessedness! But to use you as His blessing to others, just as He uses others to bless you.
So when you live as the child of God you are, living in the words and promises of God, living by faith, praying, forgiving, loving, serving, at work, in school, in your families, you are salt that seasons and preserves the world. A world that has settled for the blandness of the now over the eternal, and the rottenness of sin over the soundness of life in Christ. The world needs Christians, for the world needs Christ. I don’t think it a coincidence that as regular church attendance has fallen (at least in the West), that sin, death, confusion, and lostness has risen.
And in the same way, when you live as the child of God you are, you are a light that shines in a dark and sinful world. Showing the world a different way. Exposing sin and sinful ways, but also showing love and forgiveness. In the darkness of sin, we don’t know who we are, where we are, or where we are going. But in the light of Christ, we know who we are, whose we are, and can follow Him. The world needs this, too.
Now, certainly, (and I think it is as true for you as it is for me), we have not lived as the children of God we are, and not been as salty or as bright as we should have been. Instead, I find myself trying to season and preserve myself. It’s all about me, and my life, my sin, my pleasures, my ease, my desires, rather than love and serve others. And rather than shining the light of Christ’s love and forgiveness, I’ve left that light on the shelf. Frankly, doing nothing is easier. So I need to repent. Maybe you, too.For God would be justified throwing me out for not being who He created me to be. For not rejoicing in Him and the life and gifts He’s given me. So, we pray, have mercy on me, O Lord, a sinner.
But we shouldn’t stop there, with these words of Jesus. I think there’s more to this, these verses today, than just that. For while, yes, it’s easier not to be salt and light in this rotten, dark and sinful world, not to be who we are, it’s also safer.
Because you may remember the Holy Gospel we heard last week, the Beatitudes. Blessed are you . . . blessed are you, Jesus said. Well, remember the last two that He said? Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake . . . Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. And then right after saying those words about persecution, Jesus says, You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. I don’t think they’re unconnected. So I think we could re-word those last two Beatitudes . . . Blessed are you when you are reviled and persecuted for being the salt and light you are. Because you will be.
Because there’s more than one way for salt to become unsalty and get thrown out, and for lights to be extinguished. Here’s what I mean . . . I’ll tell you a story. True story . . .
When I was in college, a group of us would always eat breakfast together. And one of the guys would always get scrambled eggs and salt them. Vigorously! And not a little! So one morning, we decided to prank him. He left his tray on the table to go get a drink, and we salted his eggs. A lot! I mean, like half the shaker. And we mixed all that salt in so he couldn’t see it. When he came back with his drink, he then - vigorously! - also put his normal, giant amount of salt on his eggs! And we sat there waiting for his face to pucker up because of all that salt . . . and nothing. He ate them like there was was nothing wrong, as if we hadn’t put any extra salt on at all! You see, for him, the salt had become unsalty. It wasn’t the salt’s fault - it was him. He simply couldn’t taste it anymore.
I think that happens in the world. We are God’s salt as His children in the places He has put us and for the people He has given us, but there will be people who cannot taste the salt anymore. They are so steeped in sin and comfortable with their sin that the salt we are is ignored; they simply can’t taste it anymore. Or, they can, and, Jesus is saying, and they don’t care - they throw us out and trample us underfoot. They don’t want to be seasoned or preserved from sin. It is who they are. So you have to go. You might have experienced that. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. Maybe you’ve even done it to those trying to help you! It is being persecuted for righteousness’ sake.
And the same is true with light. You’ve probably experienced this, or done it yourself . . . when the sun comes up in the morning, but you don’t want to get up! Or when your Mom or Dad come in and turn the light on to get you up for school or church . . . You pull the blankets up over your head to extinguish the light. You might even throw a pillow or a slipper at whoever turned the light on for you. You don’t want it.
And the world often doesn’t want the light either. The light of the good works you do, which bring glory to your Father in heaven. Oh, some of those good works are okay, if you’re just being nice, or doing what the world think is nice. But do the good work of calling out their sin, or working against their sin, and they might pull the blankets up to ignore you, or even throw the book of the law at you. Laws enacted to enable and protect what God has called sin. Be like them or leave them alone; live and let live. Or you will be persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Like the apostle Paul was, and the prophet Isaiah was, and the saints and martyrs who came before us were.
That’s who you are and that’s the reality we live in. So what’s a Christian to do?
Well, be who you are. Not because you’ve been threatened. I don’t think that’s what Jesus is doing here. Be salt or get thrown out! Be who you are because you’ve received the incredible gift of being a child of God. Because you’ve received a righteousness that does, in fact, exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees!
Which, I might add, would have been a completely shocking statement to those that heard Jesus say that. Because the scribes and Pharisees . . . no one tried harder than them! No one was more righteous than them. Today, it would be like saying that to enter the kingdom of heaven, you have to be a greater quarterback and win more super bowls than Tom Brady. Or be faster than the fastest marathoner, who can somehow run 26 sub-five-minute-miles in a row! Or be a greater soccer player than Messi. It just ain’t gonna happen.
But here’s another reality for you; another thing you are: righteous! Not that you should be or must be or need be - you are. Because when you were baptized, you received the incredible gift of being a child of God and given - gifted! - the righteousness of Christ. For as hard as the scribes and Pharisees tried, and as righteous as they were in the eyes of the world, they could not fulfill the law. They were not righteous in God’s eyes. But you are. Oh, not righteous in the eyes of a world that calls good evil and evil good, but righteous in God’s eyes - the exact opposite of the scribes and Pharisees. And you are not because Jesus came to abolish the law and the prophets, to lower the bar and make life easier for you, but because He fulfilled them to give you a new life to live.
And because He did, you know what happened to Him . . . what He said today! He was thrown out and trampled underfoot. The light of His good words and deeds was extinguished on the cross and sealed in a tomb so they would never have to deal with Him and His salt and light again. So they could live as they wanted, unbothered, unconvicted, comfortable. And condemned.
But God is a God of life. He is life and gives life and will not stand idly by while death does its thing. He didn’t in the Garden when sin came into the world - He swooped in and rescued His children and gave them the promise of a Saviour. And then that Saviour came. To be the salt of the earth. To be the light of the world. And to do what we could never do: fulfill the law and the prophets. To save us. To save us from our unsaltiness and darkness, and to save us from a world that doesn’t want us. To bless us and give us life now, and to promise us a life of blessedness forever.
So Jesus went to the cross. He was put there, yes. But really, He put Himself there. No one could have taken His life from Him had He not chosen to lay it down for us (John 10:18). So He went to the cross to be thrown out for us, to be trampled for us, and then to rise from the dead for us. Because that’s how you make salty salt. You can’t make it salty again, but you can make it new salt. Risen from the dead salt. And this, too: risen from the dead, the light of Jesus and His forgiveness and life - that they tried to extinguish! - shine more brightly than ever.
And because that’s who He is, that’s who you are. Because you’ve been baptized into Him. And His Body and Blood have been fed into you. And His forgiveness has given you His perfect righteousness. You’ve been raised to a new life in Jesus, salty, bright, and righteous. We have the mind of Christ, as Paul said. That’s who you are.
And yes, you’ll be persecuted for that. But there is no persecution greater than His love.
And yes, you’ll fail to live up to who you are. Instead of thinking with the mind of Christ, the world and its thinking will creep in. But there is no failure greater than His forgiveness and His restoring righteousness.
And yes, one day you’ll die and be buried as Jesus was (unless Jesus comes back first!). But though you die, you will not pass away. You’ll pass from this life to the next, for there is no grave stronger than His resurrection.
So be who you are. For blessed are you. Not because you do these things, but because Jesus did and blessed you with them. To be salty and bright in the ways Jesus said last week: poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, and peacemakers. These things season, preserve, and enlighten our dark, rotting, sinful, evil world. You don’t have to be an influencer, or rich or powerful or well-known. Just be who you are in Christ. A child of God. And that’s enough. Actually, it’s more than enough. It’s exactly what this world needs.
In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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