"Be Holy"

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.'” There you have it. The mandate for the Christian life. God is holy; therefore go ye and do likewise. Even Jesus said, “You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” You must be perfect. Get out there and do it.

At least that that is the way much of “churchianity” casts the Christian life. God is perfect, and He requires you to be also. Maybe we can start with the joys of the grace that awakens you to Him and to His kingdom, but then you better make the right choice between death and life, good and evil.

If you are going to be perfect, you need to spend more time in devotions. You need to spend more time in quiet meditation, opening yourself up to hearing the still, small voice of God in your heart. You need to get out there and do the work of the kingdom. You need to have a well-ordered house, well-groomed and well-behaved children, and a well-tempered husband. You need to attend a Spirit-filled church and receive a spiritual good feeling from your worship experience. You need to keep growing and improving, and you need to stop sinning, or at least cut down as much as you can. Because if you are not improving, you are backsliding, and maybe you do not have enough faith, or you do not love Jesus hard enough, or something.

Be Reconciled

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Very often, when a doctor wants to make a diagnosis, he has to look at your insides. Thankfully, we have come a long way since the days when the only way to do that was “exploratory” surgery, where he literally went in just to take a look around to see what was going on. That’s how surgery was invented, and thanks be to God, things have progressed far beyond cutting you open just to take a look inside. Today there are a variety of means at your doctor’s disposal, everything from ultrasounds and X-rays, to various kinds of CAT scans and MRI scans that can deliver a picture of what’s going on inside you.

 

That is what is going on in today’s Gospel reading and this part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is taking the Law into His own hands, literally into His own mouth, and explicating in such a way that you get a good look at your insides. There is a line from a famous Lutheran hymn that goes:

The Law is but a mirror bright
To bring the inbred Sin to light
That lurks within our nature.

Jesus is delving into the depths of your hearts to assess your internal condition. Not simply your hands and eyes, but your hearts. Not simply the external symptoms we call sins, but the internal condition called Sin that necessitates your being baptized in Christ and being born again from above. Not just the outward action here, but the inward orientation and attitude.

 

Foolish Salt

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“As presumptuous as it sounds, we Christians are the reason that God preserves the world and does not destroy it right now.” One of my seminary professors once struck at the heart of today's Gospel lesson this way, and it is perhaps a worthwhile entry into Jesus' discourse.

Jesus says to His disciples, “You are the salt of the earth.” Oceans of ink have been spilled onto forests of paper debating what this means. You all know what salt is and what it does. It is one of the most necessary compounds on the planet, right up there with water and oxygen. Salt is one of those things that makes the world go round. Wars have been fought and nations built on the salt of the earth.

But, “if the salt becomes foolishness, in what way will it be made salty?” Salt is a preservative. Aeons ago, salt was practically the only preservative known to man. And it still is the most common way to preserve food throughout the world. And so also you are the salt of the earth. You – the Church – are the preservative of the world.

Barrenness and the Firstborn

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Lord closed Hannah's womb. She was afflicted with the burden of barrenness, the cross of childlessness. Her suffering was compounded by the rich fertility of her husband's other wife, who bore him many children, and received from Elkanah the recompense for her labor. Hannah was tormented not only by the failure of her own flesh, but by the taunting and despising of her own household. Though Elkanah her husband loved her, there was nothing he could do about her pitiable condition.

Why was this the situation? Why did our Lord choose to close Hannah's womb, and to open the womb of Peninah over and over? Why some and not others? This is the question that virtually everyone asks with respect to some desired state at some time in life. For the barren woman, or couple, this is a daily plea: “Why me, O Lord?” The Lord gives abundantly to some, and withholds from others. The answer, for those who live under the sun, is that we do not know. The Lord gives, and the Lord withholds – blessed be the Name of the Lord.