Sermon: Faithful Presence

Scripture Text: Matthew 5:13-16

Quotes for Reflection

Pliny the Elder, Natural History
But of all the things that are necessary to the life of man, nothing is more useful than salt and sunshine.

Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace
If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.

George Elliot (Mary Ann Evans), Middle March
For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

N.T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone
Our present passage, then, is a kind of gateway to all that will follow, and its theme is clear. Jesus is calling the Israel of his day to be Israel indeed, now that he is there. What he says here can now be applied to all Christians, but its original meaning was a challenge to Jesus’ own contemporaries. God had called Israel to be the salt of the earth; but Israel was behaving like everyone else, with its power politics, its factional squabbles, its militant revolutions. How could God keep the world from going bad – the main function of salt in the ancient world – if Israel, his chosen ‘salt’, had lost its distinctive taste?

Application Questions

1. In what ways has the church lost its saltiness in our culture? How might we reclaim our identity as salt and light in a way that impacts our society?

2. Why is our physical presence in a place essential to understanding God’s ongoing work in the world?

3. Faithful presence embraces limitations and includes staying close to the light, being rooted in place, and discerning with commitments. Which of these areas is God inviting you to focus on in your current season of life?