Fruit of the Spirit:
Faithfulness
Matthew 5:13-16
January 25, 2015
Mark S. Bollwinkel
You are the salt of the earth.
You are the light of the world.
Jesus doesn’t say “you can be” the
salt of the earth. He doesn’t say “you should be” the light of the world.
There’s no “ought” or “would” or “maybe” here.
You are…
The Apostle Paul writes, “…we are
the body of Christ…” (1 Corinthians 12:27)
That’s a humbling thought isn’t?
Doesn’t God have somebody else,
somebody better in mind than us? Can’t we think about it for a while?
Sing a few songs, pray for our Uncle Ernie’s flu, hear a few jokes from
the preacher?
We came here to worship this
morning, to see our friends, hear some great music. What has that got to
do with being the salt of the earth or the light of the world?
Everything.
Jesus warns those hearing the Sermon
on the Mount that under the constant pressure of persecution and oppression
their “saltiness” can be worn out, ground down.
Jesus warns us
that under the constant pressure of the contemporary culture…its appeasement,
apathy and complacency... we can lose our integrity, our “light” as citizens of
the Kingdom of God. The church can become just another social
institution like a spiritual country club or a “Rotary Club for God”. (Nothing
wrong with Rotary, great organization but the church is a different thing!)
We face the threat not of Roman
Legions or hostile crowds today but of slowly drifting away from what we really
believe and losing the passion for our faith.
Salt is essential for human survival,
it preserves food, it gives flavor. Light can make the difference
between life and death in certain situations. Yet salt can lose its
flavor and light can be hidden. If we as the church were to dry up and
disappear would anyone notice that we were gone?
The grace we’ve experienced as individuals and the compassion which
we bring to the world makes us different, distinctive. We are not
supposed to be like everybody else.
Bonnie and I met Tex Evans while we
worked for the Methodist church in Kenya 38 years ago. Tex was with the
group of United Methodist dignitaries touring East Africa. Bishop Lawi
Imatheu asked us to take this group on a tour of church projects and the near-by
game park to see the animals.
We piled the ten or so people into
the back of our Land Rover and took off. Mel and Ethellu Talbert were in
the front seat, he being the Executive Director of the United Methodist Board
of Discipleship at the time, not yet having been elected a Bishop.
Tex was working for the National Board of Evangelism.
It was easy to see why.
Everywhere we went he would jump out
of the truck and rush off to greet some people. Outside of a Methodist
school where we stopped to inspect the work, he gathered a crowd of 60 children
around him and did magic tricks, teaching them songs. When we stopped at the Maua Hospital
he didn’t stay with the tour but went off to the children’s ward to tell
stories and make them laugh.
When we finally made it to the game park it was mid-afternoon; hot
and dusty. I saw a herd of elephants in the distance and tried one the
tricks I had learned from a friend. I pulled up to a spot in the road
that would intersect with the herd, turned off the engine and instructed
everyone to be quiet.
In a few minutes, the elephants were
walking right around us, just feet away, sniffing a bit but bothering no one.
The tourists were nervous, especially Mrs. Talbert. All of a
sudden, Tex Evans, opened the back of the Land Rover, jumped out hollering and
waving his hands.
The elephants weren’t phased that
much. Mrs. Talbert was, indeed! She was furious! She told me
Tex had been pulling stuff like that everywhere they went. He got back
into the truck with a laugh and a boast about getting the best photograph in
the group of an elephant’s behind and we took off down the road.
Rev. Evan had spent his life
pastoring churches in the poorest areas of the Appalachian Mountains and the
worst ghettos of Los Angeles, with the same kind of energy and humor and love
he demonstrated in the few days I knew him.
He stuck out like a sore thumb.
He was different. Unique. Special. He knew the love of
God for him deep in his heart of heart and he wasn’t going to keep it to
himself. He was the salt of the earth.
Just like we are.
We don’t all have to be raging
extroverts and entertainers. We don’t all have to be missionaries or
clergy going off to dangerous places. Defining our lives by love and
grace in the workplace, in our homes or at school makes us counter-cultural in
a society of “what’s in it for me” entitlement and conspicuous consumption.
That’s one of the reasons we come to
church Sunday mornings. Along with prayer and study and service, worship
keeps us ‘salty’, keeps the fire of our faith burning within.
Oh, I know, you can worship anywhere, at the beach, in the
mountains, while playing golf. But as Theodore Roosevelt once said, “You
may worship God anywhere at any time but the chances are that you will not do
so unless you have first learned to worship God somewhere in some particular
place, at some particular time."
In corporate worship we move from being separate people with a
common need to be fed by God to become a community with a common mission to
feed others. That’s what worship can do if we let it.
A weekly diet of music and inspiration and prayer begins to rub off
on you. Pretty soon the idealism of our beliefs begins to make sense.
We come here often enough and pretty soon we might find ourselves
praying for the healing of a stranger; bringing cans of food for the poor;
volunteering to tutor children in local schools. Pretty soon we will care as
much about the people who aren’t here as the people who are.
Just imagine what a lifetime of
worship and service would do to a normal person!
This is a
training ground for ‘salty’, light shining human beings.
It was a traumatic experience for
us. She stayed in the hospital for three days. I stayed at the
Methodist Guest House.
While doing my laundry there one day, Tex Evans popped his head
into the laundry room to say ‘good-bye’. Their tour was over and they
were returning to the USA. He had heard about our crisis.
Before he could say “hello”, he told
me a story of the last time he was in the hospital. He
was just coming out of surgery, when we woke up with a nurse by his bedside.
He kept his eyes closed and whispered, “Nurse, nurse, come closer”.
“Yes Rev. Evans” she replied. “Nurse, am I dead?” “No, Rev.
Evans, you’re alive!” “Oh, I took one look at you and I thought you were
an angel and I was in heaven!”
We laughed. He gave me a big hug and said, “Your sweetheart
is going to be alright.”
Tex Evans died of cancer about three
months after he left Kenya. Nobody knew he was in pain. He never
complained or let on how serious his condition was. He just spent every
last breathe on earth, loving others, making them laugh, giving out hugs and
pointing to the God who had redeemed his life.
Amazing what a life time of study
and prayer and worship will do for you. Amazing how the commitment to do something
good for somebody else can end up transforming our lives. Isn’t that what
faith is all about?
We are the light of the world; that light can’t be hidden on top of
a hill or under a basket. Let your light shine so all may see your good works and
give glory to God with whatever gifts God has given you, in your own way and in
your own time.
As Bishop Wesley Frensdorff once put it, “I dream of a church so
salty and so yeasty that it would be missed if we were no longer around”.*
Amen.
*(“Reshaping
Ministry: Essays in Memory of Wesley Frensdorff”, Josephine Borgeson and Lynne
Wilson, Editors, Jethro Publications, Arvada, CO, 1990)
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