Sermons from St Faith's
The Salt of the Earth
Fr Dennis Smith, February 9th, 2014
Being a light to the world isn’t always as straightforward as we
might like it to be. For one thing, when a stranger learns that
you’re a religious person it’s often the cue for a long
apologetic explanation of why they don’t go to church. Alternatively
it can be a rigorous questioning along the lines of “surely you
don’t believe in the Virgin Birth?” or “Why does a good God allow
disasters and suffering?” Rarely does it turn into an encouraging
conversation with a fellow-believer. You, as representative of
Christianity have to answer for the whole history and beliefs of the
Church from the day of Pentecost onwards. This wouldn’t be so bad if
the questioner hadn’t already decided what it is you believe, and
fails to listen to your personal testimony.
Behind all this lies the mismatch between what the faith is and the
life of the Church, imperfect as it is. There’s also an assumption
that church attendance and the observance of religious ritual
constitutes true religion.
As he called us to bear witness in the world like salt and light,
Jesus also said we had to be better than the religious people he saw
around him. The paradox he unfolds is that the law of God set out in
the first five books of the Bible together with the commentary of
the prophets, is eternal.
It is the key to the Kingdom of Heaven.
However, the experts in its interpretation, the Pharisees and
Doctors of the Law, are poor examples of what the law requires.
Jesus calls his disciples to observe and teach the law of God as the
way into the Kingdom. They have to succeed where the people who make
their living out of religion have failed. It’s a daunting
proposition. Jesus has in mind a strand of teaching found in both
the law and the prophets, the strand that says true religion isn’t
about what rituals you perform, but how you live your life. Rituals
are valuable, but only so far as they discipline you in living a
truly religious life. Isaiah is quite clear on the point. Even the
apparent self-denial of fasting can be ultimately selfish. The
master fasting may be driving his servants to ever hasrder work to
make up for his absence.
Different religious groups may have rancorous argument ts over what
constitutes proper fasting. This isn’t an Old Testament matter
alone. The history of the Christian Church is littered with such
arguments. Christians haven’t only fought each other, but killed
each other in the arguments over what is the orthodox faith. The
prophet argues that true self-denial is to put oneself at the
service of others. Fighting injustice is one example he gives.
Another is the personal service you can give to the hungry and
homeless. Doing our duty by our family can be irksome, but that’s a
proper act of self-denial. But if we want to speak with God, that’s
the way we’ll get an answer. It’s not just saying the right words
which put us in touch with the divine; it’s being in the right frame
of mind, a frame of mind formed out of our concern for the other
children of God who are around us. In other words what we
believe should shape who we are. Faith isn’t a disguise we can
adopt; faith goes to the core of our being.
Philip Doddridge is celebrated for his academy in Northampton where,
in the eighteenth century, he trained nonconformist ministers. He
wrote a popular Bible commentary for lay people. But his concerns
went well beyond academic theology. He was one of the chief movers
in giving Northampton an infirmary.
He took a keen interest in politics and was involved in raising a
local volunteer force when Bonnie Prince Charlie’s march south
seemed to threaten Northampton and London.
He had friends well beyond his own denomination and a wide
correspondence.
Doddridge was a creature of his own time, but wherever you look in
history, and in the present day, you may see people for whom faith
is inseparable from their personal kindnesses and public advocacy of
Christian principle. St Paul, who in his earlier life was a
religious teacher and had known what it was to attempt to shape your
life entirely by the law of God, came to emphasise the need for
behaving in obedience to the Spirit of God as well as the law.
He spoke of the obedience he owed to the vision of Christ he had
received on the road to Damascus, as if it were obvious how anyone
can be obedient to a vision.
He is clearly a subtle wrier and debater, yet he constantly returns
to the theme that rational argument is not the clue to faith. The
ability to explain faith to other people is a gift of the
Spirit. The Christ who spoke to him on the road to Damascus
was the one he had persecuted. He now realises that until you have
made sense of the cross of Christ you will not make sense of
anything else.
That’s the key to receiving the Spirit. Once you have the Spirit
then other things become plain. It’s another way of saying that
being a Christian isn’t simply a matter of faithfully following the
instructions. Behaving in a Christian way has to be something almost
instinctive, rising from inner personal depths The traditional ways
of devotion nurture those inner depths but are not a substitute for
them.
The Lectionary Psalm prescribed for today is Psalm 112, which is a
celebration of a person of faith. The one who fears the Lord is
gracious and compassionate as a result. The mistake people make is
to take the psalm as a rcipe rather than a celebration. Giving to
the poor may arise from a range of motives, including guilt or
self-importance. Real goodness and generosity have their origins in
a proper self-assessment of our place in God’s world.
“Who am I?” may be treated as simply a rhetorical question or, at
best, an invitation to a philosophic reflection. The testimony of
scripture is that people find the answer to that question when they
know themselves to be in the presence of God.
In his book “Creation and Fall” Dietrich Bonhoeffor writes, “We do
not rule because we do not know the world as God’s creation and
because we do not receive our dominion as God-given but grasp it for
ourselves.” The knowledge of the presence of God is a humbling
experience. True wisdom and power flow from that humility. There
lies the key to Christian people being salt to the world.
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