The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, 02/09/2014

Sermon on Matthew 5:13-20, by Samuel D. Zumwalt

Matthew 5:13-20 English Standard Version, © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers]

13"You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. 14 "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. 17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

THE HONEYMOON'S OVER

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Let's use the image of Christ the Bridegroom and the Church as His bride as a way to get into this week's Gospel lesson. Our text is the continuation of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' first major teaching to His disciples in Matthew's gospel. Here the Bridegroom, our Lord Jesus draws a contrast between what His Bride the Church is called to be and what we often look like instead. The key verse to memorize today is: "...let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (5:16). It should be familiar enough to all of us, because it is a familiar part of our baptismal liturgy. These are the words spoken as the baptismal candle is lighted from the paschal candle and presented to the newly baptized child of God.

So, why, then, the sermon title, "The Honeymoon's Over"? That's shorthand for when one moves from viewing a spouse through rose-colored glasses to the more clear-sighted vision that comes from having lived together for a while as husband and wife. Incidentally, despite popular wisdom, there is a great deal of difference between co-habiting and marriage. That's a bit of counterintuitive wisdom. One would think that co-habiting before marriage would prepare one for marriage, but the opposite is actually true. Co-habiting actually works against making a lifelong commitment of faithfulness. And, it actually keeps the couple from moving to a more mature relationship. It's not that you will go to hell for co-habiting. It's more that you won't get to what you could have as long as you're fearful of giving yourself more than physically to a long-term roommate.

Yes, marriage is agony, at times, but it can also be ecstasy. Yes, marriage can be boring, at times, but it can also be thrilling. Yes, your spouse may irritate you, at times, but your spouse may also bless you with the gift of humor...usually at your spouse's expense. Yes, marriage often is hard work, but everything that is significant in this life is hard work. Yes, the grass may look greener on the other side of the fence, at times, but if you actually cross the fence you may discover the grass there has been spray-painted green like on a movie shoot. It's amazing how less attractive you become when you're actually single again...especially when they find out you already have kids.

My title "The Honeymoon's Over" is an attempt to get at the contrast between what we're supposed to be and what we actually are. Here on the heels of the Lord Jesus' stunning Beatitudes comes His clear call to become what God the Father created us to be...and, indeed, what God calls us, for Christ's sake, in the washing of Holy Baptism...the children of God!

TASTELESS AND DIM

Today, the Lord Jesus asks His Bride, the Church, "How married are you? Are you married only in name? Or are you joyfully embracing the life to which you have said ‘Yes'?" The fact that the Lord Jesus has to draw contrasts - between salt and its tasteless imitation or between a lamp that can be seen clearly and one that can't - lets us know that the eternal Judge of the living and the dead can see us clearly for what we are. We have our moments, and then we have whatever else we're doing the rest of the time. He knows us as we are and that is not Good News.

Back to the marriage analogy, if you're legally married but the relationship is never physically consummated, then you are married only in name. You don't become one flesh, and so you're not really married! Believe it or not, it occasionally happens. Or, if you're legally married but you never live together, then you're married in name but you're unwilling to commit to each other because everything else is more important. Or, if you're legally married but one or both of you keep on playing around with others (without or without physical intimacy), then you just aren't looking or acting like you're really married. That's how you end up owning property together and perhaps sharing kids but never becoming what you promised to become when you said those vows to one another! The poet Joni Mitchell was partly right years ago when she wrote: "We don't need a piece of paper from the City Hall." She was right about co-habiting, but very wrong about becoming one flesh - becoming what God intended for a man and a woman.

If we apply the Lord Jesus' words to the marriages of those who are Christians, then He is calling husbands and wives to stop playing at marriage, to get their individual heads out of dark places, and to pay attention to the persons to whom they promised lifelong faithfulness. If you act like your spouse is "The Old Ball and Chain," then you will never be more than a spouse in name...and what good is that? To have what our Roman Catholic friends call a "sacramental marriage" means mutual submission beginning with husbands giving themselves completely to their wives as Christ gave Himself completely to the Church.

WHEN THE KING "KINGS"

Jesus' phrase "the kingdom of heaven" used in Matthew's Gospel is the equivalent of "the kingdom of God" in Mark and Luke and what John's Gospel means by "eternal life." The phrase means literally "where God is king" - where a person is living in the presence of God (coram Deo). So, when, the Lord Jesus says "The kingdom of heaven (or God) has come near," He literally means that He is bringing the eternal rule and reign of God into the presence of those that He is presently addressing...in the flesh or however He is heard!

The great self-deception of every age is that humans can be autonomous - literally "a law unto ourselves." The more we cling to the notion of autonomy, the more we rebel against God's rule and reign. That's what leads us not to autonomy but to being owned by the old enemy. The person who insists that she is her own boss is self-deluding in the extreme. The true King who makes Himself known as Jesus is the only One who can save us from sin, death, and the devil and lead us into the joy and freedom of God's eternal life and love. But when any of us insists that he or she has no need for anyone but self, it is nothing other than the same rebellion the first parents entered into in the Garden of Eden with the encouragement of the old tempter. It results in the same old end: death!

The opposite of autonomy is not some kind of demeaning enslavement to a severe God who wants us to be less than we can be. In fact, the opposite of autonomy is the life of discipleship in which we are freed to be the persons God created us to become in the first place. By extension, marriage is not meant to be a diminished or depleted self but rather the growing and blossoming into a mature steward of the gifts given - gifts of spouse and family, of time, talent, and treasure.

Martin Luther rejected the monastic life - not because a life of prayer and service in community is intrinsically wrong. Rather, Luther rejected the notion that monastic life was superior to marriage and family. For Luther, every Christian home is called to be a community of prayer and service, what our Roman Catholic friends today call "the domestic church." Christian spouses and parents are to become the bishops and pastors of their homes, leading each other and leading their children more joyously into a life of prayer and service. The gathering of the family of God around Word and Sacrament in God's House is not a refuge from the world but rather an oasis in which Christ Himself speaks Law and Gospel, draws us into baptismal waters for daily rebirthing, and then feeds His people with His own body and blood for the forgiveness of sins and the strengthening of His grip on His people. Indeed, the Eucharist is a time of unparalleled intimacy between the Bridegroom and His Bride, the Church.

And so it is the Lord Jesus affirms His heavenly Father's original plan for men and women as husband and wife. He does not abolish God's scriptural plan (the Law and the Prophets) or allow for a relaxed view of relationships that says any kind of sincere pairing is as good as another. Rather He calls for the relationship between husband and wife to be modeled after the faithfulness God demonstrates for His people. The marriage of Christians can become a place where Christians demonstrate they are salt and light not by their perfection but by their modeling of loving, faithful service and their ability to practice grace and mercy with each other and with others. In so doing, Christians show that the King is "king-ing" in their lives. But, if not perfect, how can they be righteous?

EXCEEDING RIGHTEOUSNESS

As we remembered last week, God's Son Jesus is the true righteousness of God that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, who in their own self-consciously vigorous lifestyle were certain they were keeping God's commandments. If they had been able to lead people by their example into a greater righteousness, then God would not have had to send His only begotten Son to be born of the Virgin Mary, to live the life no person can live, to suffer and die and also rise for the salvation of the whole world.

The delusion of the good religious folk in Jesus' day was like our own ideas of autonomy. Do-it-yourself religion is, after all, a greatly seductive idea that seems to take hold in us the more vigorous we attempt to be in our discipleship. The smug notion that we've somehow grown better with age and through long participation in the Christian community is just another of the old enemy's traps...to draw us away from God's rule.

The only way to experience the exceeding righteousness for which we are created and to which we are called by Jesus is to return to the waters of Holy Baptism where we the old sinner in us is buried with Christ and a new child of God is raised with Christ. In essence, when we abandon ourselves to God's grace and mercy in Jesus Christ, we are most free to become who God created us to be. And, the same is true for marriages! The more we commend ourselves into the hands of our gracious and merciful Lord, the more we can practice authentic lives...lives lived not for self but for others. Like Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 12, God in Christ has blessed us to be a blessing to others...beginning with the others who share the same bed and the same address with us.

My working title "The Honeymoon's Over" is not, then, a cynical presumption that everyone is much worse than we like to think. It is not a call to the kind of disappointment that comes when a man and a woman discover that the other is flawed. Rather it is a reminder that God sees us both as the sinners we are and as the children of God we can and ultimately will become! By the Holy Spirit working in Word and Sacrament, the Father's Beloved Son calls us again and again to the Word and the prayers, the font and the table that He may take our sin and death to His cross and give us His own exceeding righteousness and eternal life as a gift. So that our light can shine!

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Samuel D. Zumwalt
Wilmington, North Carolina USA
E-Mail: szumwalt@bellsouth.net

Bemerkung:
www.societyholytrinity.org
St. Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church

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