Sermons

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

There is a medieval aphorism that has become seen as a truism in modern times. Non gustibus non est disputandum. “There is no disputing about tastes,” morphed, sometime in the nineteenth century to “there’s no accounting for tastes.” A philosopher of aesthetics may disagree that this is either obvious or true, and so would I. This places me firmly in the crank camp, but there you have it. Perhaps there are cases in which the quality of one’s preference is purely subjective–whether one prefers chocolate ice cream to vanilla, say–but I can’t bring myself to say that the relative value of Joyce’s Ulysses to a paperback romance novel with Fabio on the cover, or that Titian’s Assunta altarpiece and a Bored Ape NFT, is entirely a matter of subjective taste.

One of the many things that worries me about contemporary school curricula (an odd thing for me to worry about, since I don’t have children of my own, but it does) is that English classes have increasingly replaced set reading lists with an allowance for students to read and write reports on whatever they want, under the assumption that it is more important for children to read something rather than nothing, whether that be Dostoevsky or a comic book. Now, I’ve got nothing against comic books, but Dostoevsky is more important. I love what Flannery O’Conner (who should be on the required reading list, now I think about it) said about the High School English teacher’s responsibility in her essay “Total Effect and the Eighth Grade”:

And if the student finds this not to his taste? Well, that is regrettable. Most regrettable. His taste should not be consulted; it is being formed.

I couldn’t agree more. Like I said, I realize this makes me sound like a crank.

I say all that, because I might be about to contradict myself. I’m drawn to a particular aesthetic, both in art and in real physical spaces, which many would understandably find off-putting, and I couldn’t blame anybody for saying “that is not to my taste.” I find what has been called “liminality” extremely compelling, particularly when it comes to spaces which evince that quality. A liminal space is one that is disconcertingly empty when one would expect the opposite, and it can evoke seemingly contradictory feelings of comfort and unease. You can see such spaces in some contemporary visual art and experimental film. One of my favorite filmmakers, David Lynch, does a lot with this. I follow an automated twitter account that posts photographs of liminal spaces at @spaceliminalbot (I selfishly hope Elon doesn’t get rid of all the bots). But I particularly like to inhabit these spaces in real life.

What am I talking about? Some examples. Nearly empty hallways in cheap hotels; streets in declining urban centers early in the morning with shuttered metal security gates over the storefront early in the morning; K-Marts with a third of the stock and none of the customers as one would have seen inside, say, thirty years ago. There is, no doubt, a level on which seeing and being in spaces like this appeal to my nostalgia and my melancholic bent. I think it’s also that they give one the sense of transition and impermanence, which is, I think, the nature of the material world and the human condition as opposed to the divine reality of the one God. The very word, liminal, from the Latin meaning threshold, suggests that the aesthetic is about these sort of transitions from unknown to unknown, and before the word was used to refer to creepy art, it was used by anthropologists to refer to the disorientation brought about in rituals which transitioned a subject from one state or way of life to the next.

So what does all this have to do with the Transfiguration? I think that Christ upon the mountain peak, and for that matter Moses entering into the cloud, can be seen as liminal events. They are, for the disciples in the former case and the children of Israel in the latter, these transitional, in some sense elegaic moments, in which confusion and perhaps dread cloud the present moment (literally and figuratively), making the future seem uncertain but certainly different.

And they have a choice. Push through that uncertainty to the unknown future or stay right there or feebly try to revert to some former, familiar way of being. This, I think, is why Peter wants to build huts on the mountain and stay forever. This, I think, is why the Israelites respond by almost immediately devolving into disobedience. Since the future is uncertain, it is scary.

But the future for Moses and the Israelites and for Jesus and the disciples is in one way quite unlike the mostly empty K-Mart or the blighted urban center, as much as they might have felt similar. They were different, because whatever came about on the other side of those mountaintop transitions was a matter of general providence, of God’s overall plan for salvation for those involved and for the whole world. If you believe, like me, that there is special providence in addition to general providence (to put it simply, if necessarily a bit inaccurately due to the simplification, that God chooses to exercise some level of control on the micro-level as well as the macro-) then there may be hope for the K-Mart and the urban center, too, but that is a larger discussion.

The point, here, is that the simultaneous comfort and unease, the tension between compulsion and revulsion, we feel on the cusp of any transition into an unknown future, is a natural response to our human desire for the familiar and the Spirit’s dragging us into the unfamiliar, and (should we seek it) giving us the courage and consolation to move through and forward, being reminded that we too are in God’s hands.

We come down the mountain this Wednesday and start the journey with our Lord to Calvary. We get all the alleluias and perhaps inordinate love of pancakes out of our systems and start a journey which is in one way familiar if we’ve been in the Christianity thing for a minute, but which can be both fraught with peril and full of new discoveries every year if we’re prayerful and paying attention. Lent thus serves as a microcosm for all those seasons of our lives in which we move through the unknown, hoping and praying and sometimes though not always knowing, that God’s hand is leading us to something greater if we walk that road with patience and humility.

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

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

Most people’s initial analysis of Jesus of Nazareth is that he was a rule-breaker rather than a rule-follower. He ate with tax collectors and sinners; he seemed far less impressed by those who followed the Old Testament rules “to a ‘T’” and far more concerned with what was in one’s heart. But then, at the end of last week’s Gospel, Jesus said something we might find rather shocking:

Truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Was this not, we might ask, the same Jesus who seemed not to care so much about the rules? Was this not the same Jesus who criticized the Pharisees for their obsessive, hypocritical rule-following?

This is indeed the same Jesus, and he is not contradicting himself, though it will take a little theological work to see what this apparent tension in Jesus’ teaching is all about.

In this morning’s Gospel Jesus picked up where he left off by outlining how one’s righteousness can exceed that of the Pharisees and scribes. Whereas the law said “thou shalt not kill”, we are enjoined to not even hold onto anger with our fellows. Whereas the law said “thou shalt not commit adultery” we are prohibited from dwelling on lustful thoughts. Whereas the law required faithfulness to oaths, Jesus said we should be so honest as to not require oaths.

At first glance, Jesus seems to be making a move that was rather common among his coreligionists at the time. The Pharisees were known for a practice called “hedging the Torah”, in which they would create rules around rules, as it were, such that nobody would be in danger of accidentally breaking the law. If the Old Testament said you cannot boil a calf in its mother’s milk, the Pharisees would say that you’d better not mix meat and dairy at all, just to be safe.

While this is what Jesus seems to be doing, I don’t think that’s the real point. For somebody so concerned with conscience above blind obedience, with love above scrupulosity, the practice of “hedging the Torah” would have likely been so out of character for Jesus as to lead to real contradictions. I think what’s really going on here is somewhat more subtle.

To get to the point, we need to look at a possible misunderstanding which might accompany the New Covenant of Grace. We all, I hope, know that the primary distinction between the Old and New Covenants with regard to salvation is the distinction between obedience to the law and faith in Christ. A faithful Jew had many rules to live by. They were not just rules to live by, but rules which, by following, had the effect of justifying the rule-follower. The New Covenant, by contrast, recognizes our inability to follow the rules perfectly, and by means of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross has opened the door to Grace, that our faith alone is sufficient (as far as our part is concerned) to obtain the remission of sins. This much shouldn’t be news to most of you.

Unfortunately, a deadly misunderstanding can attach itself to this life-giving truth. You may have heard some claim, if not in such lofty theological terms, that the freedom effected by God’s Grace has exempted them from righteousness. In less theological language, people might say, “I will be forgiven, so I intend to do whatever I please.” This misunderstanding is often connected to a rather narrow view of salutary faith: the kind that sees one “saving” experience or the sincere recitation of some prayer on the televangelist station a single time, as being a sufficient definition of faith. That faith is more than a one-off experience or prayer is beside the point, though, because even those that recognize that faith is a process of being in relationship with God can fall into the trap I’ve mentioned.

What I believe Jesus is telling us in this morning’s Gospel is that we are not exempted from the responsibility to uphold the highest moral standards for ourselves. I’d even go a bit further, by suggesting that despite the fact that we’ll always fall short, our dogged attempt to follow the moral precepts of the law, which we know from scripture and which we know in our hearts, is itself an expression of the kind of faith which opens us to God’s grace. As the Epistle General of St. James puts it “faith without works is dead.”

But whether or not you can buy into James’ epistle or my somewhat unreformed view of good works, there is one thing about which I think we can all agree. Those sins which Jesus denounces in this morning’s Gospel severely handicap our Christian witness. Anger and lust and adultery and duplicity are rather popular in the church, and to those who need the saving message of God’s Grace the most, the presence of these sins is a scandal.

How many have been turned off of organized religion because of the hypocrisy of some of its adherents? How many have given up the faith because some priest or minister couldn’t keep his appetites for sex or money or power in check? How many have left the church because some fellow Christian harbored resentment for his neighbor or defrauded an associate?

In the final analysis, the rules by which we govern our common life as Christians are not rules for the sake of having rules. Nor are they means by which we can save ourselves by being good enough. They are commandments by which we can live in greater faithfulness to God and in greater love with each other. They are the means by which we can more fully embrace the Grace given us as redeemed people, and they are powerful signs we have to point those who do not yet believe to a way of life defined by faith and love and mutual responsibility. In other words, the moral direction given us by God in Christ are not a set of rules to be broken. Neither are they dogma behind which the lazy may hide. They are a challenge to live a life together in which the Gospel is realized more profoundly and by which others may see God’s Grace and be drawn to it.

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

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

Salt is so common in our culture that Jesus’ words to the crowd in this morning’s Gospel “you are the salt of the earth” don’t initially make as much sense to us as they would have to the original audience. We have so much salt that not only do we put too much of it in our food, but when the weather gets bad we start throwing it on streets and sidewalks. If we’re not putting it in our bodies, we’re getting the stuff on our cars and shoes and the bottoms of our overcoats. Salt is ubiquitous.

Maybe our superabundance of salt is why we’ve taken that old expression from the Gospel “salt of the earth” to mean precisely the opposite of what it actually means. When we say somebody is “salt of the earth” we usually mean that he is an ordinary fellow: simple and honest and unassuming. In reality, what Jesus meant by “salt of the earth” was quite different.

You see, in ancient times, salt was a relatively valuable commodity, even in places very different from and unconnected to the Ancient Near East and the Roman Empire, hence the Mayan fresco on your bulletin cover page this morning. You wouldn’t think about spreading it on roads, and unless you were particularly well off, you’d go broke before you had had enough salt to cause health problems. Certainly salt wasn’t especially rare, but neither was it inexpensive enough to allow an ordinary person to keep a salt shaker on his table, much less buy a frozen dinner containing 300% of his recommended daily sodium intake.

Salt wasn’t as common then as it is today, but it was likely a great deal more important. For one thing, we do need some salt to live, and sodium deficiency was probably a greater problem in the ancient world than was its opposite. What’s more, artificial refrigeration wouldn’t come for about 1800 years, so unless you lived in a cold climate, you’d preserve meat and fish with a hefty amount of salt. So important was salt, that Roman soldiers had at one time been paid with it, later being given a stipend to buy it, called a “salarium”, which comes from the Latin for salt and which later becomes the English word “salary”. So, in the ancient world the aphorism “time is money” would not have been as accurate as something like “salt is money”.

So, when Jesus says “you are the salt of the earth” he’s not suggesting that his disciples are defined by simplicity and a lack of pretension. Rather, he’s saying that there is something remarkably valuable about them, and not just valuable. Precious metals and rare spices and even glass were extremely valuable in ancient Rome, but they were luxuries. You didn’t really need them, and to have them served mainly to impress one’s peers. Salt was valuable, but it was also necessary. Everyone needed a little, and a little could make life so much better.

If a Christian is the salt of the earth, then, it means that what we are has the potential to bring a valuable and necessary commodity into the world. We who know Christ can season the situations in which we find ourselves with the salt of the virtues, and a little bit goes a long way. A little temperance here, a dash of charity, a few teaspoons of patience…

But then we get to that puzzling question which follows Jesus’ declaration that we are the salt of the earth: “but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored?” Now Jesus wasn’t a chemist, nor am I, but I think I remember enough from my junior year of high school to say with some certainty that salt cannot easily lose its saltness. (I’m sure some of you are more well up on your chemistry, so please correct me if I’m getting something wrong.) Sodium chloride is what we call a stable ionic compound, its atoms held together by electrostatic attractions formed when the sodium loses one of its electrons to the chlorine, creating a positively charged sodium and a negatively charged chlorine. These two atoms are held together by electrical forces which are very strong and thus difficult to break.

Though Jesus wouldn’t have known anything about chemistry, I suspect he knew that salt couldn’t lose its saltness through simple observation. He wouldn’t have ever seen salt go stale, because it didn’t happen. Now, some of the commentaries I’ve read this week did a lot of exegetical handwaving to explain how salt might be capable of losing its saltiness, due to impurities, but I think this misses the point, and I for one am not troubled about having a savior who didn’t know sodium chloride from potassium lactate. That said, I suspect Jesus had a hunch that salt was necessarily salty. Why then this apparent warning? Perhaps (and this is just a hunch) the point is precisely that the idea of salt losing its saltness is silly. It’s just as silly as that other image in this morning’s Gospel: hiding a candle under a bushel basket- which I imagine would either snuff the candle or cause a fire hazard, but in all events, nobody would have reason to do it. You’d just blow the candle out and light it later when you needed it.

Perhaps the point is that if we’re salt and light, we cannot be otherwise. We can convince ourselves that we’re not salt, but we still are. We can refuse to use that which is in us to season our encounters with others, but it’s still there. We who have been baptized cannot be unbaptized. We can ignore our status as children of God; we can try to run away from it, but our adoption as God’s children, our existence as salt and light, is objective and irrevocable.

So, to all who are baptized, you are salt and light. You can’t get away from it, so you might as well commit yourselves to figuring out what bland, perishable thing in this world could use a little seasoning and a little saving. You might as well commit yourselves to figuring out what dark corner of this world could use a little light. That is what we’re here for, but more importantly, that’s what we are. We might as well embrace what we are: salt and light.

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