Seasoning and Fire: Matthew 5:13-16

Jesus sais that we are the salt and the light!  What does that really mean?  Join Rev. Dr. Aimee Copley Mulder as she cahllenges us all to be the fire.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Disappointment is something we always long to shield our kids from. And the thing about the pandemic is we couldn't shield them from anything. We couldn't protect them from this reality, which is that disappointment sometimes crushes in on us. And as we attempted, like Jen and I talked about, to make um make a different alternative, make fun happen no matter what, try to find solutions that were creative to the disappointment. One of the greatest things we can do is just say, you know, that disappointed me too. Our job is not to protect our kids from everything and shield them from the life that we lead. Our job is to help them know how to cope. And we can't do that if we're not coping ourselves and trying to pretend like everything's good when it's not. And we can't do that either if we're just trying to do it on our own strength with our own creativity. In Isaiah 41, 10, it says, Do do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you, and I will uphold you with my righteous hand. Do you believe that God is with you, that wants to uphold He wants to uphold you, He wants to help you, He wants to strengthen you. So when you're dealing with disappointment or helping your kids deal with them, just know you're not alone. God is there to help you. God is there to uphold you with his right hand. And the other thing we have to remember is that we do need each other. It was fun for me to learn that my friend that's so scheduled and the one I call when I have a question is asking everybody else. We can deal with disappointment together, but we also can deal with disappointment by saying to our kids, you know, God is with us. We do not need to need to be dismayed. We can be upheld. Blessings on you this day. And as you deal with disappointment, remember you're not alone and find a friend that can spin things positively, just like my friend Jen. Blessings to you. We'll see you here next week.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, doesn't matter if you're young or alive. All that matters if you answer the door when Jesus comes to change your life. And I just all the glory to God.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

I'm Amy Copley Mulder, ready to continue this amazing digging that we're doing into the Sermon on the Mount together. I thank you for joining me every Tuesday. And today the scripture is just incredibly close to how we should live. Some scriptures are kind of out there and we kind of have to bring them closer. And this scripture is just the most beautiful thing that Jesus said, in my opinion. Well, I know if you keep listening to me, I'm gonna say that about many scriptures, but let's just listen to it. This is from the New Revised Standard Version, um, continuing with Matthew 5, starting at verse 13. You are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it under a bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. Boy, what a beautiful word of the Lord. So let us not forget, as we're looking at this, that Jesus has called himself the light of the world. And um that proclamation that he is the light also tells us that we are the light. He's saying to the people listening, you are here to be the salt seasoning in the world. Now you know that you've had a dish, like you've eaten the food, and all it needs is a little salt, and then it's like perfection, right? And salt back in this day was a very precious, precious commodity. Um, if people the salt wasn't purified, it didn't come in little, you know, Morton's salt cans. But the salt was a rock that needed purification. And so that kind of that kind of process is why Jesus is talking about salt losing its saltiness and all those things, because if the purification didn't take place, the salt was not what it needed to be. Or maybe salt, but the only way salt works for us, and salt is one of those things that we can have too much of it and it makes the food inedible, inedible, and then just the right amount seasons the world in a beautiful way. So Jesus is telling us we are that finishing touch, we are that perfection on the world, we are seasoning the world with God, we are the God flavor on the world. What an incredible thing to think of. That Jesus is saying, you are the seasoning, you are the thing that makes something good. Do not neglect your duty to be that seasoning. When I think of seasoning, I think of the cast iron pan that I got when I married Devin. Um, well, he owned this cast iron pan, and I said, Why do we have this cast iron pan? We're little like little house on the prairie. What is this? Why do we need this cast iron pan? That was before I'd really kind of become a cook. And now as someone that cooks, that cast iron pan that we've had for 22 years, and hopefully we'll have like forever, has become one of my favorite places. I mean, there's really nothing like a steak that's been in that pan, you know, seared perfectly, and then you make a lovely butter dummy glaze. I mean, it's incredible. And every time you finish using that cast iron pan, you have you can't use soap on it. You rinse it off a little bit and you get all the junk off of it, and then you just rub oil in there. And so what it has in there in this cast iron, it has the seasoning of 12,000 steaks or 2,000 meals, whatever it is, and it just makes it more delicious to eat from this pan because of the constant seasoning. So as we think about salt and seasoning, I want you to think about all of the things that you've that you've experienced in your life, even the stuff that maybe got burned in the pan and you know you couldn't eat. But each of those things that happen to you seasons the pan and continually seasons the pan and makes it more and more, and you are being constantly seasoned as you are trying to season everyone else around you. People that have gone through things that I would consider horrific. And I just I just want you to know this morning that saltiness is not something you can acquire. It's who you are. You flavor the world. And it's really up to you if you're the right amount of flavoring or you're just too much salt, we can't even eat the dish. It's really up to you. God has said to you, you are the salt. And in this group of teachings, Jesus goes from the salt to the light. He says, I'm gonna put it another way for you. You are also the light. And he's saying, You are the one. There's no darkness that can swallow you up. God is light, I am light, and you are also light. You are bringing out God with your very stuff and moment and being all of these God colors that in the world. The big thing that God says about the light in this passage is that light cannot be hidden, it cannot be secret, it cannot um be undercover. Have you ever had a flashlight and tried to put your hand over it when you're a kid? The light still peeps through. The whole room can be dark, and one little tiny light can be seen. Light cannot be hidden. And he says, Listen, I don't light things up and put a bucket over them and go, don't look at the light. No, if I need light, I put that on a lampstand or on a hilltop or up high so the whole place can experience the light. And Jesus is not like this is not a negotiable thing. Hey, you want to be the light for me? You could be the light for me. No, he is saying, you are the light. You are the thing that cannot be hidden. You are the thing we need to light up the world. People are looking at you in a way, when you say you are a Christian, you are putting yourself on blast. And you have a choice whether you open people up to God and help people out, or whether you just try to hide what God has given you. There are so many people that don't say that they're Christian out loud. And I gotta admit, there's some people out there calling themselves Christians and in the world today. And I'm like, please do not put me in that category. So sometimes it's like I don't want to say I'm a Christian because I don't want people to think I'm over there in that group. But I am a Christian. I I want Jesus Christ to be center in my life. I want to follow him with everything. And even if there's people that think women should not have a voice, well, too bad. I got this mic on this podcast, so I'm using my voice. Um, but I do believe that Jesus is central to our whole being. And Jesus being central to my life, being in the center where everything swirls around him means that I want to light up for God. I want people to go, well, why is that person like that? That's and I just want to be able to say, if they ask me, hey, it's because of Jesus. When we're coming up to Pub Sunday at Easter, and and I just want everyone to know that there's hope, there's joy. Jesus is risen. You can have a good experience. There's a reason to have hope. You can have joy abundantly, increasingly, because of God. Light is one of those things that's very important that we need. But Jesus isn't asking, hey, you want to be the light. He's saying, you are the light of the world. That's what he's saying. You are the light. It's not a it's it's a beautiful state of being. So when I put Jesus in the center of my life, I can't help but light it up. Now, this is a day that I see a lot of people trying to hide whether they believe in Jesus. They don't want people to feel like they're judging them. And it's and it's sometimes easier just to be God's secret agent. And I'm just gonna tell you, God doesn't need secret agents. God needs you to be central. And as we are pastors in our community, Devin and I, sometimes we get people are judgmental against us because you know, we get mad at a soccer game or we, you know, do different things and they get, you know, they don't they get we maybe don't act the way that we should, or you know, we're not perfect. And they say, Aren't you a pastor? You're not supposed to get mad at the coach. Well, I it's okay. I'm a human. Um that that whole experience, it's because I've said I'm a Christian, I'm a pastor, I'm in this community, so people should call me out, you know, if I'm a light. You should act a certain way. But I will tell you the reason, the kind of light I want to be is the one of the crucial things. So when Jesus calls us the light, you have a choice on which kind of light you want to be. So let me go over the different kinds of lights you can be for the Lord. First of all, one of the lights you could be is a flashlight. So that's somebody that's trying to help people find their way in the dark, and the flashlight shows everything around them. The flashlight says, look, over there, over there, in the dark way, I'm the what the guide. And maybe that's what you feel that's the kind of light you are, that you're a guide for people. You're showing the flashlight. So some of us are a flashlight where we guide people, and that's the kind of light we are in the world. Some of us are a spotlight, and this one isn't really a desirable light to be in the world where you're just shining your light on everyone else's issues and everyone else's problems, and that way no one will look at you know some of the issues you have. So if you're a spotlight, you're shining your light on all the other people all the time. And that's not the kind of light I really want us all to be. The kind of light that I am proposing for Christians to be, especially in this time of confusion and people trying to say, this is what a Christian is, and this is what a Christian is. What I want us all to be, if we're claiming this, that we are the light of the world, is to be like a warm fire. You know, it's just something about either when we're at the river and a fire is built and we're sitting there, and maybe the air is a little crisp because it's at the beginning of the summer, and that fire just we want to warm ourselves by the fire. And then what happens really incredibly when you have a fire going is other people come. And then maybe you'll make a s'more, or you know, and there's laughter and there's relaxing. And you know, when everybody's sitting around a fire, whether it's in your backyard or uh, you know, in camping or even on the beach, the fires that we have here on the beach. What's interesting is nobody is in What's incredible about when we are in the fire is that people are not in a hurry to leave the fire. When people sit around a fire in those beat-up camp chairs or wooden benches or swings, they're there just to be close to the warmth and it brings like a community discussion together. Watching a fire and and hearing the crackle just creates a community. And so if Jesus is telling us to be the light of the world, and we want people to know that Jesus, the Jesus that calls our name, the Jesus that says to us, I want you to know that you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world, we are in this together. If we are to be helpful for Jesus' mission, what I need to let you know is that we want people to see our light and to be seasoned by the life we lead and realize that the reason they may be drawn to us or the reason that they feel a warmth of love is because of Christ within us. It's easy to sit back when life gets more challenging. It's easy just to sit back and say, I don't want to have to be a light or I don't want to season today. I don't want to participate because participation has been a little difficult for me. But I want you this this day as you listen to this podcast, as I ask you to bring all glory to God, I want you to realize that this calling of Jesus, saying that we are the salt and light, is acknowledging that when Christ fills us, we make an impact in the world around us. And you can try to hide your light under a bushel, you can try to deny that you are shining about something. And maybe you're like, Well, I'm a light, but I'm gonna be a spotlight and you know shine my light on everyone else, and I'll just try to hide. Jesus says you're the light. Jesus says you season the earth. And my encouragement to you is that you try to ask God, help me be a fire, help me be a crackling fire that lights up the night and that people want to warm their hands by. And that people don't want to leave the party too quickly because they are filled with the warmth of God as we give what we have received. You are the light of the world and you are the salt of the earth, and that is a calling of Jesus as we enter almost holy week on Palm Sunday. Just remember, all glory to God be the fire.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

So it's done. It's about time. Give it up. So that's all the glory to God.