Salt, Light and Congruent Lives

Main Point for the sermon this week: There is power in religion to align our lives with our deepest values and beliefs.

Matthew 5:13-20

‘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 under foot.

 ‘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 the 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.

 ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks 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. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

If salt has lost its taste, it is no longer doing its job as salt. Salt by definition tastes salty. If it no longer tastes salty, then, by definition, it is no longer salt. This has to do with congruence. If a thing exhibits the characteristics that define what that thing is, then we say what the thing claims to be and actually is are congruent with each other.

The same analogy has to do with being the light of the world. The purpose of lighting a lamp is to give light to the room. If we hide the lamp, it is not acting in accord with its purpose.

There is a purpose to our lives as Christians as well. By bearing the name “Christian,” we are to bear the presence of Christ to the world. There are three places “Christian” (Χριστιανός) is found in the Bible:

Acts 11:26

and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for an entire year they associated with the church and taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called ‘Christians’.

Acts 26:28

Agrippa said to Paul, ‘Are you so quickly persuading me to become a Christian?’

1Peter 4:16

Yet if any of you suffers as a Christian, do not consider it a disgrace, but glorify God because you bear this name.

There are some traditions that I have encountered that indicate that the word "Christianos" actually is a diminuitive, meaning “little Christ.” Supposedly the name was first used in derision at the zeal of the early followers of Jesus to emulate his life, even to the extent of being persecuted and perhaps crucified as he was. Much of the early martyriology of the church reveals this idea of completing Christ’s sacrifice.

The idea of being little Christs is arresting. Jesus came to reveal God’s love to the world. It is as he said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” When people see us, when they watch us and talk with us, do they see the Father? If we are the light of the world, how do we allow that light to shine through us? How do we align our actions and words with our deepest beliefs and values?

I am currently writing a book on the Spirituality of Jesus for men, and in my discussion of what spirituality is, I stress importance of integrity and congruence. Eugene Peterson describes this eloquently in his essay, “Transparent Lives,” where he talks about the congruence between what one believes and how they live out that belief:

If there’s a single word that identifies the contemplative life, it is congruence -- congruence between ends and means, congruence between what we do and the way we do it. So we admire an athlete whose body is accurately and gracefully responsive and totally submissive to the conditions of the event. When Michael Jordan played basketball, he was one with the court, the game, the basketball and his fellow players. Or take a musical performance in which Mozart, a Stradivarius and Yitzak Perlman all fuse indistinguishably in the music.The words of Jesus that keep this in focus are "I am the way, the truth and the life"(John14:6). Only when we do the Jesus truth in the Jesus way do we get the Jesus life. But this isn’t easy. It is easier to talk about what Christians believe, the truth of the gospel formulated in creeds and doctrines. We have accumulated a magnificent roster of eloquent and learned theologians who have taught us to think carefully and well about the revelation of God In Christ through the Holy Spirit. It is easier to talk about what Christians do, life as performance, the behavior appropriate to followers of Jesus codified in moral commandments and formulated in vision statements and mission strategies. We never lack for teachers and preachers and parents who instruct us in the mores and manners of the kingdom of God. None of us here are likely to pretend perfection in these matters, but most of us are pretty well agreed on what’s involved.But what counts on my agenda right now is the Christian life as lived, lived in this sense of congruence between who Christ is and who I am – being in Chicago right now at this busy heavily trafficked intersection of the kingdom of God, Christ playing in my limbs and my eyes. (1)

Spirituality has to do with how congruent one’s life is with one’s professed beliefs – how one’s behavior, thoughts, actions, speech, and even politics align with what one professes to be ultimately true and significant about life as a human creature in this universe.  Spirituality is not so concerned with the content of one’s faith – what one believes – as much as it is concerned with how those beliefs form and shape the character and life-expression of the believer. 

Here I have just introduced a bit of a neologism: “life-expression.” By “life-expression” I am referring to everything that makes up a person’s lifestyle – what one watches and does for entertainment, what one does with money, how that money is obtained, and so on – as well as a person’s values, their treatment of family, friend and stranger, how they vote on election day, what they tolerate in their community and what they don’t, as well as what they allow themselves to say and how they say it. Life-expression is an all-encompassing way to talk about how an individual moves through the world based upon the quality of their inner life. The keyword here is expression, which literally means to “press out.” Life-expression is how one’s inner life is brought out from within and manifested in everyday life. Life-expression is the arena of spirituality. And as Peterson so eloquently describes it, it is concerned with integrity and congruence. 

This is the spirituality with which Jesus is concerned – a life of congruence and integrity. But it is also concerned with the nature and quality of one’s relationships in family and in the world. In the teaching and example of Jesus, faith is not a set of propositions or doctrines to which one gives assent. He states this clearly in Matthew 15:7-9:

You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.”

The spirituality of Jesus is concerned with aligning one’s heart with God’s heart, and with living the life that arises out of that alignment. Jesus taught that if one had seen him, they had also seen the Father. So in order to understand the heart of God one must study and follow closely how Jesus lived his life, and to look to its congruity and integrity. This, of course, is precisely what it means to be a disciple – to be a student of another. The points of congruence and places of integration within the life and teaching of Jesus serve as our model for how we can lead lives of congruence and integrity. 

More tomorrow.

Notes:               

(1). Eugene Peterson, “Transparent Lives,” in The Christian Century, November 29, 2003, pp. 20-27. Found online at http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2941.

Images found online at: http://revolvetour.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/salt.jpg;   http://catholicfamilyvignettes.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/candle.jpg;   other images from my personal files.