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| Date of Sermon: October 15, 2006 |
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This little light of mine, I'm going to let it
shine Sung by The Freedom Singers Wow! Could you feel the passion and energy in that song? This song that began being sung back in the days of slavery in America, instilled hope in millions who had spent a long time in hopelessness. That is exactly where the song’s text has its origin, but not in the 19th century tobacco and cotton fields and not with a group singing, shouting and clapping their hands. These words were spoken by a lone voice near a small lake – Jesus of Nazareth by the Sea of Galilee in the Sermon on the Mount. He had just uttered the beatitudes, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what is right, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are those persecuted because of me.” Then he encouraged them to take those eight beatitudes and live them out. The truth was, and he knew it, they were the hope of the world. His words are found in Matthew 5:13-16, hear now the Word of the Lord: 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 under foot. 14“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, 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 in heaven. The Word of God for the People of God. Thanks be to God. In this passage Jesus taught his hearers that they were ambassadors of God. Let us pray. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is 2,327 words in the New Revised Standard Version. The four verses we have selected from it contain 102 words, but we can hear the message in only three nouns: salt, city, light. The entire Sermon on the Mount, history’s most famous discourse, finds its root in these three words – salt, city, light. It is in these three words that the expectations are announced for the followers of Jesus Christ in relationship to the world in which we live – salt, city, light. Today we conclude a three-week sermon series entitled 20/20 Vision: a series designed to highlight the vision of A&M United Methodist Church. This vision is printed in our Vision Path Brochure and reads as follows: A&M UMC seeks to be a Christ-centered church made up of highly committed members worshiping God, growing as disciples and serving others through the gifts God has given us. We affirm our heritage to minister to and with the University community. We seek to be a church that invests in the lives of persons outside of a Christ-centered congregation, inviting others to experience the wonder of God and the journey of discipleship. We desire to share the message of Christ through compassion, conviction, conversion and community. We dream of being a church that makes a transforming difference in the lives of our members, our community and our world.We have had the chance to talk about our unique ministry setting in a University community and the great work to which we have been called and from which we must not stop. Today I want to talk about our role as agents of transformation. It is a role that can be summed up in three nouns – salt, city, light. This morning let’s dream the dream of transformation. Salt transforms food that sustains life. For thousands of years, salt has been used to transform food by preserving it and making it more palatable. Howard Vos in his commentary on this verse wrote that salt has four main functions for humans. It preserves our food, enhances the taste, induces thirst and provides a necessary mineral. We need salt to live. Vos went on to say that followers of Christ were to do the same – we are to preserve our societies by staving off corruption, we are to make life more palatable by introducing grace and kindness, we are to induce thirst for the one who provides living water and we are to provide life giving sustenance through the good news that we know. You are the salt of the earth. We use salt a lot. Every time I go to a Mexican restaurant, and since I am married to a native Texan, that is at least once a week, I am asked the same question, “Did you salt these chips?” When I am walking by the stove and soup is being prepared, I am expected to taste it. “Does it need more salt?” I think Jesus is looking out at the world he loved so dearly and is saying there by the Sea of Galilee, “It needs more salt.” This week I invite you to pay attention to how many times you reach for the salt. It may be a bag of chips, it may be the French fries in a Happy Meal, it may be through olives or pickles, or simply the saltshaker by the stove or on the table. Every time you reach for the salt, ask yourself questions like these: What if we took this role as the salt of the earth seriously? What would be different? How could we preserve, make life more palatable, provoke thirst for living water and provide nourishment to a world that needs more salt? That may sound a little much. We reach for the salt a lot in one week and if we reflected on questions like these we could get a little down on ourselves. Jesus took it even farther than that. He said, “if salt has lost its taste…It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.” It sounds like he means it. This morning let’s dream the dream of transformation. Let us embrace our role as salt of the earth. Let us embrace our role as the city on the hill. A City transforms travelers’ hearts. Cities were often built on hills and if a hill could not be located they built on a previous city, referred to as a Tel. Tel Megiddo in central Israel has thirty recorded cities built on the same location, one on top of the other. The reasons are obvious. Prominence is one. All of the countryside could see the city on the horizon. Protection is another. It is easier to defend a city on a hill. Attackers can be seen from greater distances and they had to launch weapons against gravity, while the inhabitants used gravity as their friend. When travelers spotted a city, their hearts were warmed because they knew inside those gates was protection from wild animals, supplies and facilities for hungry and tired bodies. 23 years ago I was on vacation with my sister, brother-in-law, four nieces and my Grandma Vee. We were traveling from Fort Worth to Phoenix. There is a lot of open country between Fort Worth and Phoenix and we saw our fair share of it. In fact, we decided to drive through the Painted Desert in Arizona. I had been there before, when I was 12, so I told them I would navigate. I grabbed the Atlas and spotted a road right between the D’s of the Painted Desert on the map and directed my brother-in-law to that road. I had not yet learned to read the legend of maps. I did not realize that the dotted line meant dirt road or that there was 13 miles worth of dotted dirt road. Do you have any idea how long 13 miles is on a dirt road, in bad shape, in the middle of summer, in the middle of a desert, in a van that was prone to overheating, with your brother-in-law driving? It took about an hour and a half, 90 minutes - 90 long, tense bumpy minutes made longer and more tense by the 14 eyes staring and glaring at me. Even my own Grandma was having negative thoughts about her navigating grandson. When finally I spotted pavement that led to a nearby city, my soul rejoiced. I demanded that my brother-in-law stop the van. I got out and kissed the pavement. Looking back, I don’t think it was wise of me to exit the van at that time. But they waited for me and all was well as we drove into the city. The very sight of the road transformed the mood of the travelers in that van. The mood was lighter, the gloom disappeared in the cloud of dust that we left behind. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people looked at the church in the same way? If somehow our presence and our ministry transformed the mood of weary travelers in life, we would fulfill the expectation of Christ of being a city built on hill. This morning let’s dream the dream of transformation. Let us embrace our role as the city on a hill, the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Light transforms the darkness. Salt of the earth and light of the world, what noble titles and lofty expectations for a people that Roger Shinn described in his book, The Sermon on the Mount as, “a tiny band of weak disciples in an obscure land.” Dr. Shinn went on to write, “To them these words of Jesus must have seemed impossible.” I’m sure the words seemed just as impossible to Fannie Lou Hamer on August 23, 1962 in Ruleville, Mississippi when at the age of 44, she learned that African-Americans actually had a constitutional right to vote. The SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) had come to town asking for volunteers to go down to the courthouse and register to vote. She was the first to volunteer having no idea how dangerous her decision was. As she stood in line to register days later, glances turned to angry glares, which turned to verbal abuse and would later result in physical abuse. Mrs. Hamer started to sing a song. Can you guess what song she sang? I’m not sure what her voice sounded like, but it must have been inspiring. She became known as the “lady who sings the hymns”, because she believed that the struggle for human rights was a deeply spiritual struggle. By the next day, after registering to vote, she had been harassed by the police, fired from her job, and receive a death threat from the Ku Klux Klan. Two years later the light had begun to shine more brightly. Hubert Humphrey met with Fannie Lou Hamer to ask her to compromise on her expectations for African-American representation from Mississippi at the Democratic National Convention. He told her that the issue she had raised could cost him the nomination as Vice President. Her response was faith based,
“Do you mean to tell me that your position is more important than four
hundred thousand black people’s lives? Senator Humphrey, I know lots of
people in Mississippi who have lost their jobs trying to register to vote. I
had to leave the plantation where I worked in Sunflower County, Mississippi.
Now if you lose this job of Vice-President because you do what is right, God
will take care of you. Senator Humphrey, I'm going to pray to Jesus for
you.” What gave a 44-year-old woman the courage to stand up in the face of centuries of oppression? She said it was her faith. She said it was this song. She said it was this expectation of Christ, “You are the light of the world…let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Where is your light shining? Can people see it and because of it can they see your Father in heaven through what you do? This morning let’s dream the dream of transformation. Let’s embrace our role as the light of the world. Salt, city, light - three nouns that say so much when said by our Savior. This little light of mine is not a song for children only. It is the church’s song. It is that song that Jesus taught his followers to sing. It is a song of transformation. We dream of being a church that makes a transforming difference in the lives of our members, our community and our world. This morning, let’s dream the dream of transformation. Amen.
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