feb-5-epiphany-5.md

Feb. 5, 2017

5th Sunday after Epiphany

lectionary

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him” (cf. Isaiah 64:4)

The lessons from Scripture today speak to me in the hushed tones of mystery and speak of what is sometimes beyond language can say.

I heard that mystery speaking to me earlier last week in a short reading from a prayer book I use every night before I turn out the light.

From Celtic Prayer Book of the Northumbria Community

Once you’ve heard a child cry out to heaven for help,
and go unanswered,
nothing’s ever the same again.
Nothing.
Even God changes.

But there is a healing hand at work
that cannot be deflected from its purpose.
I just can’t make sense of it, other than to cry.
Those tears are part of what it is to be a monk.

Out there, in the world, it can be very cold.
It seems to be about luck, good and bad,
and the distribution is absurd.

We have to be candles, burning between hope and despair,
faith and doubt, life and death,
all the opposites.

William Brodrick

Metaphors

In my classes I frequently have to spend some time talking about “metaphors”. The students mostly all remember lessons from grade school English classes. I even remember my own. "Similes are comparisons using the words like or as. Metaphors use the word is or to be.

The reason I place such importance on metaphor is because of the conviction I gradually arrived at years ago that all religious language, everything we can say about God and our relationship to God and God’s impact on us and our lives in service to God – all of that – is essentially metaphor.

When I say that “God is love,” at best I am saying that the Lord of all Creation, in so far as I understand and have experienced (him) is something like what I know of as love. And after all, I have spent my 60+ years trying to learn what love is and how I can approximate it in my own life. How is it that I could make some great declaration about God’s love.

Religious language is essentially poetic. Metaphorical.

Metaphor (poetry) as religious language. The only way to get at who or what God is. “Father” is but a metaphor. “God” the ultimate metaphor?

In today’s Gospel continuation of the Sermon on the Mount that we first heard from last week, Jesus teaches us (his disciples) by means of several obvious metaphors. “Be salty” he says. For after all “what good is salt that has lost its taste?” And “shine, like a city on a hill. Nobody lights a light and then hides it.”

Obviously we are not literally salt – except when we sweat and exercise a lot. We are not literally a light.

Metaphors are powerful

We bought a bottle of salt last year. It was labeled “Himalayan Salt” – somehow harvested from that mountain range. (Strange, I thought). But you know what? It’s the best salt I’ve ever tasted!

That’s the kind of salt Jesus meant. That’s the kind of light Jesus meant.

The very language of Jesus’ metaphors in today’s reading from Matthew have been used by political leaders in our nation, stretching all the way back to its origins.

At one time our nation was imagined as a shining city on a hill. (coined by John Winthrop)

The passengers of the Arbella who left England in 1630 with their new charter had a great vision. They were to be an example for the rest of the world in rightful living. Future governor JOHN WINTHROP stated their purpose quite clearly: “We shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.” (http://www.ushistory.org/us/3c.asp)

Since then utilized by JFK, Ronald Reagan, Bush & Obama among others. These metaphors from the Sermon on the Mt. are versatile and quite powerful.

It turns out that metaphors are powerful when used for political purposes as well as with religious language.

Metaphors of the Kingdom

So Jesus taught with metaphors and our political leaders teach with the metaphors of this passage. What are we to make of the metaphors? Be salty! Be a light!

I used to think that it had to do with trying harder, speaking louder, being more effective than the next guy or gal.

The church seemed to drum into me as one of the leaders that like any organization in our society, if we weren’t growing then we were likely dying. Bigger and better was the mantra.

I have heard the same kind of message from our political leaders. Bigger. Best. Model for the rest of the world.

I now believe that such an emphasis is to take these metaphors out of the context in which they appear. The Beatitudes are not about bigger, louder, better than anybody else. Quite the opposite in fact.

To be salty, to be a light on a hill, to be worthy of the kingdom of heaven – for Jesus – is to take one’s model for behavior and life from the Beatitudes. It has to do with humility. With standing with those who mourn. It has to do with standing for peace not for victory.

Metaphors lived

We are to be a light for a world where all too often the children we have hurt cry out to God and what do they hear? All too often, I am reminded, there is no response, no salt, no light.

That’s where we’re supposed to be. In a world where bigger and better is always best and where coming in 2nd or 3rd is as good as coming in last. Not to be best is to be last.

We have to be candles, burning between hope and despair,
faith and doubt, life and death,
all the opposites.

Jesus’ metaphors as I hear them show us that to follow his path is to be citizens not of an earthly politics but of the politics of heaven. It is to stand with those who seek refuge in a world where hurt is more common than help. It is to sit with those who grieve for all that has been lost and can’t yet feel or see hope.

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him” (cf. Isaiah 64:4)