"Simple Is Best" - Epiphany 5A

 

Isaiah 58:1-9a [9b-12]

1 Corinthians 2:1-12 [13-16]

Saint Matthew 5:13-20

"Simple is best" That little piece of wisdom has been attributed to William of Ockham and has become known as Occam's Razor but what he really said was: “Plurality should not be assumed without necessity.” Apparently William didn't take his own advice.  He would have done better if he left it at: "Simple is best."

But he is not alone.  I would venture to say that almost every character in history would have done well to heed this “simple is best” advice as would every preacher in Christendom.

There is an old saying:  "Don't ask a preacher what time it is because they will tell you how to build a watch and when he or she is finished, you will go away still not knowing what time it is but, in theory, you will know how to build a watch.”

What is true for the clergy is also old as time true for politicians.

In the play Hamilton, when Alexander Hamilton finally meets Arron Burr, and runs on at the mouth on all manner of things, Burr offers this sage piece of advice:  "Talk less, smile more."  We know how that turned out, don't we?  After much talk there is less smiling and, forces Burr to comes to the point where he has to admit, "I'm the damn fool who shot him."

The cover story of the most recent Time magazine was called “On Mute: Overtalkers are Everywhere – but Saying Less Will Get You More.” In it Dan Lions observed that most people “are champions at over-talking. We bulldoze. We hog the floor. We interrupt, deliver monologues.”  He says that he especially has the problem, writing for himself he expresses what may be true for us all “The issue is not only that I talk too muchl It’s that I never have been able to resist blurting out inappropriate things, I can’t keep my opinions to myself.”1

Join the crowd Dan!  A crowd which has some very good company.

Saint Paul would have done well to heed the advice to "keep it simple" had he just stuck with his original promise: “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.”2  That’s keeping it simple! That will preach!

However, not three sentences later, when the great saint tries to explain how he came to know about “Jesus Christ, and him crucified”  he ran the risk of leaving the poor scribe who was trying to get his words down for eternity, the listeners then, and lectors and hearer now a bit confused.  What he knows is simple and clear but just exactly how he came to know it gets a bit confusing.

It might be easier to turn our attention to Jesus who says quite simply: “You are the salt of the earth ... you are the light of the world.”

“You are salt and light,” he said. Modest metaphors. Neither is necessarily dramatic, certainly not overwhelming. Functional metaphors. Both act on the environment; both, in spite of their modesty, have a dramatic effect. Salt changes food, makes it more tasty, more lively. Light abolishes darkness. The darker the darkness, the more visible the light—even a tiny candle. You need to have light in order to see, you need light in order to find your way home, or wherever it is you are going.3

Few people know the usefulness of salt better than Chicagoans.  At the first measurable amount of snow the question on every drivers lips is: “Are the salt trucks out?”  We feel more secure driving on salt-covered streets until after days, that salt becomes so pulverized that we find ourselves driving around in man-made cloudbanks made of salt dust.  And all of our cars become two-toned, the original colour on the top and white on the sides. 

We also know the importance of light.  After a long, dark, cloudy period, we look out the window and rejoice that there seems to be one more minute of daylight.  We greet this news with the excitement of our ancestor Druids who rejoiced that this little bit more light meant that the sun god was no longer angry and was coming back.

Salt and light. We know that we need them, but Jesus is telling us that we not only need them but that we are them!

“Jesus begins  ... by indicating to his audience that they are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  All of them."4 

“Unlike so many other languages, including the Greek in which this text is written, English is impoverished for its lack of differentiation between the singular and plural second person ‘you.’”5  Except for perhaps the south where the term would be “Y ‘all” or Wisconsin where Jesus might have said, “yous.”

It’s not a later thing, it’s a now thing.  It’s not a those guys and gals over there thing it’s an us thing.  We all, “Wes”, are to be salt of the earth together.

Sometimes we can lose our saltiness and our lights can go out.

Light can be snuffed out when someone who has sworn to uphold the law reaches into a car and, along with others similarly sworn to “serve and protect,” grabs a young man by the nape of his neck and then beats that young man to death.  When this happens, those officer’s lights went out for reasons I will never understand, and society’s light dimmed a little bit.

When young people not only shoot each other but innocent bystanders over some piece of neighborhood turf their lights go out and society’s light dims a little bit. 

When politicians and regular yous guys demean each other for any reason – race, creed, orientation, economic or legal status – their light’s go out and society’s light dims a little bit.

Salt and light are not only very simple metaphors for the Christian life they are very fragile metaphors.  

The fragility even cropped up among the original disciples when they began to “smile less and talk more.”  They got themselves into all kinds of trouble when they couldn’t help but burst out inappropriate things or keep their opinions, especially if it was an exceptionally high opinion of themselves, to themselves.

I can think of countless examples but in the interest of keeping this simple I’ll just remind you of “that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"6

Dr. Scott Black Johnson, wondered once in a sermon preached at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, “If there is a better recipe for human conflict than to put a couple of fragile egos together in the same room.”

So here we have the disciples starting to play the game of what Dr. Johnson called, “anything you can do I can do better.”7  When the disciples ask him who might be the brightest light, the saltiest salt lick in the Kingdom of Heaven Jesus takes a little child plunks the little person down in the middle of them and says, “‘Believe me, unless you change your whole outlook and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven.” 

Changing our outlook means putting our ultimate trust not in ourselves but “Christ and him crucified.”

When Jesus talks about this trust he is still keeping it simple.  

Why trust God?  Jesus says come with me, I’ll show you and he leads them outside, into a field of flora and fauna and invites them to just look around.

Turn your attention skyward, he says, and look at the birds of the air “free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, carefree in the care of God. And you count far more.”8  Jesus is talking about “y’all”, “yous”, us!

Now look around you on the ground, he says.

Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don’t fuss with their appearance—but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?9

It’s all pretty simple.    We don’t need to be “revved up by the Rev” to understand it. And just his case we missed the point in Jesus’ little excursion into the botanic backyard Jesus concludes his simple, little tour with these words: “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”10 

It’s ours already!  It’s a gift!  And having been gifted with the kingdom of God, the presence of God even in the smallest things, we are to act like it.  If we can’t be shining cities on a hill we can be lights on a lamp stand letting our baptismal lights shine and not letting them go out!

Sometimes we can feel God’s light shining on us in obvious places but Jesus is telling us to look for it also in the simple, not so obvious places.

Since we’ve retired and we are DINKS (Double Income No Kids) Lowell and I have started the tradition of what we call our “Annual Vacations-of-a-Lifetime” which I am mentioning now in a sermon so that I can use them as a tax-deduction.

Two falls ago we were at the Vatican, and it was totally astounding for this middle-class, northwest side of Chicago kid, to be standing in the square where crowds gathered for Christmas and Easter masses; to cheer on the election of new Popes and to bury those who have died.  Then to go into through the museum, and the Sistine Chapel, and finally the enormous basilica.  The art, and size of the buildings, and history behind them was overwhelming.

This year the same thing happened when we were in London. (Why do I feel another tax-deduction coming on?)  Standing in Westminster Abbey when not many weeks before the Queen’s funeral had taken place.  Walking around Saint Paul’s with all it’s rich history. It was grand.

But perhaps the grandest thing of all took place on the flight home.  

A young man came on to the plane with his aged mother.  She was feeble beyond measure and I feared that this may have been her last trip home.  

The flight-crew rearranged seats so that they could sit together and after we had them settled most of us went back to minding our own business.

Westbound flights from Europe usually start in darkness but somewhere on the way, just as the sun was coming up, I open my blind just a bit and saw that the sun had appeared as an resplendent orange orb appearing between the clouds and the horizon.  The sight was magnificent and reminded me of all that I had seen on this vacation that shown forth the glory of God.

But then my attention turned to the young man and his mom.  She was clearly having a hard time so, there he was, feeding her just like at one time in their lives together, she had fed him.  

There he was holding her glass or cup for her so she could take a sip just like she had done for him when he was too young to do it by himself.  

And finally, when she finished, he did what all parents have done from time immemorial, he dipped his napkin in his water glass and carefully wiped her lips.

Of all the grand and glorious things we saw on that trip.  Cathedrals, Basilicas, historical sites, that were built to remind us of the greatness of God.  That young man, lovingly, gently, caring for his mom gave me the real idea of what it meant to be “salt of the earth” and a “light of the world” and forced me to conclude that it’s true:  “Simple is Best.”

________________

1,    Dan Lyons, “On Mute: Overtalkers are Everywhere – but Saying Less Will Get You More,” Time, February 6, 2022, pp. 64-66.

2.   1 Corinthians 2:1-2.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

3.  John M. Buchanan, “Salt...Light” Sermon preached at the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago. February 14, 1999.

4.  ibid.

5.  Melanie A. Howard, “Commentary on Matthew 5:13-20,” Working Preacher (Luther Seminary, January 25, 2023), https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-after-epiphany/commentary-on-matthew-513-20-5.

6.  St. Matthew 16:1. (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]

7,  Scott Black-Johnson, “Friend or Foe.”  Sermon preached at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church of New York City.  January 29, 2023.

8.  St. Luke 12:24. (MESSAGE) (MESSAGE)   [MESSAGE=Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, with Topical Concordance (NavPress, 2005).]

9. St. Luke 12:25-28.  (MESSAGE)

10.  St. Luke 12:32. (NKJV) [NKJV=The New King James Version]

Sermon preached at The Evangelical Lutheran Church 

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5TRgNMBgws