Salt of the Earth

A Sermon preached at Evensong on Sunday September 6, 2020 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Revelation 14: 1 – 7, 13, Matthew 5: 13 – 20

You won’t find the Season of Creation in the prayer book. Liturgically, we are still in Ordinary Time, counting our Sundays from Pentecost. Nevertheless the Season of Creation or Creationtide as it is also called, is something that Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion have part of for some years now. In fact, the participation of the Anglican/Episcopal churches in Germany in the Season of Creation predates that of our “parent” as we agreed to recognize it in response to an ecumenical invitation, I think around 2008.

The original initiative came from our Orthodox brothers and sisters. In 1989 the Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I proclaimed 1 September as a day of prayer for creation for the Orthodox and invited all Christians to participate. The World Council of Churches was instrumental in making the special time a season, extending the celebration from 1 September until 4 October. And the churches in Germany have celebrated the season since 2010 when it was proclaimed at the Ecumenical Kirchentag in Munich. So here, this has always an ecumenical celebration with a central ecumenical service on the first Friday in September, this year in Landau, as well as regional ecumenical services, for Hessen next Sunday in Worms.

This book recently came out to commemorate the first 10 years with articles and interviews highlighting each year’s special theme – often, but not always a sentence from scripture. This year’s theme is W/Einklang, which doesn’t really work in translation as it’s a play on words – the sound of whine and the word for harmony. The Season of Creation is the annual renewal and reminder of the call to live in harmony with nature and one another, to be grateful for God’s gift of creation and to care for on God’s behalf – as stewards. And we need reminding, because we don’t do this particularly well!

Coincidently, last year‘s theme was “”Salt of the Earth,” which comes from the Gospel reading from Matthew you heard earlier: “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.”

What does it mean to be the salt of the earth, as Jesus tells us that we are, in the context of creation care? When I think of salt, I think first of all of its role in preserving things. Creation changes all the time; we can’t preserve it like food – but in a wider sense sustainable development, the sustainable use of the gifts of creation, is a form of preservation that we are called both to advocate for, and commit to in our own lives. The measures that Susan Pinnells presented to us at this morning’s service, coming from the Convocation’s task force on Creation Care, are all about our commitment both as a community and as individuals.

Salt is also a taste enhancer, without it, food would be bland. Without the diversity of species – plants, insects, animals, birds – this world would be very bland indeed. To be the salt of the earth also means doing all we can to maintain diversity, supporting or initiating conservation projects, and challenging things like the mass destruction of rain forests that not only impacts diversity, but is also unjust to all those who live there and whose livelihood and culture depends on the rain forests.

And finally, when I hear salt, I think of the saying to rub salt in wound. That has two levels: Salt really helps the process of cleaning and healing and, also by hurting and stinging, it reminds us that there is a huge wound to be healed. And we are in the healing business.

There is much to celebrate at this time, as we use this season to renew our relationship with our Creator and all creation. But there is also a need for conversion and commitment, and that is where our role as the salt of the earth is most important.

Bountiful God, you call us to labor with you in tending the earth: Where we lack love, open our hearts to the world; where we waste, give us discipline to conserve; where we neglect, awaken our minds and wills to insight and care. May we with all your creatures honor and serve you in all things, for you live and reign with Christ, Redeemer of all, and with your Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Whose God?

 

A Sermon preached on Sunday August 16, 2020 Proper 15 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Isaiah 56:1,6-8, Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32, Matthew 15: 21-28.

One of feminist theologian Phyllis Trible’s most well-known books is called “Texts of Terror.” In it, she examines four rather nasty Old Testament narratives in which women suffered and were abused: Hagar, Tamar, an unnamed concubine and the daughter of Jephthah. Quoting from the cover “In highlighting the silence, absence, and opposition of God, as well as human cruelty, Trible shows how these neglected stories…. challenge both the misogyny of Scripture and its use in church, synagogue, and academy."

Now while today’s extract from Matthews Gospel is not a text of terror, it certainly seems to throw Jesus in a bad light regardless of whether his first ignoring the Canaanite woman, and then insulting her “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (Matthew 15:26) is due to her being a woman, or a foreigner, or both.

It appears particularly disappointing coming at the end of the week in which our church’s calendar recognized some very important women of faith. Tuesday was the feast day of St. Clare of Assisi. Inspired St. Francis’ preaching and example, and despite much male opposition, she founded and then governed the order of the Poor Clares (officially the Order of Saint Clare) for 40 years, an order that embraced the Franciscan rule of absolute poverty and of works of mercy for the poor and the neglected. Wednesday it was Florence Nightingale’s turn, English social reformer and the founder of modern nursing. An Anglican, albeit at times an unorthodox one, she felt that genuine religion should manifest itself in active care and love for others. And then yesterday was the feast day of Saint Mary the Virgin: Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ: blessed and venerated not only for her status as “Mother of God,” but for her faith and witness.

And I think there is even a connection between these three female saints, and the Canaanite woman. She too was faithful, as Jesus attests at the end of the passage: “Woman, great is your faith!” (15:28) She acts not for herself, but selflessly for her daughter. And she also has to overcome male resistance - from the disciples and from Jesus.  I am reminded of another connection between her and Mary. In John’s Gospel, at the wedding in Cana, it is Mary who forces Jesus’ hand and gets him to do the first of his public signs. When she approaches him to help, his initial reaction to his mother is also a little insulting: “Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’” (John 2:4-5). But she perseveres: “His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’” In today’s Gospel from Matthew, the Canaanite woman’s bold humility forces Jesus’ hand into declaring a more expansive view of his ministry, one in which he is no longer only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

And that brings us to Jesus. How do we explain his position and his reaction to this woman and foreigner? There is already a lot of discussion in the Old Testament between what we call a more inclusive or universal view of God on the one, and a particular or restricted view on the other hand. The inclusive view is represented for example in the book of Ruth, a foreigner who later even appears in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, in the book of Jonah, in which even the city of Israel’s ancient enemy Nineveh is saved when they repent and turn to God, and in the Book of Isaiah, as documented by today’s extract in which all foreigners who love the Lord and keep his covenant are welcome and God’s house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. (Isaiah 56:7)

The opposite, restricted view is represented for example by the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. According to Ezra it is God’s will that the newly returned exiles separate themselves from the neighboring peoples and from their foreign wives, who are to be sent away, with their children. In this view, God’s house is a house of prayer only for the people of Israel. And as we know, this debate continues in the New Testament. The Acts of the Apostles and many of Paul’s letters address the question and the arguments around whether and under what circumstances Gentiles can become part of the new “Jesus movement,” with Peter and Paul initially taking very different opposing positions. Ironically, if we look at today’s extract from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, the issue is no longer whether Gentiles are included in God’s plan of salvation but whether the Jews are (you bet they are, says Paul, emphatically). And let’s be honest, issues of in- and exclusion and division are still very much with us today.

It’s clear that in the beginning Jesus’ ministry was focused on those he calls the lost sheep of the house of Israel. When he first commissions and sends out the twelve, he commands them not to go among the Gentiles or into a Samaritan City (Mt. 10:5). Yet at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, the commission has changed, and the disciples are now sent out to make disciples of all nations. (Mt. 28:19) And while Jesus spends most of his time teaching and ministering to his own Jewish people, we notice more interaction with minorities in the latter half of the Gospel and more and more parables that show that God’s kingdom is open to all. Was this change all down to the Canaanite woman? No, not just, her (or the other Gentile figures who paly similar roles in other gospels), but I think she played an important role. The church would not have kept this critical episode in the canon otherwise.

We teach that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine and that in becoming a human being, God’s Son freely relinquished some of his powers – we call this kenosis or emptying. The emphasis in Jesus’ ministry changes over time as he grows, as he learns more in prayer – he constantly seeks the guidance of his Father – and as he learns through experience and from other examples.

As Jesus comes to realize, “Israel first” does not mean Israel only, and the persistence of the Canaanite woman is one factor in that change. Instead, “Israel first” is to be understood as Isaiah understood it. It is a call to Israel to be an invitation and to set an example - maintaining justice, doing what is right to bring God’s salvation to the whole world.  Salvation does come from the Jews through Jesus and his followers and then into the world. I don’t know whether Jesus had a tidy plan to first call Israel to repentance and then the world, but sometimes reality gets in the way of tidy plans. At our Wednesday Bible study Dorothee also helpfully pointed to the parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1-8) as an example of how we can and should expect God to be moved. In that story, we hear about a widow who keeps coming to an unjust judge asking for justice until he is worn down by her persistence and says:  “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” Jesus concludes by saying if an unjust judge reacts this way “will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them?” The Canaanite woman helps persuade Jesus even at this early stage of his mission that God’s chosen ones are all who believe.

So today’s passage from Matthew is not a text of terror, but a text of hope. It offers us two human examples we can easily follow. First of all, the example of the Canaanite woman and her unwavering faith in the pursuit of justice and healing. The other example is of the (very) human Jesus being willing to be changed by her faithful witness. And finally, the passage reminds us that God is so much bigger than any of us can imagine, even at that moment in time Jesus. None of our petty little human boundaries and divisions interest God, only love and faith received and shown.

Amen.