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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, our text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading. Having been baptized into Christ Jesus, having been called to a faith relationship with your Lord Jesus, you have been placed in a vocation. Not a vacation. A vocation. Meaning, a calling.
God has called you and placed you in a relationship with someone else to serve. You did not choose that someone else. God chose that someone else for you. For example, though you may think you chose your spouse if you are married, God chose … brought you together with that individual. That is your vocation as husband or wife, to serve that person with whom you’ve been yoked into a relationship.
Now, all y’all know that you did not choose your children, although we love our children. They were given to us, and we were given the vocation as parents to love and serve them. That is a vocation that God chose. You did not. It also happens within your workplace. If you are a supervisor, the people that are placed under you, you are responsible to serve them. Those who are over you, you are responsible to serve them. Your fellow business associates, you have been called in a vocation by God to be in a relationship with them, to serve them. Not of your own choice, but of God’s choosing.
And it is the same with your church. You’ve been called into a fellowship of believers. You have been brought to a rail to eat and drink the very flesh and blood of Christ with the bread and the wine, knitting you in a relationship with other people who did not grow up in the same kind of a home that you did, who did not have the same kind of parents or the same kind of advantages or disadvantages that you did. But regardless, you have been called by God into this communion of saints. By God’s choosing.
So, having been baptized and called to a faith relationship to Christ, having been set in various vocations in your life, how are you doing in your vocation? As husband or wife, son or daughter, mother or father? How are you doing as employee or as supervisor employer? How are you doing as parishioner? As fellow parish family member, board member?
Jesus said this: For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. As his children, you have been called to live out your vocation, but you have not been called to live out your vocation in an ordinary way. All of the non-Christians do that every day. And some of them do a pretty good job of it, mind you. But you have not been called to live out your vocation in an ordinary way. You, rather, as God’s children, and of his beloved, have been called to live it out in an extraordinary way. Radically different. Marked with humility, mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
So how you doing? How you doing in your vocation? Good. The one God called you in. The one he chose for you. You see, in our text, there’s another group of people. They were called the Pharisees and the scribes. Jesus referred to them, and I quoted you that text. These Pharisees and scribes saw themselves as being defined by how they did their vocation. Even though they didn’t believe it in the same way you and I do, they judged themselves and they wanted everybody else to judge them by how they did in their vocation.
And mind you, these guys were very righteous. They didn’t have to be told how much money to give. They didn’t have to be told who they should serve. They didn’t have to be told to be in church or to pray regularly. How sad. Even though they didn’t have to be told all that, their ears were completely plugged in to God’s definition of who they are in Christ Jesus. They cut themselves off from Jesus’ definition of who they are in Christ.
You see, Jesus is the one who defined you. You did not define Jesus. And since Jesus is the one who defined you, what does he define you as? The text says you are the salt of the earth. The text says you are the light of the world. As his children, he defines you. He directs you to see you, you, who you are, not defined by what you do, but by what he declares about you.
Sadly, the Pharisees and scribes said, no, that doesn’t apply to us. We know what we do. That’s what matters. Oh, really? So the question still stands, both to you and to me. Are you living out your vocation to be defined by your actions, by how well you do, or are you living out your vocation because you’ve been defined by your loving Father as His beloved children? There is a marked difference between those two.
Remember the text. The text did not say, you are becoming the salt of the earth. The text said, you are the salt of the earth. Jesus did not say, you are becoming the light of the world. Jesus said, you are the light of the world. Can you imagine if your mama or daddy said to you, you are becoming my son. You are becoming my daughter. How do you know if you’ve ever arrived? How do you know whether you are their son or their daughter? How do you know? Your mama and daddy, and if they didn’t, you know that’s what you wanted to hear them say, you are my son, you are my daughter, defining you and your identity by their proclamation, not by your self-evaluation.
Mark a difference, brothers and sisters. Mark a difference. This seemingly paradoxical thing is not something new. Christians have been struggling with this thing for millennia. In fact, the conversation went like this 500 years ago in a classroom between Dr. Luther as he taught and one of his students. The student challenged Dr. Luther and said, “So, man can do nothing about his own sinfulness, correct?” Luther, with great love for the student, smiled and said, “Yes.”
The student responded then, “God is to do everything, right?” Again, Luther, with love toward the student, answered, “Yes.” The student then concluded, “Then I may do as I please. I can sin as much as I want, and it makes no difference.” Luther responded, “Yes, you may do as you please.” And then his countenance changed toward the young man and said, “But tell me, what pleases you? If you want to do as you please, what pleases you? Imagine it. No more laws. No more punishments. What do you do? Do you drink yourself senseless? Do you make faces at the Duke? Do you spend the rest of the week in a brothel?”
There was silence in the classroom. And then he concluded, “If you are a good man, you do good works. Not to prove anything. Not to gain anything. But just because that’s who you are in your heart.” Well, that left this young man flummoxed. He said then, “What does it take then to be a good man?” Luther responded with one word and one word only, “faith.” That’s it. That’s all he said. How profound.
Your righteousness is not something that you have to define. Your righteousness is what God declares about you because of Christ Jesus crucified for you. Your faith in that declaration is what makes you righteous. It is not a matter of becoming. It is a matter that you are. No different than you’re not becoming your parent’s son or daughter. You are. You’re not becoming the child of God. You are a child of God.
You see, the Pharisees and the scribes were all about measuring their righteousness quantitatively. How much, when, how often, and so forth. Oh, don’t do that, brothers and sisters. You’ll leave yourself like a dog chasing its proverbial tail and never find peace. How do you know you’ve done enough? How do you know you’ve done it at the right time? How do you know you’ve done it to the right people?
Your Father measures your righteousness qualitatively. You believe or you don’t. He also measures it relationally. Have you been reconciled to him? Yes. Then be reconciled in your heart to others. You’ve been knit into a communion here at this rail with one another. Be reconciled then to one another. It’s by faith, not by action.
When you live out your identity as God’s salt, as God’s light in your vocation, you are letting your light shine. Let me say that again. When you live out who you are as God’s salt and God’s light, you are letting your light shine because you’re trusting in God’s definition of your identity and not your own. This identity is preserved by God. And continually began, obviously, by your Father.
So to be salty, to be light, is nothing more than to be repentant and to believe God’s definition of who you are and not Satan. Because you know he brings it around to you and says, “Oh, so you’re God’s child.” And then he points out every one of your felicitous inconsistencies and every one of your failures. And every one of your failures. And you know, once he starts that, he doesn’t need any more help than you and I beat ourselves or we’re angry and justify ourselves and blame someone else. That’s when salt loses its saltiness. That’s when light is covered up because it’s listening not to God’s definition of your identity, but to your own, to your own damnable definition.
Don’t, dear brothers and sisters, let your light shine. Be salty, be light, for that is who you are, because God defined you, not you. Repent and believe this great good news, and let it shine, let it shine.
In the name of Jesus, amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
