Sep 26, 2021 |
Being the Salt of the Earth
| The Rev. Philip DeVaulBeing the Salt of the Earth
Should we stop people who are outside of our understanding from bringing blessing and love into the world in Jesus' name and Jesus' response is, if you do that, you may as well go to hell. That's what Jesus says. That's what that whole second section of the gospel is about. When we get in the way of other people sharing the blessing, we are bringing hell to earth. When we get in the way of other people making the world more like God would have it because they're doing it in a way we don't understand, we are marring our own body: the body of Christ. We are cutting ourselves up. We are burning and bringing the fire here and we know how to do that, don't we? I know how to do that. I know how to confine my life so that it looks just enough like I want it to so that I can say, it's going okay. I can see love here and I can shut out love when it doesn't look like what I'd like it to, which really just means I can shut love out when it's going to push me and make me uncomfortable and challenge me and make me into something I wasn't expecting. This is exactly what Jesus does in our lives time and time again. Jesus pushes us to recognize God's blessing and power in places and in people we could never have imagined.