Bible Text: Matthew 5:1-16 | Preacher: Pastor Dorry Newcomer | Series: The Beatitudes | This was a big week here at church.  School started!  Our before and after school care program, which we call Bus Stop, has adapted to the all virtual learning in our district.  That means no school buses are coming, but every day at noon, parent drop off their kids.  From noon to three, the Bus Stop staff supervises as the students log on to their classrooms and do their schoolwork on their computers.  Then at three o’clock, it’s time for fun.  It’s been really nice having the sound of kids playing at church again!  Six months is a long time for the church to be quiet.

When Jesus told his disciples that they were the salt of the earth and the light of the world, I don’t know if he could imagine that one of the ways the church would be salt and light would be by providing supervision for internet based learning during a pandemic!  I know I never imagined that!  But lo and behold, that is what is happening.  Because of the ways you support your church, our facility is being used to help families in our community weather this difficult season with a little more poise.

I like that word, poise.  Poise isn’t about being elegant.  It’s about being balanced.  It’s being able to maintain good posture, no matter how topsy-turvy the world is.  It’s being able to stand tall and move with ease, no matter how heavy the burdens are.  It’s “grace under pressure”.  And ironically, the way we get poise, the ability to stand up straight and tall, is to fall on our knees from time to time!

It’s important for us to remember that, because change can really knock us off balance.  When my kids were in elementary school, they started using a new math curriculum called, “Everyday Math”.  One of the hallmarks of Everyday Math is a concept called, “spiral learning”.  This is in contrast to the linear fashion of learning most of us are used to:  topic A is introduced, worked on, and mastered.  Then topic B is introduced, worked on, and mastered.  After that, THEN topic C is introduced, worked on and mastered.  That’s linear learning. Spiral learning says, while we’re working on topic A, let’s give the students a taste of topic C to whet their appetites.  While we’re working on topic b, let’s spiral back to topic A and review.  Before we start on topic C, let’s introduce topic D.  In linear learning, students are only dealing with one block of material at a time.  But in spiral learning, there are always multiple topics, and it’s okay if the students haven’t mastered one before moving on to the next, because there will always be a spiraling back to revisit and review.

I have to tell you, at our school, the parents’ reaction to Everyday Math was really negative, which struck me as really ironic.  These were parents who considered themselves hip and worked hard to have new cars, stylish clothing, and up to date electronics.  They prided themselves on being current.  But introduce a new math curriculum, and all of a sudden, they were traditionalists!

Which just goes to show, change is hard.  Change is always a great idea when it’s someone ELSE who has to change.  Change is also great when it’s our own idea and we are in control.  But when it’s not my idea, and it affects me, and I already feel overwhelmed and now you want me to stretch and broaden and take in yet another new thing?  We all have our limits!  My husband used to have a t-shirt featuring the comic strip Dilbert. It said, “Change is good.  You go first!”  Over these last few months, I have found myself wishing we still had that shirt a lot.

I think Jesus would have liked Everyday Math.  First of all, everything he taught was geared toward everyday usefulness.  We could call the Sermon on the Mount, “Everyday Faith”.  It’s quite a curriculum.  And Jesus was for sure a proponent of spiral learning.  Just look at the Beatitudes, the fourteen verses we have worked on all summer.  They start with “Blessed are the poor in spirit”.  In other words, blessed are the beginners!  Blessed are the people who realize they have more to learn.  The Beatitudes progress through increasingly difficult material:  mourning, forgiveness, peacemaking, and persecution.  At each stage, if we’re honest and open, we will realize, this is too hard for us!  We will find ourselves poor in spirit.  If we are intent on following Christ, we will always spiral back to poverty of spirit.  We will find ourselves returning again and again to our knees, because on our own, we can’t do all that God wants us to do.  We will have no place else to go except to prostrate ourselves before the Lord.

That’s how I feel reading our key verses for today.  In the gospel of John, Jesus told his disciples, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”  (John 8:12)  Those words used to feel so comforting to me.  But during these last six months, I have not always felt light.  I’ve had dark moments.  I know a lot of you have, too.  Hearing that Jesus is the light of the world, and that we are to walk in his light, that’s assignment enough, don’t you think?  I can’t even do that without falling on my knees.

But then in Matthew’s gospel, we read that Jesus is calling us to do more than just follow the light.  We are to BE the light!  “You are the light of the world.  A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”  (Matthew 5:14).  Talk about pressure!  But I honestly do not think Jesus said these words to put MORE pressure on us.  I think he said these words to put LESS pressure on us.  I go back to the idea of poise.  How are we supposed to hold steady and keep our light burning in this topsy-turvy time?  How are we supposed to stand tall and not let the weight of the world bear down on us?  The only way we can do that is by admitting we are poor in spirit.  We simply cannot do it all.  We have no choice but to fall on our knees and ask God to do through us what we cannot do on our own.

Jesus told us that we are the light of the world because Jesus knows that not all change is good!  If we are letting the world change us, that is the opposite of good.  Jesus wants us to be changed by the Sprit, to become so transformed, so connected to God that the world gets blessed.  There will be such a dramatic transfer of energy from God to us that God’s love and light will flow through us to the world.

Jesus gave us the title, “Light of the World” so if we are going to do any changing, let us change toward faith!  If we are going to do any changing, let us change toward hope!   I think Jesus knew how prone we would be to despair and complain and resist and get frustrated, he and offers us another option:  we can be light in the darkness instead.

And there is no shortage of ways to be light in the dark!  As Christians, this is our jam!  A few minutes ago we watched a video about three United Methodist outreaches in the Congo.  Two years ago Lima UMC sent 8 people to the Congo on a mission trip, and they were witnesses to the opening of a well.  The first clean water ever for an area of the Congo that is home to one million people.  Can you imagine?  We complain when there’s no hot water.  Until two years ago, a large number of people in the        region had no clean water!  Talk about bringing light to a dark place.

Now the missions in the Congo are asking for our help once again.  They are concerned about preventing a pandemic of the corona virus, just like everyone else in the world.  There might not be a lot we can do to help them with that.  But they are also worried about a totally preventable pandemic of malnutrition.  Their resources have been stretched thin, and they are not able to feed all the people who need help.  I remember Bishop Johnson saying, no gift to the Congo is too small, because our money goes very far there.  In fact, for just $140, we can feed for one whole year one person who would otherwise suffer from malnutrition.  That’s only $12 a month!  $12 a month to keep someone alive.  That’s not only do-able, it feel like something I can’t NOT do!

But here’s where it gets tricky.  People in the Congo are not the only people who need help.  Our Lima UMC mission of the month, the green envelopes, for September is UMCOR.  We know people all around the world are suffering because of the corona virus.  Add to that the crazy hurricane season and flooding we’ve had this summer, plus all the other disasters for which recovery isn’t complete yet, and you’ve got a lot of need.  Supporting UMCOR at this time feels like the right thing to do.  On top of that, Bishop Johnson has asked every church in our conference to consider making a gift to one of our United Methodist camps.  Since they couldn’t have retreats in the spring, or camp over the summer, and continued restrictions will limit retreats in the fall, their revenue stream for this year has dried up almost completely.  Our camps have been a source of spiritual growth for so many people over the years, and we know they will be able to provide important opportunities in the future.  They are worth preserving.  The need is legitimate, and I know we will find a way to help.  But we have also gotten word that the Media Food Pantry is now providing help to a record number of families right in our community, and we’ve been asked to hold a special food drive for them.  How could we say no to that?  If we can’t shine the light of Christ in our own zip code, how can we shine it anywhere?

Which brings us back to poor in spirit.  We simply cannot meet all of these needs on our own.  We have no place to go but on our knees, asking God to guide us; asking God to open our hearts and make us more generous and open our minds to fill us with wisdom; asking God to stimulate our creativity and help find ways to be light in this dark world.  Our only other option is to let the angst of the world change us into people of apathy or despair!  I for one do not think that’s Lima’s choice.  That’s not who we are.  So we must choose instead to let the light of Christ change us into people of hope and trust and action.

But, Jesus warned us about this, and we are seeing it play out all around us in our day and age:  take hopeful, faithful action, and you are likely to get criticized.  You are likely to get persecuted.  You are likely to suffer.  You will be required to sacrifice.  Jesus promises, though, that if we follow him, we will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.  Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it isn’t the right thing.

Choosing to do the next right thing is the key to being salt and light.  If we stop doing the right things, we are like salt that has lost its flavor, no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on.  If we are not willing to courageously and sacrificially do the next right thing, we keep our light under a bowl, where eventually it will be snuffed out altogether.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.  Blessed are the merciful.  Blessed are the peacemakers and justice seekers.  It is only as we obediently follow Christ that we can be salt and light, sustenance and hope, tangible bearers of love and light in our dark world. Our faithfulness will likely ruffle a few feathers, but take heart.  God is perfectly comfortable with a little conflict in the system!  It is through conflict and tension and discomfort and pain that we are most likely to grow and mature and bear fruit.  It is through difficulty that we develop poise.

And our poise has a purpose.  Well-known New York City pastor, Rev. James Forbes said, “Nobody gets into heaven without a letter of reference from the poor.”  Maybe that is because there’s nothing like considering the depth of the world’s needs to remind us that we are poor in spirit.  There’s no way we can meet even our own needs on our own!  Our only option is to fall to our knees, where we find that ours is the kingdom of heaven.  Realizing we have all the treasures of heaven at our disposal, we become free to share our earthly treasure—our energy, our time, our talents, our goodwill, and yes our finances too–more generously.  We become salt and light.

Spiral learning.  I honestly don’t know whether it’s the best way to teach math.  But it is the only way to learn how to be a disciple of Christ.  Don’t be afraid to fall on your knees and admit you are poor in spirit and have so much more to learn.  Otherwise, the world will change you.  If there’s going to be change, change toward faith, hope, generosity, and justice.  Change toward salt and light.  In the name of Jesus, Amen.