You’ve already heard in the Children’s Sermon today a bit of what I think it means to live a salty life, to flavor our interactions with God’s love, or what it means to be light, to let our light shine for the good of others and to the glory of God. We, as God’s people can make life better for others as we let God’s love flavor our relationships, and as we let God’s light radiate through our daily interactions with others – not in order to bring attention to ourselves, but rather to reveal the light and love of God in a world of need…

 

Now, I don’t like to preach much about myself. I certainly never want to give the impression that I think I’m somehow a superior form of Christian, because I happen to be ordained, or because I hold to a particular perspective on the faith, or anything like that. But I’ve been involved in an ongoing situation for more than a year that has kind of come to a head in the past couple weeks, and I’ve been trying hard to advocate for some people who feel threatened and disrespected in the situation.

 

Add to that that we haven’t yet found a Sunday this year to celebrate being a Reconciling in Christ congregation – A decision we made together as a congregation a couple years ago now, and that we continue to try to live ever more fully into, to be radically inclusive in welcoming all people into this community regardless of race, social standing, or status, gender identity, or sexual orientation, marital status, or any other such things that have been used to exclude people from Christian community far too often by far too many in the past. So I want to share a brief story with you, and then part of an email letter I received from a colleague.

 

Some background. I participate regularly in a study group that’s largely made up of ELCA pastors including some who identify as gay or lesbian, and one who identifies as queer or non-binary, meaning they don’t identify as purely male or female. There is also a pastor from the Missouri-Synod Lutheran Church who has been coming to study with us for nearly 10 years now. From time to time in the past couple years, this man, I’ll call him John, has made it clear in various ways that he is opposed to, and believes God is opposed to, the ordination of women, as well as anyone who identifies as LGBTQIA+, and it’s caused some of our pastors to no longer want to come to the study, because they have been made to feel unsafe, unwelcomed, and disrespected.

 

So we tried this week to get everyone around the table and to create a list of norms that are not open for debate, specifically anything having to do with identity, like gender, race, sexual orientation – those things that make us who we are. But John just didn’t seem to get it, and repeatedly refused to agree to abide by this covenant that we all worked to form together. Having reached this impasse, sadly, it seems like we’re going to have to ask this person to no longer come.

 

Through this difficult time, I’ve been deeply involved in efforts to find a way of reconciliation, but it seems like that’s failing.

 

As this situation has come to a head this week, I received a letter via email from a colleague who happens to be a married lesbian woman, and a wonderful pastor – we’ve known each other since before either of us was ordained, and we sit next to each other every Tuesday. She wrote:

 

Hi, Matt!

I’m so glad you were at the table for the important discussion yesterday. I’ve been thinking a lot about it.

 

I was trying to figure out why it is that I don’t personally find John as offensive as other LGBTQIA+ folks at the table, and I’ve come to realize that a big piece of why I personally feel valued and safe at the table has less to do with his comments, and more to do with the person sitting next to me every single week.

 

Even before I knew you well, you have always been an advocate for LGBTQIA+ folks. It’s part of who you are. I know that if John ever said or did something that was past the line of offensive and more in the realm of threatening, you would literally be the first person in his face. You would stop him in his tracks. And you wouldn’t do that because of our friendship –

you would do it because that’s part of your belief system, and you wouldn’t stand for it. I am the beneficiary of the blessing and comfort of having such a strong, white, male, heterosexual friend at the table every week.

 

Publicly vocal allies really do make all the difference in a situation.

 

I wanted to write and say thank you for being the pastor, friend, and person you are. It has made, and continues to make, a huge difference in my life, and I thought you should know.

 

Love you, brother

And she signed her name

 

I’ve got to tell you, this email brought me to tears the morning I received it, and I honestly struggled with whether or not to share this story with you (and for the record, I got her permission to share it), but on this day when we’re being challenged by Jesus to not hide our light under a barrel but to let it shine, to put it on a lampstand to give light to the whole house, I decided I couldn’t not share it. Not to puff myself up, or to make you think that somehow I’m, as a said earlier, some kind of superior form of Christian, but to lift up this example as a reminder for each and every one of us gathered here today to risk being salty – preserving and adding flavor in your interpersonal interactions. To risk shining a light into situations where people face the shadows of exclusion or feeling like they have to justify their very existence as the people they believe God has made them to be.

 

Dear people of God in Christ, we cannot continue to allow such things to go on in the name of God! Publicly vocal allies really do make a difference…

 

In our first reading today, the prophet Isaiah tells us to shout out, to not hold back, to lift our voices like a trumpet, first. acknowledging the ways we’ve sinned, the ways we’ve failed as individuals, and as the whole people of God, to be what God has formed us to be. And then to proclaim a fast, not from food or drink and such, but to fast from injustice, oppression, scarcity, and exclusion of those who are kin – family – those who are created in God’s image and likeness, created in all of God’s wonderful diversity, created and claimed as beloved children of God, every bit as much as everyone else is.

 

The fact is that, in the name of God, people are still regularly excluded from full participation in the Church based on those things that we list in our Affirmation of Welcome statement – race, marital status, gender, sexual orientation – in other words, based on their very identity.

 

And in the Gospel, Jesus calls us to be salt and light, and to be more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees –

a tall order, really, when we consider that these men were considered to be the most holy, the most Godly, the most righteous people in their society.

 

For us, then, in this case, as a Reconciling in Christ community, to be salt and light in the world, to be more righteous than even the scribes and Pharisees, really comes down to one simple thing – recognizing and honoring the presence of God in the other, no matter their identity. And when you encounter someone who is refusing to honor another person – someone refusing to grant to another the dignity and worth of being considered, fully, a beloved child of God, created in the image and likeness of God – then be bold, step up, speak out, condemn such hateful exclusion, and proclaim, as clearly as you can, in word and in deed, the boundless love and welcome of God extended freely to all.

 

Amen.