From the Pulpit:

 
                                                                         Here We Are
  

A couple of weeks ago Bev Drawe and her dog Maggie were up here overseeing the beautiful landscape clearing that
you have probably noticed as you come up the driveway. It was one of those Texas winter days that start out so cold
you need your parka and boots but ends up so beautiful  that it ought to be illegal to stay indoors.

When it got warm, I came down to see what was going on and Bev said, “Well, I’ve got my prize for the day.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out a rock. I wasn’t impressed until she explained what it is. I don’t have the discerning eyes to recognize an Indian scraper. She showed me how it is carefully chiseled flint, how it has a knife edge sharp enough to cut what needed to be cut and how it fits snugly in the palm of your hand so that it is steady for scraping a hide.

She told me that she imagines we’ll find all sorts of ancient things if we spent the time looking around up here, and, I might add, if we had sharp and knowledgeable eyes like hers. She’s been collecting these ancient tools for years and gave me this one, which is now my entire collection. It turns out Bev knows a lot about the Indians who lived around here, and she said they would have especially loved our hillside, where they would be able to see for miles and protect themselves from their enemies.

Well, you know who you are dealing with here. My curiosity took me to the Internet, where I wasted a good bit of time learning about the Indians who might have lived up on our hill. In historic times they would have been Apache and Comanche. Maybe it wasn’t deerskin they were scraping. It could have been bison. Earlier it could even have been wooly mammoth. Holding this scraper, I feel connected with mysterious people who lived here many thousands of years ago.
The awe I feel is very holy.

High places have always been considered holy. According to the ancient understanding, the higher we go, the closer we get to God, but as I ponder it, I think it is the perspective that is holy. When we are high up and can see off into the distance, somehow what is truly important seems to sort itself out. On beautiful days, I like to go out to the landing of the stairs at the end of the Parish Life Center and just look and think. The sky is bigger, and even though I’m looking  at downtown Austin and subdivisions and the traffic down on I-35, they don’t feel like they are ruling my life.

I don’t  think there is the first thing accidental about Moses going up the mountain to receive the law, or Jesus taking Peter and James and John up the mountain to witness the Transfiguration and to meet Moses and Elijah and hear for themselves the voice of God.

Today’s reading from Matthew’s gospel is part of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus took his disciples away from the crowd and up onto higher ground in order to teach them  what they needed to know to take on their ministry as disciples. They sat at his feet and listened. They knew his words were going to change their lives. And the first thing he says after the mysterious beatitudes we heard last week is, You are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world. He’s not telling them what to do. He’s telling them who they already are. He is affirming their identity. He is naming their gifts,  and he tells them that they must claim their gifts, rejoice in their gifts, and share their gifts with the world.

You know I love parables. I saw a parable last week and many of you have seen it as well. For those of you who haven’t seen The King’s Speech, what I’m going to tell you won’t spoil for a minute what an extraordinary film it is. It is the story of two remarkable and most unlikely men. The first one we meet is the Duke of York, second son of the king of England, known to his less than sensitive family as B-B-B-Bertie because his stammering paralyzes his life. He has tried all sorts of therapies to no avail, but his wife hears of an Australian speech therapist and shows up at his offices under the guise of Mrs. Johnson. Ultimately Lionel Logue agrees to see the Duke, but only at his office and on his terms. There are many painful, hilarious, and touching moments as Logue teaches the Duke, who of course became King George VI upon the abdication of his brother to marry the divorcee Wallace Simpson – Logue teaches Bertie not only to speak more clearly, clearly enough to lead the British through the Second World War, but he teaches him to be king and to be a man. He teaches him that he is the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

These metaphors of salt and light are all about authenticity, and when we are authentic we accept and rejoice in our giftedness, which may be other than the giftedness of others but is not superior to it. Logue is utterly authentic to who
he is and demands equality with the Duke. When the King treats him as an equal it is shocking to the archbishop and others who are accustomed to the hierarchy of the British class system. Logue is nobody. He has no degrees, but it is
his giftedness that he claims with authority and he will not be treated as less than the king. Or maybe it is that he treats
the king as a human being rather than a spoiled child, and teaches him that commoners, the subjects he will defend
against evil itself, are all royal in the eyes of God.

I probably don’t have to say much about being a city on a hill. Here we are. If you are driving here in the dark of morning or night, you see our lights from far off. Our sign is visible from a great distance.

Salt and light are not of much use until they participate in something bigger and other than themselves. We don’t eat salt by itself, but good cooks know that the addition of even a little bit of salt in just about any recipe makes all the other flavors pop. We don’t hide our lights, either, Jesus tells us. No, we are meant to shine.

Jesus will go on in this gospel and give the disciples, the community of Matthew and all of us a number of daunting tasks and responsibilities as we accept the ministry of living in the world as his disciples, but before he gets started he assures us that we already are what we need to be.

It’s the first day of class for the disciples, the day when the professor is straight up about what to expect, so if you need to bail or transfer to another class, now is the time to do it. Here’s what is expected of you: you are expected to own up to who you have been created to be, to call attention to yourself for the sake of the world, to season this dish that is God’s creation and make people notice the incredible flavor of it. You are called to make people take delight.  You are expected to pierce the dullness and the darkness of the world, to illuminate dim and dusty corners, to shine light into the crevices where the boogie man would live if the boogie man could hide from God. You are to speak with authority because authority, like authenticity, does not come from you, but from the God who created you and who gave you precious gifts to share with others.

What is it to be a disciple? It is to grow every day more like the Christ we follow until one day we will be indistinguishable from him, and on that day the world we see not us, but him, humble flesh and blood, salty, and radiating light to bring us face to face with a mirror in which everything and everyone shines because God made us and declared that all creation is very, very good.

Amen.