Affirming Identity, Challenging Action

A sermon on Matthew 5:13-20.

Photo by satheeshkumar ram on Unsplash

In this past week I have had a few unrelated conversations that have involved the distinction between what we do and who we are.

What we do is about our actions, and of course those matter.

Our actions can shape the course of our lives and have a huge impact (for good or bad) on the people around us.

And, of course, our actions can sometimes reflect our character, especially when we fail to do the hard work to develop self-awareness or to interrogate whether our actions are consistent with the morality that we claim.

But our actions can never define our identity.

Our identity is about who we are. Our essential nature and worth. That which is made in the image of God and is always beloved… even when our actions are nothing but mistakes.

And this distinction is really important because it can be far too easy to apply the judgements of identity to the evidence of our actions.

When we do this, we can start to believe that our fundamental value is determined by what we achieve.

Or we can let feelings of guilt over past actions that have caused harm bleed into a sense of shame that who we are is somehow flawed or tarnished by what we have done.

And when we fall into these judgments, we get trapped in a mindset that cuts us off from growth, and from love… including love for ourselves.

So, I think the distinction between actions and identity is really important to make before diving into a gospel like the one we read today, because so much of this teaching is made up of warnings:

Of salt losing its flavor and being thrown away,

Or of light being useless because it is hidden,

Or of failing to achieve the level of righteousness needed to enter the kingdom of heaven. (Yikes – that doesn’t sound very Lutheran!)

These are the kinds of teachings that can call us into anxiety about who we are.

We can search them for clues about how to make sure we behave like salt and light, and achieve greater righteous than the scribes and Pharisees.

But that action-based instinct ignores something vital about what Jesus actually says.

He says, “You ARE the salt of the earth…. You ARE the light of the world.”

Not, “You need to strive to be salt….”

Not, “You need to behave like light.”

You ARE.

Jesus makes a claim about identity, because God gets to do that.

God, as our Creator, is the ONLY one who gets to do that.

And Jesus intentionally affirms identity BEFORE his challenging lesson on actions.

The actions do matter. Jesus wants to push hard on actions, but he doesn’t want us to think our fundamental worth is in the balance.

Especially not immediately after making such a big point about those who are despised and marginalized by the ways of this world being the ones whom God blesses, as we heard last week.

Now, I can imagine someone might push back on this interpretation because the whole “salt losing its saltiness” and getting thrown out sounds like identity might actually be in the balance – like it’s possible to lose the fundamental identity of worth that he has just assigned.

But the thing is, salt cannot in fact lose its saltiness. Not without a chemical reaction that actually makes it not salt anymore.[1] The “danger” here is actually a false problem.

So, I think Jesus is offering an argument through opposites.

He’s saying, “the only way to lose your identity is through something that’s not actually possible.”

I think that’s why he doesn’t follow-up this metaphor with any teaching about how these salty-people are to act.

Instead, Jesus moves on quickly to a much more developed analogy that offers a realistic challenge: hiding a light removes its effectiveness.

This is entirely possible. You can hide a light if you want to.

It doesn’t stop being light, but it stops being useful.

So here, Jesus follows up the metaphor of light with instructions: “Let your light shine before others.”

This is what Jesus wants his followers to understand:

WHO we are is light and salt: things with intrinsic, recognized value. That identity of worth is immutable.

But our IMPACT on the world around us is not assured in the same way. We act in a way that “lets our light shine” or hides it.

I think this teaching offers us a powerful lens to apply when we are dealing with a world in very clear need of more light.

It tells us we don’t need to worry about where we stand with God, so that we can focus our attention on our actions.

Where lies are obscuring truth – we need to shine a light.

Where evil is trying to operate in anonymity, or immunity – we need to shine a light.

Even if it exposes us, as a city on a hill – we need to shine a light.

God made us light, but it’s on us to share our light in a way that will help the world.

It is also vital to remember that the task of light is illumination, not imitating the tactics of those who cast shadows.  

Jesus proclaims our identity because we need that assurance of inviolable worth in order to have the courage to shine the light of his world-changing gospel in a world that often doesn’t want to be changed.

But there is a flip side to the immutability of identity: we don’t get to call anyone else’s identity into question either.

We can and should challenge harmful actions, but we must not try to do so by dehumanizing those who cause harm.

So, when the President tweets a horrifying and harmful image we need to name it clearly as racism.

But we must do so without following his playbook and using language that rejects his essential humanity.

When ICE agents act with violence and treat immigrant lives as expendable, we need to demand accountability and reform.

But we don’t get to call them “goons” or “monsters” in the process. They are human beings, made in the image of God.

We need to be all the more clear about holding the line on dehumanization because it is being crossed in such blatant and horrifying ways all around us, and that trend of dehumanization itself causes incalculable harm.

In her book Braving the Wilderness, Brene Brown reviews the evidence on dehumanization’s link to violence, human rights violations, war crimes, and ultimately genocide.[2]

We need to shine a light on that link.

Language matters.

And advocacy needs to be about actions, not identity.

Actions are what we can change.

That distinction matters on the scale of national politics, and it also matters here – in the way that we approach the annual congregational meeting after worship today.

Today we will hear a lot of reports that will celebrate what we have done, but maybe also raise anxieties or questions.

And we’ll make decisions about our commitments for ministry & money, and who we want implementing those decisions.

And maybe we’ll agree about everything, and it will be an easy meeting (sometimes it goes that way).

But maybe we’ll disagree about some things. Or feel unsure about our direction. Or run into questions we can’t answer.

If that happens, I want you to remember two things:

You are salt. You are light.

That is a statement of your identity. The only thing we are deciding today is how to act on that truth.

How to shine our light as well as we can to illuminate what is in shadow.

How to be effective messengers of the gospel that Jesus brought to change the world.

What a privilege it is to be Christ’s church.

Thanks be to God.

[1] The three ways to reduce the salinity of salt crystals themselves are through dissolving them in water – although the water then still tastes salty, subjecting them to extreme heat, or chemical reactions that combine them with other elements. The change in chemical structure makes them no longer salt.

[2] For a summary of her argument see: https://brenebrown.com/articles/2018/05/17/dehumanizing-always-starts-with-language/