Raising the Bar…Theologically

Isaiah 58:1-9a; Matthew 5:13-20

          As I reflect back over the past forty years of my career, I have been involved in a few church controversies.  If a pastor is worth his or her salt, that is inevitable.  The first controversy I faced had to do with whether a divorced man could serve as a deacon.  This was at my first church out on Rt. 4 in Etowah County.  The church allowed only men to serve as deacons, only men who had never been divorced.  One of the patriarchs of the church was divorced.  His wife of many decades died.  He remarried, and for reasons I’ll not get into that marriage ended in divorce.  I hadn’t been there long when people started coming to me saying that there were extenuating circumstances that led to the divorce.  I agreed.  He’s a good man, they said.  I agreed.  He was a good deacon, too, they insisted.  I couldn’t disagree.

          The other side was just as adamant.  It’s against the Bible, they said.  Paul.  A deacon must be the husband of one wife, they quoted Paul.  The way they saw it, this divorced man had had two wives, therefore he was disqualified from the office of deacon.

          I raised the issue with the deacons.  This is what I’m hearing, I told them.  This is what one group says.  This is what the other group says.  We must deal with Paul.  He did say that deacons must be the husband of one wife.  I explained that Paul wrote that during a time when some practiced polygamy.  They had many wives.  Modern scholarship, I explained, believes this teaching of Paul is about polygamy, not divorce.  Therefore, Paul has no prohibition against a divorced person serving as a deacon.

          You know what they said?  To my utter amazement, they agreed.  We took it to the church, and to my even greater amazement, the church agreed too.  At the next deacon election, the church elected that divorced man as a deacon.

          End of story, right?  Oh, if it was so simple!

          The other side was so adamant they couldn’t turn it loose, even after a church vote.  If you’re new to church, that happens sometimes.  They began to whisper: “Our new pastor doesn’t believe the Bible.  It’s plain as day right there in the apostle Paul, ‘A deacon should be the husband of one wife.’”

          I don’t know that I won over any in that camp.  They had their opinion, and nothing was going to change it.  They thought I was trying to abolish the teachings of Paul, when in reality I was trying to reach deeper into it, understand its cultural context, and save a good man from unnecessary hurt by his church.  Some of them could never see that I was trying to raise the bar…theologically.

          This new rabbi, Jesus from Nazareth, is trying to abolish the law and the prophets, some must have charged.  Jesus actually had to defend himself, “Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”

          Jesus was raising the bar, and some didn’t like it.  There was nothing wrong with the law and the prophets, just as there is nothing wrong with the teachings of Paul.  But sometimes to get to the truth, to its real meaning, we need to dig deeper, understand its context, and then allow it to transform us into salt and light.

          Here’s why it is important.  Religious practices are vulnerable to becoming rote, an empty routine, a practice devoid of real spiritual value. So, we must guard against check-the-box religion.  Go to church?  Check.  Pray?  Check.  Do a good deed?  Check?  There’s nothing wrong with those things, of course, just as there is nothing wrong with the law and the prophets.  But sometimes we need to back away and ask ourselves, “Why am I going to church today?  Am I checking a box, or am I engaging my faith in a way that will make me and the world a better?”

          “Why am I praying?  Why am I doing a good deed?  Am I checking these boxes too, or am I deepening my life and someone else’s life?”

          Jesus told his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount that they were salt and light.  However, salt, he warned them, can lose its taste.  It can become bland and flavorless.  Then it’s of no value.

          Light is for sharing.  That’s its fundamental purpose, to bring illumination to people.  If we hide it, it can’t accomplish its purpose.  So, we let our light shine, and it brings illumination not only for us but for others too. 

          So, raise the bar, Jesus came into the world preaching.  Dig deeper.  Don’t settle for check-the-box religion.  Wrestle.  Challenge.  Raise the bar and become salt and light.