“Why have we fasted, and You have not seen? Why have we humbled ourselves, and You have not noticed?” “Behold, on the day of your fast, you do as you please, and you oppress all your workers.‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you don’t see? Why have we afflicted our soul, and you don’t notice?’ “Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and oppress all your laborers.Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find your own pleasure, and exact all your labors.
3 sermons cite this verse
is definitely high on the list. Two Sundays ago, an ice storm blew through my corner of northeast Georgia, taking down thousands of trees, snapping more than 100 utility poles, and dropping over 10 miles of live wire on the ground. The power at my house was off for two and a half days, giving me plenty of time to meditate on what Jesus said about light. in this morning's excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount, except I didn't want to be the light two weekends ago. I just wanted it to come back on. And last Sunday, we got six inches of snow. There was no power outage this time, but the county manager said everyone should stay off the roads because we were almost out of salt, and there were already a lot of cars in ditches. He explained the shortage wasn't due to poor planning. It was just that the county had used most of its salt the week before and was sharing what was left with neighboring counties in worse shape than we were. …
In place of my usual holy greeting, let me just say, go devils, go. And for any of you watching from somewhere else, that was an athletic reference and not a metaphysical one. There are big sermons being preached in small places all over the world today, but you're about to hear a small sermon in a big place. So small that it only cares about two verses in the gospel you just heard and only two words out of those. Salt and light. It's not like those tiny lockets of meaning have somehow suffered from too little attention over time. If anything, they've suffered from too much. They've lost their tang from overhandling. They've lost their shine from overbranding. so I'm here to shrink them down to size if I can. Here they are in Jesus' own syntax, at least in translation. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. It's the you that makes them interesting, especially the second one, since in another gospel, Jesus says, I am the light of the world, but not here. …
Jesus was a Jew. I know you know that, but I wish it were in the creed somewhere. I believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God who was born of a Jewish mother, lived his short life, a Jew, was crucified, and died a Jew. On the third day, he rose again in accordance with the Jewish scriptures. I wish we had to say it out loud every Sunday. I wish we sang it in some hymns so that we had a prayer of hearing him when he teaches us something from his religion instead of ours, the religion that grew up about him. Jesus was Jewish. He argued with other Jews about how Torah should be observed, which was very Jewish of him. All of his first disciples were Jewish. With all the religions in the world to choose from, God decided on a Jewish mother to bear a Jewish son. I know I'm sounding a little bit insistent, but that's because I'm teaching Introduction to the New Testament this semester. …