Reflections on The Kingdom, by Sam Berg (Days 13 – 18)
Day 13 –Thinking about Life in the Kingdom January 31, 2025
Matthew 5:13-16 – Salt and light as a way of being.
13 “You are the salt of the earth. … 14 “You are the light of the world.”
The kind of flourishing that the beatitudes describe finds its purpose in these next verses: Such flourishing people are salt and light.
I have for a long time had a very narrow understanding of being salt and light, shaped by my individualistic understanding of the gospel. Being salt and light was so that I could be a witness to people who needed to be saved.
However, when being salt and light is seen as the consequence of repentance towards the kingdom, characterized by the flourishing that the beatitudes describe, this points to something much broader, namely, my way of being in the community and communities to which I belong. At heart, the beatitudes are relational qualities. They make for access, community and belonging. When they describe who and how we are, they are what makes being salt and light possible for us.
Day 14 –Thinking about Life in the Kingdom February 10, 2025
Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”
Jesus declares that his followers are salt. Dietrich Bonhoeffer states that Jesus did not command that we must be salt, or to have salt (Cost of Discipleship, p. 130-1). Our identity in Christ is that we are salt.
But Jesus warns that we can lose our saltiness. This challenges us with the position we take in our daily lives in our world. What is this salt, this essential ingredient we are to be in our world? Howard Thurman discusses this in his “Jesus and the disinherited” in answer to the question of his time: “What must be the attitude toward the rulers, the controllers of political, social, and economic life?” One stance is imitation, to join in the social conventions and mores of the times. Another is resistance by distance, seeking a life of separation from the evil influences around us. A third is “armed resistance,” by engaging in efforts to gain power for our side – political or social – over against those influences.
But Thurman points to another way that is oriented to life in the kingdom, into which we enter through repentant turning towards it and the King whose kingdom it is. Jesus said, “the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:21). Being salt is something that we do together. The community of Jesus is where our love and unity are displayed. Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Through the proliferation of the many communities of the community of Jesus, the whole gets to be salted.
Day 15 — Thinking about Life in the Kingdom February 13, 2025
Matthew 5:14-16 – “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
In the same way that Jesus identifies us as salt, so he does with light. You are the light. We aren’t commanded to be light, he simply declares that’s what we are.
This declaration comes with a warning: it’s possible for us to hide our light, to put it under a “bushel” as the old version put it. In my early days of following Jesus, I thought, and was taught that this meant that I shouldn’t hide the fact that I’m a Jesus follower but that I need to share my faith so that others will also believe.
But it’s bigger than that: the result of letting our light shine is that others will see our good works and thus give glory to God. What are those good works? John 1:1ff states that “in the beginning was the Word … in him was life and that life was the light of mankind.” John thus hearkens back to when God said, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1). Jesus, the Word made flesh, and the light of the world expands this and says, “Let there be love.” “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all mankind will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).
Day 16 — Thinking about Life in the Kingdom February 17, 2025
Matthew 5:20 – “For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will in no way enter the kingdom of heaven.”
The Pharisees were keen on keeping the law. But Jesus noted something amiss – their law-keeping didn’t meet the requirements of the kingdom of heaven (4:17). It was missing the marks of repentance as outlined in the beatitudes. Theirs was not the “hungering and thirsting for righteousness” (5:6) that was one of those marks.
Jesus then lists six examples of how their righteousness fell short, each beginning with a version of “You have heard that it was said by the ancients,
– ‘You shall not murder,’ and ‘Whoever murders shall be in danger of the judgment.’
– ‘You shall not commit adultery’
– ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’
– ‘You shall not swear falsely but shall fulfill your oaths to the Lord.’
– ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’
– You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
The Pharisees were faultless on each of these so how did their righteousness not meet the standards of the Kingdom? Answer: the Pharisees practiced an ethic of casuistry, a form of what was called “fencing the Torah,” developing sub-rules so as to ensure the rules were not broken. This ethical practice has facetiously been called developing rules for getting around the rules. There are examples of that but that wasn’t their main failing. Each of these six examples that Jesus gave have a common failing on the part of the Pharisees. They are focused on the rules and fail to see the persons that are the subject of each of these rules. There righteousness is focused narrowly on the rules themselves and fail to see the human connections that the rules are intended to foster. They fail abysmally in creating the kind of community where salt and light function. We’ll consider each of these six in turn.
Day 17 –Thinking about Life in the Kingdom February 26, 2025
Matthew 5:21-22 “You have heard that it was said by the ancients, ‘You shall not murder,’ and ‘Whoever murders shall be in danger of the judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ shall be in danger of the Sanhedrin. But whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be in danger of hell fire.
The Pharisees knew the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not murder.” (Sounds better to me in old English) and they added a fence: If you murder, you will face judgment.
Jesus said, “But I say to you….” And he adds the caveat of anger: There’s more to this than simply not killing someone. Jesus is not simply adding to the law. He’s not closing a loophole that needs closing. If that’s what he was doing, it would only be like the righteousness of the Pharisees. His further comments point to the need for reconciliation, reparation and healing disrupted relationships. Jesus describes the desperate effort that might be needed to make amends.
From my counselling work, we know that anger is a secondary emotion. This means that there is also a primary emotion, something we felt first. The part of our brain that responds in anger is however much faster than the reflective part that is needed to respond well. This is why the psalmist said, “Be angry and don’t sin. When you’re on your bed at night, search your heart and be silent.” Our experience of anger is always an invitation to introspect: what was the first emotion I felt that the anger might have obscured? A hint – it’s usually related to either hurt or fear. A useful first step is to reflect after the anger and discern what the fear or hurt might have been about. When we understand that, we will be in a better position to seek reconciliation with the other.
Jesus emphasizes here not the importance of the rule but the importance of the person with whom we’re angry. Being salt and light in community invites us to a reconciliation of relationships.
Day 18 –Thinking about Life in the Kingdom March 7, 2025
Matthew 5:27-30 – “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
The issue here is that of the woman as an object. Societies in which men have privilege over women, communities where men are regarded as superior to women, religions in which women are relegated to subjugated roles all make it a very short step to seeing women as objects.
In the beginning it was not so. In the beginning God created humankind, male and female, communally and individually, in the image of God. There is a fundamentally equality of worth. In the New Testament this vision of equality is re-emphasized in Galatians 3:28 – “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The hierarchies which have developed in the course of human history are to be overcome in our communion in the body of Christ.
We are invited to see each other as our equals rather than as objects as implied in this second exemplar of a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees. Lust destroys community; thus, Jesus gives us this warning. About the lopping off of parts of our bodies, I believed Jesus used the expression to emphasize the point, perhaps with a twinkle in his eye, or an emphasis in his tone of voice that would have conveyed impact and hyperbole.