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Presence Weekly 9/1/26: Matthew 5:14-16: The Serving Work of Righteousness

 

Matthew 5:1-16

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.

2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

13 “You [all] 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.
14 “You [all] 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.

[The Devo] – Matthew 5:14-16: The Serving Work of Righteousness

Jesus wraps up the introduction of this sermon by grounding the righteousness that he is commending to his followers in serving others and glorifying God. This is why, in my opinion, verses 13–16 are the concluding verses of this section rather than the beginning of the next. But before looking at that, it’s important to remember what Jesus is doing with this Sermon.

Matthew and Luke’s Record

Luke records a similar version of this sermon, which may or may not have been the same one Matthew is referring to.

17 And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.

20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.” — Luke 6:17–23

Jesus, as an itinerant preacher, likely gave the same message multiple times to multiple crowds — not unlike a pastor might make changes to a message between the first and second service. Notice that in Luke’s record, Jesus addressed the crowd directly, using the plural “you,” throughout, but that Matthew presents Jesus as pivoting to the second person only when he reached the aspect of persecution. Also, Luke’s account of the sermon focuses the “Blessed” more on present conditions, using “now” twice, rather than the definition of the good life conveyed by Matthew. Luke tells us in chapter one that he is attempting an accurate retelling of history for Theophilus. Matthew is writing for a Jewish audience and stresses the message of Jesus and his fulfillment of Scripture. Both have a purpose. Both are guided by the Holy Spirit. Both are telling the absolute truth, just not with our literary conventions and restraints.

Jesus Declares His Mission of Service

One thing that Luke does shed light on is an event that almost certainly took place before Luke or Matthew’s accounts. In chapter 4, just after the temptation of Jesus, Luke tells us that Jesus visited a synagogue and, as was the custom, was asked to speak on the text of a particular scroll. What happens here is essential for understanding what Jesus is doing in Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount.

16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” — Luke 4:14–21

One might appropriately call this the first and shortest sermon of Jesus. In saying, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” Jesus is saying three things. First, “This Scripture is about me.” Second, “I have a mission of proclamation.” Third, “Now, I am off to do it.” Seeing the Isaiah passage in context is helpful for understanding just what Jesus was taking on for himself — this was not a description but a title.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, […] — Isaiah 61:1–2a

So then, the two versions of the sermon containing the Beatitudes take place at some point after Jesus makes it clear to those in the synagogue that he is on a mission of proclaiming the excellencies of God, and that it comes with direct authorization from the Father himself, and with the Spirit’s anointing. As we will see from the life of Jesus, not all proclamation happens through speech.

Jesus Invites Others to the Mission of Service

In Matthew, Jesus made a rhetorical shift from the third person to the second person plural that started back in verse 11 when he attached a second Blessed in regard to experiencing persecution. Instead of talking about a certain kind of person, he is now talking directly to the crowds, and inviting them to participate in his mission of proclamation.

First, in verses 11 and 12, Jesus tells the disciples and the crowds that persecution is the expected response to following him. But he is not talking about following him as an audience, but as those who will walk in the way of Jesus — those who embrace what Jesus has just described as righteousness. Because Jesus is on a mission from God, he expects the same response that the Prophets, who were also on a mission from God, received. Therefore, those who follow him are joining a long line of those who have been persecuted for their righteousness. Then, Jesus uses the same second person plural to declare to them what their mission is. And, since Jesus’ mission of proclamation involved more than words, so does the mission he is giving to his followers.

Service by Protection from Decay

Salt is discernible by its unique impact on the sense of taste and by its unique function.

Despite using the word taste, Jesus is not referring to them as the “dry-rub” of the earth. Jesus is pointing to a taste-test to ascertain a property of function, not flavor. If salt loses its taste, it’s not salt. This is the image that the disciples and the crowd would have understood. In the ancient world, the Egyptians and other Middle Eastern civilizations were using salt in order to preserve and protect food staples such as meats and vegetables. This preservation allowed for storage and for commercial trade. It also protected the food from decay and bacteria that would have made it inedible for nourishment. Without salt, flourishing was greatly hindered.

In the Old Testament, God uses salt to demonstrate his miraculous power to not only preserve and protect, but to purify.

19 Now the men of the city said to Elisha, “Behold, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees, but the water is bad, and the land is unfruitful.” 20 He said, “Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him. 21 Then he went to the spring of water and threw salt in it and said, “Thus says the Lord, I have healed this water; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.” 22 So the water has been healed to this day, according to the word that Elisha spoke. — 2 Kings 2:19–22

For those serving and leading in the public square, embracing the call to be the salt of the earth takes on unique agency. They are in the position to preserve and protect through their work in developing policy within think tanks, passing legislation in Congress, and enacting policy through agencies.

Salt was essential to life then and still is today. It served to preserve and protect. If salt loses its key properties, you might as well trample all over it. For Christians in the public square, Jesus is saying you are the salt of the earth, not the dirt of the road, and he is asking them to act out of their nature.

Service by Promotion of Flourishing

Light is discernible by its unique impact on the sense of sight and by its unique function.

Light illuminates the darkness and makes the pathway toward flourishing clear. When there is no light, people stumble around, trip over things, hurt themselves, and find it difficult if not impossible to find their way out of the situation they are in. As we all know, especially through the accounts of children, darkness also functions as a critical fuel source for fear and anxiety.

The theme of light in Scripture is as prevalent as it is important. It starts with the opening verses of Scripture,

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. — Genesis 1:3–5

Exodus tells us that the slaves were led out of captivity by God as light.

21 And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. 22 The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people. — Exodus 13:21–22

And Jesus took this same identification when, during a back-and-forth with the Pharisees, he said,

12 “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” — John 8:12

So when Jesus tells them that they are the light of the world, he is proclaiming not only what they were all created to do, but what his followers are called to do intentionally. Placing your light in a light-blocking container defeats the essence and purpose of light. Perhaps this is why a light shines just under the Statue of Freedom on top of the U.S. Capitol whenever the members are in an evening session. 

Service as Producing the Glorification of God

To understand how Matthew is using this sermon for directing participation in Christ’s mission of proclamation, we return to the full context of the verse from Isaiah quoted in Luke,

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, [Where Jesus stops] and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion — to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. — Isaiah 61:1–3

Everyone in the synagogue would have noticed Jesus was stopping mid-verse. His stopping was not incidental, but fundamental. In stopping just before “and the day of vengeance of our God,” Jesus is articulating what theologians refer to as already-not-yet eschatology. That simply means that Jesus is announcing that while he is taking on the full title of the person described in Isaiah 61:1–3, his incarnation is the year of the Lord’s favor, but his return is the day of vengeance of our God.

Because Jesus is commissioning his followers as salt and light in verses 13–15, we should understand that the church’s participation in Christ’s mission in proclaiming the good news of the kingdom is the evangelical aspect of whole-life formation. We are not called to change the world, but to offer foretastes of the coming kingdom as agents of flourishing serving and leading as salt and light.

Those serving and leading in the public square act as salt (preserving and protecting) and light (illuminating the path of true flourishing) not just through announcing the gospel with words, but through asking, answering, and applying the Four Questions of Faithful Presence: What is good that needs encouragement? What is broken that longs for restoration? What is missing that awaits creation? What is evil that demands opposition? Disciples are called to do so both to promote flourishing and “so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

In the Beatitudes then, Jesus is describing both the indicative (what is true) and the imperative (what to do) of agents of righteousness. But the sermon is far from over and it’s about to get very pointed. 

[Application Questions]

Where in your work have you found yourself becoming indistinguishable from the room by adopting its register, its assumptions, or methodologies, without noticing  What would it cost you to be tasteable in your context again?

Matthew records that the good works are seen, and that the seeing ends in the Father being glorified rather than the one being seen. Where does your good work currently terminate, and what would need to change for your work point past you?

[Faithful Prayer]

  • Cabinet Agency: The servants and leaders with the Department of State, and Secretary Marco Rubio, as they unveil sweeping new sanctions on transnational far-left terrorist networks, as well as warning that there will be “no refuge” for violent extremist groups plotting to undermine law and order and destroy critical infrastructure.
  • Think Tank, Lobby group, NGO: The Hudson Institute, as they continue their work as a trusted resource for policymakers, with ongoing research on the strategic issues shaping the future of American national security, defense, innovation, and the global order.
  • Weekly delegation: The servants and leaders with the delegation of the State of Colorado, after Senator Michael Bennet led the entire congressional delegation in a letter urging President Trump to approve a Major Disaster Declaration following the Aspen Acres and Gold Mountain wildfires that burned tens of thousands of acres across the state.
  • News events: For the servants and leaders at the State Department, especially those at the embassy in Katmandu, as they coordinate with the Nepalese government to bring relief to the tens of thousands impacted by last week’s massive flood. Pray for their efforts to locate and recover Americans, as well as to facilitate relief efforts with and through NGOs on the ground such as Catholic Relief Services. 
  • Personal requests:  For continued health during a moderate-risk pregnancy for a couple who are headed for the second trimester. For a senior level agency staffer awaiting word on a significant promotion. For a couple planning a wedding (and all the joy and stress that brings). For someone embarking on a diplomatic mission. For a family reintegrating into the United States after a year overseas and the children reclamating to school. For several officials enjoying “the calm before the storm” (their words) when Washington comes back to life next week. For someone navigating a recent medical diagnosis that was unexpected. 

[The Page, The Pod & The Stack]

  • READ this FIRST →  Mere Orthodoxy published an excerpt from Daniel K. Williams’s new book on the history of Christian apologetics, tracing how eighteenth-century apologist Nathaniel Lardner engaged skeptics of the Gospels with patience and rigor rather than invective, a model the piece holds up for Christians navigating today’s arguments over faith and reason.
  • LISTEN to this NEXT → During his opening monologue on Thursday night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, guest host Jelly Roll went on a 11-minute riff regarding his thoughts on the role that politics and social media algorithms play in dividing and tribalizing the country, the state of our political engagement, the difficulty and importance of speaking well on important topics, and the role that his Christian faith plays in those assessments. Regardless of your thoughts on Jelly Roll, it is a master-class on placing Christ in front of a national audience. 
  • STACK this FIRST → Bonnie Kristian, deputy editor at Christianity Today, wrote on her Substack about why evangelicals shouldn’t be embarrassed of the label, reintroducing herself to readers and drawing on her forthcoming book In Defense of Evangelicalism to argue that the tradition’s critics don’t tell the whole story, and that the movement still holds real, ordinary goods worth defending.
  • Religion News Service reported on the ongoing lawsuit between eleven faith groups and the Department of Homeland Security, after denominations including American Baptist Churches USA and regional bodies of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America accused DHS of violating a court order barring warrantless surveillance at their churches, including an incident where an undercover agent spent over two hours inside a Minneapolis congregation.
  • The Dispatch’s Kevin D. Williamson reported on Iceland’s upcoming referendum weighing whether to join the European Union, framing the vote against the backdrop of Russian security threats in the North Atlantic and the tradeoffs small nations face between sovereignty and collective defense.

[What’s Happening]

This Week:

  • Now through September 7 – As summer comes to an end, the Renwick Gallery invites you to Step right up to the first major exhibition to survey American state fairs’ extraordinary and unconventional crafts from the nineteenth century to the present with State Fairs: Growing American Craft
  • Tuesday, September 1, 1:30pm – 4:25pm  – The American Enterprise Institute is hosting an in person event, Graduate Education After Grad PLUS, examining what comes next for financing graduate school now that the federal Grad PLUS loan program has ended.
  • Thursday, September 3, 9:30am – 10:15am – The Center for Strategic and International Studies is hosting a webcast, Trump-Kim Summit 2.0: What to Look Out for?, previewing what a second Trump-Kim meeting could mean for denuclearization talks and the broader security picture on the Korean Peninsula.
  • Thursday, September 3, 11:00am – 12:00pm – The Cato Institute is hosting an in person policy forum, From Red Tape to Real Choice: Reforming Childcare Policy, examining why childcare costs so much and whether deregulation, rather than increased government spending, is the better path to affordability.

Next Week:

[Two Thumbs Up]: Movie Review: Toy Story 5

The first Toy Story arrived in the same year the public internet did – 1995. In all that time, screens were never a part of the play room, except for the one on the Etch A Sketch. Thirty one years later, Lilypad has joined the cast. But not as a protagonist. In Toy Story 5 the narrative focuses on the aftermath of a now eight-year-old Bonnie’s parents’ decision to give her a frog-themed tablet called Lilypad which promises to help her reach “all her developmental goals” and provide access to meaningful relationships. 

What makes the film worth your time is not only the lovable banter and the plot, but the assumption underneath it. Pixar has made a children’s tablet the antagonist of a children’s movie. Lilypad doesn’t scheme; it executes its programming with unwavering consistency, dismissing the value of physical play in favor of its own seemingly superior functionality. The device also delivers, but only what it was created to: Bonnie gets playdates, sleepovers, a parent-approved chat, but those friends eventually mock Bonnie for still taking pleasure in playing with toys. 

That shift is the story for those of us working on these questions, either as first-time parents, or as the parents of a now 31-year-old daughter with three kids of her own, or in public policy areas. When Jonathan Haidt published The Anxious Generation, the argument was contested; now it is the premise of a summer family movie. By the end of the wonderful and hilarious film, which includes a now balding Woody, there is some redemptive reframing around the new character which is now available in stores and created by Disney. A market-based and profitable decision. 

So, take your children or grandchildren. Watch it with them. The scene worth talking about afterward is not the one where the tablet is defeated but the one where the group chat turns, because that is the conversation most families in your neighborhood are not having, and you are better positioned to have it than any settlement, statute, or software update will ever be.

Our next Pastor’s Briefing, out Thursday, will offer some insight and commentary on social media and responsibility allocation. Look for The Meta Settlement in your inboxes soon. 

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