The Danger: Ever been so familiar with something that you come to believe it’s less dangerous or threatening than it once was over you? The reason I pose the question is because I am trying to teach through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount at our church. It is arguably the most oft-referenced but least-heeded sermon in world history. Just think, for example, of these familiar words from Christ himself: “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” (Mt 5:13 ESV). A danger, I think, is that we can quote something, reference something, give lip service to a doctrine, etc. but discount or underestimate its power. 

Connection to Our Culture: For the last two weeks, I have not followed the news at all. I have to take a break from it periodically because I invariably end up shaking my head, saying, “There’s no way this is really happening in my country …” and yet, yup, it is happening. The 15 December 2023 video of a Maryland Senator’s staff person and what he did on camera in America’s Senate Hearing Room is surely enough to convince even the most Pollyannaish Americans that some people have clearly abandoned any sort of self-discipline, decency, and decorum. It was like something out of a parable of the absurd. Yet it was reality. It seems that any sense of shame has been abandoned and even scoffed at. 

A Sincere Series of Questions: Here’s what this has to do with Matthew 5:13 that I quoted above. In that verse and in the whole passage of the Sermon on the Mount, Christ warns Christians that if their witness has lost its taste, it’s to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. That is, if one’s testimony undercuts his/her profession, he is actually an enemy of the truth, and is good for nothing but to be tread upon. It’s an image of judgment, of being turned over and abandoned by God. It is, in short, heartbreaking because it’s the wrath of divine abandonment. But that is what Christ taught. 

And now some questions: First, have we come to the place as a culture where there is no fear of God? Second, if we have, do we actually have the temerity to assert that God’s standards change? (Hint: open theism is a longstanding heresy.) Third, what does history teach about the trajectory of nations who abandon God and mock the sacred? Fourth, will we survive to see God raise up faithful prophetic voices to call people back to the foundation of righteousness? 

I have my own views, of course, but I write this with a heavy heart for a nation I, along with thousands of other patriots, serve and love, especially in terms of her (America’s) founding principles and documents, and the call to be a beacon of hope rather than something vastly different. There is danger—quite serious danger—in spitting in the face of all that is good, right, and holy. And I grieve for my country. We are better than this. May God grant us the ability to repent and return, because I fear the alternatives are much costlier.