We Are Precious - Salt and Light

Isaiah 58:1-12    Matthew 5:13-20 

Shout out, do not hold back!   Lift up your voice like a trumpet!  Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins.

In today’s first reading, through Isaiah God speaks to the Children of Israel, they who have taken great pains to do the “right things”, to observe their religion scrupulously.  They believe they have truly sought God daily and have desired to know God’s ways, “as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness.”  But somehow, despite what they think have been their exemplary ways, they have not pleased God.  They ask, “Why do we fast, but you do not see?  Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”  

God answers them, “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,” allowing fighting and the oppression of workers.  They are a people who say to God, “I worship You,” and, “Teach me Your will,” but then, as they make pious gestures, go on with worldly practices.  God wants them to realize and accept that prayerful words are meaningless, unless those who pray such words, in this case the Children of Israel, but also us, worship God with our whole self, all our abilities and resources, everything we have and are, and with our whole heart.

God wants there to be no confusion, no mistake, and describes the fast that He approves, one that sets the oppressed free, removes the yoke and breaks it so that it can never be used again.  Self-denial, fasting, that truly honours God means sharing food with the hungry, inviting the homeless home, covering the naked, and being intimately available to family members.  No matter how much outward piety an individual, or even a nation, may demonstrate, there is no point in self-denial, in religious practice that does not manifest itself in giving, in surrendering to God. 

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth; 

Our Gospel today continues The Sermon on the Mount, which was last week’s Gospel reading.  Salt doesn’t have a very good reputation in our day and age, because it tends to raise blood pressure and to do other not so wonderful things to our bodies.  Folks trying to eat healthfully quickly learn the need to limit daily salt intake to an amount equal to one teaspoonful, including all that is contained in food itself prior to whatever we pour out of a shaker. They also discover that salt can be found in over-supply in cheese, butter, margarine, snack food, breakfast cereals, canned goods, soy sauce, and processed foods. It is used in many foods as a color additive, a binder, an element for giving texture, and a control agent in making bread.

Salt is very prevalent and inexpensive in our culture.  In addition to small amounts of salt for the table, we buy it in 40 pound bags for use in water softeners or on slick winter sidewalks.  Salt is used by the dump-truck load to melt ice on roads and bridges.  We take salt for granted – it is abundant, but in Jesus day, salt was rare, hard to obtain, and considered a very precious commodity. 

In His day, salt was used for healing and was often connected with purity.  The Romans believed that salt was the purest of all things, because it came from pure things: the sun and the sea.  It was used by the Jews to purify their offerings to God.  Knowing this, we can better understand why Jesus used the image in today’s Gospel story: “You are the salt of the earth.”

Jesus used the salt analogy so that His listeners could easily understand that He expected something extraordinary from them for the sake of God.  He placed a high value on them and on what He required of them – just as the first-century culture placed a very high value on salt.  He taught his followers to act for God in ways as important and varied as salt was in their world, and He calls us to act the same.  But because we modern folks try to avoid salt in our food we may miss one very important point.

In ancient times, salt was valued as a basic ingredient of a good life.  Even today, when we brave the use of salt in our food, we do so because it enhances the flavor of what we eat, and increases our joy in the meal.  We appreciate salt when it works outside us to clear the roads and walkways, but we enjoy salt when we eat it on foods that nourish us, when we take it into ourselves.  The salt to which Jesus refers is something that is meant to be an integral part of us and so much so that we can share it with others and help to fill their lives with joy.   

You are the light of the world. 

Light, in the ancient world, was something very precious, because without it, once the sun set, on a moonless night you really could fall into total darkness.  Lamps were kept lit at all times.  If your lamp was not lit, you couldn’t start the morning fire to cook your meal or to heat water, so even overnight in every home and house and temple the lamps were kept burning.  This is the sort of constant light Jesus tell us we must be.

No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.

Through our baptism each of us has been filled with the Light of Christ, the fire of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus speaks of a basket that can cover but not extinguish the lamp, and that leads us to wonder what sort of bushel we put over our light.

Maybe our bushel basket is an inferiority complex, a lack of confidence that comes from chronically comparing ourselves to others.  Or perhaps the bushel is the self-absorption of internal conflicts.  While conflict is part of life, when it becomes an excuse for unproductive self-absorption, then it is a bushel that prevents our light from shining.  Because we are human, all of us have that tendency to become distracted by our problems, our work, our personal lives, and to forget that we have a higher calling.  When we are bogged down with worldly worries and pursuits, our true inner light is hidden.

How do we keep our lamps shining brightly, so that others may see and come to know our Lord?  The lamps of Jesus’ day were oil lamps.  For them to continue burning, the oil had to be constantly renewed.  We too must feed our light with drops of oil.  These drops are the little things of our everyday lives: fidelity, punctuality, little words of kindness, just a thought for others, acts of prayerful silence in thought and deed.  It is what is inside us that matters.  The emptier we become of self, of our worries, our cares, our issues, the fuller we become with those little drops of oil, and the brighter we shine for Jesus.

Keep you lamp always topped up with the oil of kindness, humility, patience, gentleness, generousity, and unconditional love. Then your light will shine before all people, and they will see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Let us pray:

Almighty and merciful God, through whose great gift of the Holy Spirit, comes to your faithful people the strength to do for you true and laudable service; Grant, we beseech you, that we may so faithfully serve you in this life, that we draw others to You, and at life’s end, we may attain the promises of your heavenly kingdom, through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord.  AMEN.