Salt and Light

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

Today's readings: Isaiah 58:1-12; 1 Corinthians 2:1-12; Matthew 5:13-20

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and the Son & the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Last week's gospel reading is what we call the Beatitudes from Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus proclaims: 'Blessed are the poor, those who mourn, the meek, hungry, thirsty, merciful, pure in heart, and the peacemakers. Blessed are those who are persecuted for Christ’s sake.'

Blessed are YOU, beloved Children of God. Yours is the kingdom of heaven.

This is the foundation that Jesus lays out during this Sermon on the Mount.

This is where we start.

Understanding our worth and our dignity.

Then we are called into mission.

Who are you? Blessed. What does God ask of you? That you be salt and light in this world.

Jesus says here that we are salt of the earth and challenges us not to loose our saltiness. Now I’ve always imagined this verse in my head as if we are the salt in a saltshaker, salting the earth with the message of Christ.. but as I meditated on this scripture this week, a new image came to me. The saltshaker disappeared from my image and only the earth remained. For the first time I was drawn to the image of the salt that actually comes from the earth. The sea is an endless resource of salt and you can mine salt from the very depths of the earth. Something in me clicked with the image that we are about to receive on Ash Wednesday, that we are dust and to dust we will return. We’re familiar with that image of dust, of dirt, forming our very existence and during lent we are called to ponder this innate part of our being and perhaps here, Jesus is again calling us to the root of ourselves, reminding us WHO we are. You are dust. You are also salt. All in all, you are OF the earth and you cannot separate yourself from it. Jesus is challenging us to be who we were made to be.

Jesus then switches to another metaphor, you are the light of the world! Again, I think Jesus is

recalling the very essence of our being. You were created from the earth, by God, who lives in you and ignited the fire of the Spirit within each and every one of your hearts! The foundation of your identity is that you are blessed by your Creator who formed you from the earth and ignited the fire of life in your heart so that you might share that light with the world, not keep it hidden within.

Beloved Children of God, you are blessed and you were born with everything you need to be the salt of the earth and light of the world as your Creator has called you to be.

Aren’t the biggest questions in life ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What am I to do?’ Over and over again God gives us the answer. It may have been ambiguous for the majority of human existence, but then God came to earth and took the form of you and me to reveal to who GOD is and what GOD is all about and how that transforms our existence.. answers our questions.. gives us identity and mission.

It is one thing to identify yourself as a Christian and it is wholly another thing to live as though you are a disciple of Christ. It is one thing to perform acts of piety and wholly another thing to let those acts transform your soul. I can say 'I am a Christian' and engage in the holy act of prayer, an action of piety (a religious act), but pray only for self-serving things, forgetting that I myself am not God. I can read the scriptures every morning, an act of piety, feeling good about myself for checking that off my daily to-do-list, without letting it sink into my soul and transform my heart. As Lent comes up in a couple weeks, I can dedicate myself to the pious act of fasting for 40 days, but perhaps I’m really just doing it to loose the weight. Religious acts without transformation, without engagement with the essence of our being, are empty. They are void of identity and mission.

We hear the prophet Isaiah talking about this in the passage from this morning, reminding us that actually the fast that God has called us to is justice and righteousness. “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke!? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide from your own kin?!” We can fast all we want, but if the act is about ourselves it is void of identity and mission, for we are identifying ourselves as god and serving the mission of self-advancement. God cares nothing of such false worship and pleads with us, God’s people, both in Isaiah and through the mouth of Jesus Christ on the mount, to BE who God created us to be. God affirms us: blessed – and challenges us: be the salt of the earth, the light of the world.

When you do this, when you live into the identity and mission given to you by your Creator, THEN “your light shall break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up quickly!” THEN “your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday… you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairers of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in!”

When we worship, I pray we do not do so empty. Rather when we gather to worship our Creator, I pray we enter into a space that redefines our way of life.. reminds us who we are and WHO’s we are.. and allows us to experience what it truly means to be in right relationship with God and one another. But God does not keep us here. God sends us out; sends us to be salt of the earth and light to the world, just as God intended in our creation.

Jesus commands us to move past the surface, to dig deeper, to be willing to go where darkness exists. Ethics Professor, Marcia Y. Riggs says, Jesus enables us to “live justly as an expression of (our) worship of God… passionate about being participants in God’s vision for the world.” It’s easy to forget who we are and what we are doing here... it’s easy to get lost in the negative headlines we hear in the news, feeling as though this world is hopeless.. but imagine if the whole world started to live into their God-given identities. Imagine if the whole world stopped hiding the fire of the Spirit burning within them and instead let that fire shine bright, illuminating the darkness and encouraging others to reveal their light too. The world would be a much brighter and warmer place if all of creation lived into the essence of their being.

Children of God, imagine no longer. Go. BE! You already have everything you need. You were BORN with all the tools necessary. You ARE blessed. You ARE salt of the earth. You ARE light in a dark world. Go be salty! Share that light with the world. Do not be afraid to go where darkness exists. Go boldly, proclaiming the good news of Christ! Blessed are you for you are the salt of the earth, the city on a hill shining bright for all to see. Your light may draw some in, but others will be stuck in darkness. Go to them; tell them of the light that lives inside of them too. Help them fan the flames of the Spirit that return life to their eyes and breath to their lungs, so that they can do the same for another. In this way YOU will be transformed, your neighbor will be transformed, the world will be transformed to be the world God intended it to be.

May it be so.

Amen.