Reading: Isaiah 59:6-8; Matt 5:13
The first reading is from the Book of
Isaiah. At the time of these words, the
people of Israel have returned from exile, and are rebuilding their life as
God’s people. This includes rebuilding
their spiritual life, and the prophet reminds them what this means. It does not mean just reviving the old
religious rituals in the Temple, like the holy day ceremonies, sacrifices, and
fasting – to try to please God. Instead,
it means living all their days in the world in the way God desires – loving
their neighbours, especially the poor, as themselves.
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have
chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and
untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and
break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and
to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and
not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and
your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and
the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will
answer;
you
will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.”
The second reading is from the Gospel
of Matthew, part of the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus describes the kind
of life to which God calls us, and helps us to live in the world. People around Jesus look up to the super-religious
Pharisees and rabbis as models of holiness.
But Jesus looks at the people around him who simply and honestly love
their neighbours – especially the poor.
“You
are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be
made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out
and trampled underfoot.”
Reflection
Question One: Who are the salt of the Earth?
(Pour some salt into your hand.) It seems pretty simple. They are the ones who in their own little ways (drop some grains of salt into a water glass) from time and time, and over and over again, make life good for others. Who let themselves be used – and used up, in bringing out the goodness that’s possible and just waiting to be discovered and brought to life in any situation (start dropping salt into other kinds of containers) – no matter how bad. Maybe especially when it is bad or bitter. Or just bland and boring. But somehow dead, and not what it’s meant to be in the mind and heart of God, the Great Creator of the Feast. With what they do, what they give, what they offer of themselves, they help bring good things to life, and make life good for others.
The salt of the Earth.
So then, question two: Who are the salt of the Earth?
Who does Jesus say are the ones who make life good, and bring it a little closer to the way God really longs for it to be?
According to the Gospel and the Sermon on the Mount (remember this little verse about the salt of the earth comes right after the verses we call The Beatitudes -- as a kind of summary comment about all those identified there as God's blessed and blessing folk), it’s the poor in spirit – those who know painfully their own poverty and powerlessness and need of God. It's those who mourn the sorrow of the world. It's the meek who accept their role in the world without needing to control it. It’s those, no matter what they have and where they stand in the world, who learn to share God’s passion for justice for the oppressed and God’s hunger for right-relations among all. It’s those, no matter how much or how little they have, who, like Jesus, live with compassion for others, work towards the shared well-being of all, and do this even when no one else does, and others tell them they’re crazy to care about the good of others that way and that much.
In the Gospel of Matthew, as Jesus stands on the side of the mountain and looks at the people who have been drawn to follow him from all over Galilee and from all stations of life, he says to them, “It’s you – you who have let your hearts be broken open, and your lives be opened up to others by the sorrows and traumas of the world – it’s you who are the salt of the Earth.”
And finally, question three: who are the salt of the Earth?
Not who was, or used to be to help us get as far as we are today. Not who will be, or might be in the future beyond the present distress. But who are the salt of the Earth today?
Sometimes it’s us. It’s also others. All kinds of others all around us. All kinds of people – people and communities of Christian faith, of other religious traditions, and people and communities who do not claim or commit to any religious tradition at all. To paraphrase the prophet Isaiah, it’s not religiosity nor religious ritual, practice or belief, but love – real and practical love for the world that makes people, the people of God and the salt of the earth.
The salt of the Earth at any moment … and I think we have to say it exactly that way – the salt of the earth at any moment, or in a particular moment or circumstance, because I don’t think Jesus assumes or expects that we or anyone else is “the salt of the earth” all the time, or without fail, or automatically. Because no sooner than he celebrates the saltiness of the particular people who have gathered around him, he asks the question, “And if, or when the salt shall lose its savour, how will it be made salty again?”
He knows that the willingness and readiness to let yourself be salt in the life of the world for the good of others, comes and goes. It’s a particular call to be answered and a particular choice that has to be made over and over again in a variety of situations and circumstances that we encounter. And when we do hear the call for what it is, and make the choice to be and to do as we can to let ourselves be used and even used up for the common good and the well-being of others, we are good salt.
And when we don’t – when we don’t hear the call, maybe because our ears are filled with other sounds and white noise of our own design, and we’ve grown deaf to God’s call, or our hearts are just tired from being broken open by the world, and we want something easier and more self-soothing, when that happens how will the saltiness – the servanthood-ness, of our lives be restored?
Given the way we get our salt these days – in little boxes, I wonder if one way of understanding how we are really salt, and how we restore the saltiness and the servanthood-ness of our lives, the usefulness of our lives to God in making the world good, is when we are willing to let ourselves be shaken out of whatever little box we are in. When we’re willing to be drawn out of the comfort zone and safe place we are in, to leave the company of like-minded people, to go out there – wherever “there “ is, to be used by God in some good way, with others, for the good and well-being of all the world – or at least, some corner of it that needs a little salt to make it better.
That can be scary. To be shaken out of where we are and are used to being, into new. unfamiliar territory.
It takes faith. Not just faith that God will take care of us out there and in that new place, or task, or project, or group. Rather, faith that God will use us and what we have to offer in some way in that place, or task, or project, or group.
Because if our faith is just about God taking care of us, we make God rather small – into a kind of household god; or a baal or tribal deity of just our own group’s well-being; or just a personal saviour and not much more.
God, though, is the original creator, the faithful lover and the constant healer of all the cosmos, of all the Earth, and of all life on Earth – and never gives up being that.
And it’s when we let ourselves be shaken in some big or little way out of our box, so what we have and what we are can be used by God for the well-being of others – real “others,” that we are – at least in that moment and for that moment, the salt of the Earth.
It makes me think of members here who at some point and for some reason find themselves led to explore just a little bit some organization like CityKidz, the Stoney Creek Food Bank, or the Grimsby Benevolent Fund and soon find themselves committed to it and its work and what they can offer towards it. Salt of the earth.
It makes me think of people who start paying attention to the news about residential schools, start listening to the voices of survivors, start reading the Truth and Reconciliation Report, and find themselves suddenly joining the journey towards truth and reconciliation, and encouraging others around them to take it seriously as well. Salt of the earth.
I think of some of our elder members who have moved into retirement homes, who talk about it being for their own good – that they could no longer manage oir enjoy life on their own, and also – just as much, talk about accepting where God is leading them, to a place where they will be with new people, and that God has some purpose for them being there, to be of good use in the lives of the new people they will meet. Salt of the earth.
I think of how most weeks I need to leave the house Saturday morning to go to a coffee shop to finish the sermon for Sunday. I need to step out of my own little box, at least partway into the world and the company of strangers, to know what the Word of God for us and for our time may be. Hopefully, salt of the earth.
I think of churches that for generations survived and thrived on traditional fare of worship, pastoral care, Sunday school and mission giving, and then found themselves dying – not just from lack of money and members, but also from lack of real connection with the community around them, and who when they learned to look at who was around them, pivoted their image of being church to let themselves and their assets be used for a soup kitchen, or a low-cost day care, or seniors’ hospitality programs, or affordable housing, or asylum for refugees and people fleeing abuse or violence. Salt of the earth, with their saltiness restored.
I think of what’s happened here at different times in our life. With the MOMs group that began years ago as a support group for young moms in the church and the community. With the way we’ve committed to CityKidz. With the growth of the Quilt Club – both its fellowship and its outreach. With our first steps towards truth and reconciliation with people of the First Nations. With the way we are opening our building more and more for use by families and groups in the community. And with the 101 different ways individual members of this church let themselves be used by God in 1,001 different places and situations. Salt of the earth, many times over.
It happens all the time. By the grace of God.
All that’s needed is to let ourselves be shaken in some big or little way out of our box, to let what we have and what we are be used -- and sometimes used up, by God for the well-being of others. Salt of the earth, over and over again.
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