Trinity Episcopal Church
Towson, MD
Year A - Epiphany 5 - February 5, 2017
Isaiah 58:1-9a, [9b-12]
1 Corinthians 2:1-12, [13-16]
Matthew 5:13-20
Psalm 112:1-9, (10)
Sometimes we see things in scripture that we think we know a lot about... When we do, we glance right over them without thinking about what truth the scriptures might be teaching us. I’m as guilty of this as the next person, reading along and glossing over the details as I read along...
This morning, the readings seem pretty straight forward. In this season after the Epiphany, we would expect to see the images of a redeemed people trying to figure out who this Jesus person is… and trying to wrestle with what he came to do and be for us, and what we should do and how we should be as his followers.
This morning, the scripture introduces us to 2 images that I would like to unpack a bit. These are the images of Light and Salt. They seem simple enough, like yes Ken, we know what light is… we turn them on every day or we can look outside and see the sunlight (hopefully more this week that we did last week) or we can say “pass the salt” and sprinkle it on our food, or we can scatter it on the frozen sidewalk and melt the ice…
However, if we closely examine the images of light and salt as they are referred to in scripture, then we may find that they have more meaning than they initially let on. So, this morning, I want to reflect a little on the images of Light and Salt and how they are used in the scripture readings we just heard.
The image of light is used in the Old Testament Lesson, the Psalm, and the Gospel. The image of light is used throughout the season after the Epiphany, as we refer to the Light of Christ, and Jesus as the Light of the World. But what about light is so important? Why would this be an image that the Prophet Isaiah, the Psalmist, and Jesus use to reveal a truth about God?
After the prophet Isaiah tells the people that once they get the priorities correct in their life and they start acting in a way of restoration and forgiveness… “then (the Prophet says) your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.” Light, or the ability to be light, for the prophet Isaiah, becomes the reward… but what is the light? And why would we want to be it?
I’d like to offer the simple definition of light: “a natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible.” Seems simple enough doesn’t it? So, if our light is breaking forth like the dawn, what does that look like? I would like to say what you’ve heard me say before about “walking the walk”… about living as a child of God in this world…
If we have our life right – in perspective… If we are living with the right priorities, in right relationship with God and with each other, then we actually stimulate another’s sight. We make the living God visible to others. We show others what we believe God to be as we live our life for God and as we seek to serve God through our relationships with others.
Light shows up again in the Psalm for today… in Verse 4, it says, “Light shines in the darkness for the upright; the righteous are merciful and full of compassion.” If we Christians, gathered as the community of faith, are able to act with mercy and compassion and live in right – relationship, then our light will shine. And we know that when light shines, we are able to see things more clearly. Rather than guessing what is lurking in the shadows waiting to tempt us and trip us up, we are able to know and avoid the evils that seek to destroy the creatures of God.
In the Gospel lesson, Jesus calls us the “Light of the World” and suggests different comparisons – like a great city on a hill that cannot be hidden or a lamp put up on a lampstand that illuminates a room rather than hidden under a basket.
It would be useful at this point to briefly talk a second about that other condition, the condition called darkness. I would like to offer you another simple definition… “Darkness: The partial or total absence of light.” It’s interesting that the definition of darkness is dependent on the existence of light, not the other way around…
So, if light is hiding under a bushel basket, then there isn’t any less light, it just that the light isn’t revealed in its full potential. So, if we are being light, revealing the living God as clearly as we can, then we are giving it our all and living up to our full potential. However, if we allow things to crowd the light, letting the bushel baskets of this world to shade what should be reviled, then we are guilty of not letting our light shine…
We could name a few bushel baskets – those things that keep the light from shining… those may be fear of what others may think, injustice, oppression, hunger, homelessness – anything that causes humanity any harm or anytime that a human being is not given the respect and dignity they deserve as a child of God, and we have the opportunity to do something about it, our light is hidden under a great big bushel basket.
I found it interesting that in our Gospel lesson that Jesus doesn’t just call his followers light. In fact, before he calls his followers light, he calls them salt. Salt of all things. The first thing that I think of when I think of salt is the stuff that sits on our dinner table in the shaker… the white crystals that we use to season food… or the larger crystals that are used in a compound that makes the freezing temperature of water lower. This time of year, it melts ice on sidewalks and driveways.
Salt is harder for us to understand in Jesus context. Why in the world would Jesus call his followers, salt? What is it about salt would people of that time know and understand? They would know that salt in the ancient world was a commodity. It was traded in the market place. It was valuable and was used as a preservative for food as well as made it palatable (able to eat). Salt is a pure mineral…
What’s ironic for me is when Jesus says, “but what if salt has lost its taste, how can it’s saltiness be restored?” I got to wondering, can salt ever really lose its saltiness? Is salt ever really diminished? Salt – or Sodium is extremely stable and cannot lose its flavor. So the suggestion that salt losing its saltiness becomes problematic for those of us that know a little about science… for those of us that may have gone through high school and possibly college chemistry. Whether the people that Jesus was talking to know it or not, Salt cannot just lose its saltiness…
So, I think Jesus must have been up to something here. I’d like to suggest that by using the image of salt, Jesus was telling his followers that if they follow him and learn and live his ways, then they will become people of substance, like salt. That they will be able to endure and persevere. But if they were to become diluted by the evils of this world (if they were to allow themselves to diminish - lose their saltiness) then they would be useless to his movement.
Jesus is on a mission of setting the world right, and inverting the value system that everyone thought they understood… Jesus teaches his followers to live the intent of the law rather than the literal letter of the law. Jesus is being the change agent in the world, rather than waiting on the world to change.
We have learned today that light cannot be taken away or overcome by darkness, only shielded by it. We have also learned that salt cannot have its saltiness taken away, only have it diluted by those things of this world that are disingenuous, and have no substance.
Light and salt become for us the descriptive metaphors used by scripture to describe the people of God. So in the week ahead, every time you see the sunshine or flip a light switch, I want you to remember that Jesus called you light, and I want you to think about how you are showing others who God is and how you are being the light of the world for others…
Also, every time you reach for the salt shaker to salt your food or scatter rock salt on a frozen walkway, remember that Jesus called you salt, and thought you were a worthy and of substance… think about how you are not allowing yourself to be diluted by the evils that are all around you, and how you are being the salt of the earth, real and true.
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