The Salt and The Light

There’s a saying that God  comforts  the  afflicted and  afflicts  the  comfortable.

In today’s  Liturgy of the Word, God seems to be  afflicting the comfortable. Both Jesus  and  Isaiah  challenge the comfortable and complacent. Each tells something  we would rather not hear.

Jesus  tells me  what I should be  and usually am not. Isaiah  tells me  what I should do  and usually don’t.

To appreciate Matthew, Chapter 5, Verse 13—16, we must first look at the  historical  and  cultural context  of the metaphors. Then look at it in the  Christian context. What do the sayings of Jesus and Isaiah mean for us today?

First,  why  does  Jesus  choose these  two household items as metaphors in his teaching? In the Jewish history and culture, these are  two essential  household items. The listeners of Jesus could not miss them.

In Palestine,  salt  was a must, and irreplaceable. It is needed  to improve taste  like meats and fish. Eating meat and fish without any salt is as tasteless as chewing a piece of cardboard.

A little pinch of salt makes all the difference in the taste of meat, fish, and even vegetables. Even more important, salt is used to  preserve  food. Salt  changes what it touches,  keeps it  from spoiling, rotting,  and  corrupting. We make our dried fish  (danggit, bulat,  da-ing,  tuyo),  tapa  (dried meat) and pickled vegetables and fruits with salt.

Salt is even use for  purification. That is why in the Old Testament times, salt was used to season every sacrifice. That’s why God told his people through Moses, “With all your offerings, you shall offer salt.”  (Lev. 2:3)

And what about  light?

In the one-room cottage of the Israelite, the small dish-like device in which oil was burned was  essential. Without it life would have been  dark  after the sun went down. People could not have  read the Torah, could not have walked with  sure feet  and a  light heart. So much of life would have stopped after sunset.

Jesus in today’s Gospel  is making an  astounding affirmation  – directly  to his first followers, indirectly  to every disciple since he came down from the Mount of Beatitudes: “You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world.”

Me  and  you?  Is Jesus serious  about this? I’m afraid – so.  You are  the salt of the earth. Jesus is insisting that,  for its moral well-being, for its ethical good, this world depends in large measure on the Christian disciple.

Not simply  apostles  like Andrew and Peter, fervent followers  like  Mary of Nazareth  and  Mary of Magdala. Not just  Francis of Assisi  and  Francis Xavier, not just  Teresa of Avila, and  Mother Teresa. Not just Pope Francis and the  Jesuits.

No.  For genuine human existence, if we are ever to move from war to peace, from starvation to satisfaction, from hating to loving, this earth of ours rests on your shoulders and mine.

You and I have a clear call from Christ. Not a gentle suggestion;  a loud trumpet sound.

We may  seem small in our own eyes,  insignificant; we cannot claim the power a Saddam Hussein, or a Bin Laden, or an Obama. Nevertheless,  our task,  like  salt, is to  improve the quality of human living, to change what we touch, to preserve from devastation this God-shaped, dreadfully scarred earth, this paradox of beauty and the beast.

If we, the  disciples, turn flat, lifeless, tasteless; if like salt from the Dead Sea we give off a stale, acrid, alkaline taste, some of our sisters and brothers will suffer, spoil, and corrupt – will starve for bread or justice or love.

And we? Listen to the harsh judgment of Jesus: You will be worthless, useless, fit for the garbage heap, deserve to be thrown into the street with the rest of the trash.

And you are the  light of the world.  Meaning what?

Jesus is insisting that we,  who believe he is Savior of humankind, we who have  risen with him  and  live in his presence, we who  eat his flesh and drink his blood, have  no right to hide our gifts  in a  bushel basket, have no right to clutch them in warm little hands for ourselves or  our small pious community.

The gifts we have –  of nature and grace  – should  stand out, shine like guiding stars  or  lighthouse, should  make people pause, force them to stop and look and listen.

Our  faith  should  lend fidelity  to the faithless, our  hope  raise the hopeless  from the gutter, our  love  assuage the cancer of hate  that rages through all too many hearts. Why? In Jesus’ words,  that those who cross our path may “give praise to our heavenly Father, that  in His human images God may be glorified.

Here in four Gospel verses, is  your “Christian mystery.” Mystery in the sense that  a tremendous truth hidden in God has been revealed to you by His very own Son. Your  task as Christians  is  not to follow the culture  that surrounds you. Your task,  like  mine, is to  furnish a fresh flavor  to the world you live in. To shine like Bethlehem’s star  for such as are  searching  – searching for  something,  for  someone, to  make life more human,  to make  each day worth waking up to.

Now, how do you  move from metaphor and mystery to  the year 2014? How do you get the  salt  out of the cellar, how  shine your light,  so that men and women can be dazzledby the Christ glowing within you?

Isaiah Chapter 58  points out a way. Not the only way, but a way that is  as imperative in 2014 as it was  five centuries before Christ was born.

Listen once again to the Old Testament prophet as he challenges the first  Jews returning to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon. The prophet hits hard at a practice dear to the Lord and His people:

Is not this the fast that I choose – to  loosen the bounds of wickedness, 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 him, and  not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer. You shall cry, and he will say, “Here I am. If you take away from the midst of you the yoke, the  pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness; if you pour yourself out for the hungry and  satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.  (Isaiah 58: 6-10)

Is it surprising that in God’s sight, this is when  “your light shall break forth like the dawn”, this is when  “your light shall rise in the darkness”? It shouldn’t surprise you. It was in such Isaian syllables that Jesus summed up his own mission in the Nazareth synagogue: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed.”(Luke 4: 18-19)

So, whether it’s Isaiah’s Jewish exiles returning to Jerusalem, or Jesus returning to Nazareth, or you returning from Sacred Heart Church to your warm cozy home, the Lord has some of His troubled people waiting.

But why should a little spot of God’s world be waiting for you? Because, like the exiles from Babylon and Jesus of Nazareth, you are uniquely gifted.

Not that all of you have the  power  to manipulate people like pawns, rate a “10”  for sex appeal. But as  St. Paul  had to remind the Christians of Corinth: “Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.”

To all of them –  foolish to the world and weak, low and despised  – he made one poignant point:  “Consider your calling.” Yes,  consider your calling,  my brothers and sisters. You  are graced with the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,  self-control.

But not just for yourselves. You leave here to  come in contact with as many oppressions as ever Isaiah and even Jesus conceived, a  neighborhood, a  city,  a  country, and a  world, where the St. Paul’s  nine fruits of the Spirit clash constantly with  nine fruits of Satan: love with hate, joy with bitterness, peace with war, patience with intolerance, kindness with cruelty, goodness with evil, faithfulness with infidelity, gentleness with savagery, self-control with unbridled license.

I cannot say specifically  what your particular call will be. But this much I’m sure, despite all we actually do, many of us can do more; and unless we do much more, our Christianity will be tasteless, our world continue to corrupt, many salted Christians fit only for the garbage dump.

Secondly, while lighting the world with wonderfully visible beams – look more closely, more lovingly, into the eyes you meet each day.  Oppression  is not in exile from  our pewsand our  homes, is not confined to the  slums. The  oppressed  rub shoulders with us.

Third, remember that you are still wonderfully and fearfully human; and so your own flesh and spirit will be  burdened with yokes at times  barely bearable. But this, strangely enough,  can be all to the good; in fact, it seems  indispensable for “the salt of the earth” and  “the light of the world.”

For, as  the most effective servant  is the  suffering servant, the servant  whose experience  makes  for “com-passion”, the servant who  “suffers with.” It is especially “then” that you shall call, and the Lord will answer; “You shall cry, and he will say ‘Here I am.”  (Is. 58:9)