"Salt and Light": A Sermon for 5A Epiphany

I was having a conumdrum with this sermon. 

I really wanted to get into the Isaiah reading, but I kept getting pulled back to the start of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. And like working away at a crossword puzzle, I finally found the way that his metaphors of "salt" and "light" also fit with Isaiah's rebuke of those who make a show of their faith, but don't allow that faith to actually change who they are and how they live and move and having their being in the world. 

See what you think. 

Texts: Is.58:1-12; Ps. 112:1-9;1Cor. 2:1-16; Matt 5:13-20

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It is a well-established fact that our church is the one that knows how to cook.

Seriously… St. Barnabas has gained a reputation in the diocese for the food we serve. Appetizers… main courses… desserts… from deviled eggs to chocolate cake and all the food groups in-between… people do not leave our church hungry.

With so many resident “foodies” here in the congregation… my guess is that at least a few of you are familiar with the Food Network.

At home… our TV is usually tuned into either Guy’s Grocery Games or some version of Chopped.

Cooking shows have graduated from the old days of a single chef such as Julia Child teaching recipes on PBS.

Now we’ve multiple camera angles… and a thumping soundtrack… as four chefs… and a panel of judges talk through their cooking strategy as if it were zone defense.

My wife enjoys seeing what skilled cooks can do with some odd ball ingredients.

We’ve both noticed that one of the common complaints we hear from the judges is that someone’s food lacks enough salt.

They’ll always want the chef to have added “just a little more salt” to a dish.

Salt is a flavor enhancer.

If you put too much salt in… it can overpower the other flavors and ruin the food.

Salt by itself really isn’t much of a thing.

Blended into the cuisine, it becomes integral to the dish.

Just the right amount of salt mixed in with all the flavors can really make a meal pop!

Here in our Gospel… right after the Beatitudes… we hear Jesus telling his disciples that they are that ingredient… that essence… that adds the right spice to their community.

Not by overpowering it… but by being in that dish… that stew of life… they are the salt that brings out all of the other flavors.

The other metaphor Jesus uses in this passage is light: he calls his disciples “a light of the world.”

He encourages them not to hide that light but put it on a lampstand so others might see “their good works and give glory to God in heaven.”

Salt adds spice.

Light brightens the room… and highlights the ones who are the salt shakers putting some spice into the world.

Probably the most important word in both of these metaphorical statements is the verb: “are.”

He says, “You are salt of the earth” and “You are the light of the world.”

This is not something they need to work at to become.

This is who they are now.

Blessed as salt and light… to be… right now… those instruments of adding the right spice and giving off enough light that people will taste and see that God is good, merciful, and ready to be in right relationship.

And being in right relationship with God means not living for one’s own self-centered… inward-focused life…but living for and responding to the needs of others.

That’s what the discipleship of Christ looks like.

The disciples before Jesus are those very elements of salt and light needed to fulfill what is in our reading from Isaiah: to be “the repairers of the breach and restorers of streets to live in.”

Isaiah does not hold back in his critique of those who put on a performance of piety through their fasting.

The prophet announces that God has no interest in a fast that doesn’t transform a community…and lead them to respond to the needs of the people.  

It isn’t enough to know all the right gestures…. and say all the right words to the prayers.

If the practice doesn’t raise up a collective concern… if it leads one to leave the temple… and go back to happily ignoring their neighbor who is stuck in the ditch…. then the practice is meaningless.

This is what Jesus means when he talks about those who put their light under a bushel basket… or are like the salt that has no taste.

If all the praying… the reading and hearing of Scripture… and the ritual of fasting doesn’t move one to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God… then it’s empty.

And if this were the Food Network… they’d be chopped.

If this was true in ancient Palestine….it certainly remains true today.

I think this is one of the reasons that so many people have lost interest in the church.

When the church doesn’t respond when someone is in need… when the church remains silent at times of injustice… it perpetuates that idea that the church is a place for the self-centered and self-concerned…not the God-centered House of Spice.

Just like at the time of the writing of Matthew’s Gospel… Jesus is calling cooks into the kitchen to add some salt into the world…and shine some neon light into otherwise dark spaces.

I’m slowly making my way through a book of meditations by Dr. Catherine Meeks of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing.

Meeks uses personal story and theology to work her readers through a process of healing the deep wounds of racism which we all bear.

We may not think we bear them; but no one in this country… or many other western nations… can claim to be immune from the disease of racism.

She’s careful not to give a recipe for the healing.

What she does say is that if we ever want to get to that place where we truly live together… all the races… as beloved community… each one of us needs to do our work on ourselves…and then roll up our sleeves and come into the kitchen to add our salt into the pot.

The really good news is that we are not doing this alone.

God is always with us and whispering…sometimes shouting… into our ears,

“Do not be afraid. I am with you until the end of the age.”

That’s the truth. We are never alone.

When are working through difficulties… and differences… God shows up…giving us grace and helping us to add just the right amount of salt to any situation to enhance the flavor of others and not overpower them.

The work of repairing the breaches in our world and community then becomes like correcting the flavor of a sauce….adding some depth and complexity to the taste… and making it one that can be enjoyed by the whole community.  

We’re invited to make that sauce just a bit spicer…and turn up the lights in the kitchen a little brighter so all can see what’s cooking.

You are salt of the earth.

You are the light of the world.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.