Sermon: You are salt and you are light. You are.

Sermon. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford, 9 February 2020.

3^rd Sunday Before Lent (Year A)

·       Matthew 5.13-20

A few hundred years ago, when everything was sepia (colour had not yet come in), I went to university. I read Theology, and, liking languages as I do, signed up for Biblical Hebrew as well as New Testament Greek. More than once I was told: if you ever wanted to do serious research in the Bible, go for the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament.

·       Hebrew is thought to be harder than Greek (it isn’t);

·       the Old Testament is thought to be less important than the New (it isn’t);

·       and the Old Testament is thought to be much, much longer than the new (it is).

The point is: it is not an exaggeration to say that every single word of the New Testament has been studied, analysed, and researched. So it is that much harder to say anything original.

There is a lot of truth in that. Every single word. Certainly, I know at least one person who wrote a whole dissertation (a small book) on the word… salt. To Halas in Greek. A waste of time and energy?

Actually, it’s not ridiculous, when you think about it. “We all know” what it is to be “the salt of the earth”. Someone who is “the salt of the earth” is

·       a kind and well-intentioned person;

·       a good egg;

·       a top banana;

·       perhaps even the bees-knees.

And so on. A good person. But of course we only “know” this meaning because of this Bible text. These meanings are what we have done with – what we have made out of – the Bible text. The meaning is later than the text. So the meaning Matthew intended – or the meaning Jesus intended – has still to be worked out. We do have to dig deeper into the mines of meaning.

Fortunately, this is (for once) not an impossibly difficult task. For all the evidence suggests that the purposes of salt have changed little over the centuries. Salt is used:

·       to give flavour to food;

·       salt is used to preserve food (especially in days before fridges, but to some extent still, by choice);

·       and (more unusual this), salt is used as a fertiliser;

·       [a member of the congregation added: also for medical purposes].

Can we work out which use of salt is to the fore in today’s gospel? That is not easy. Some say because the phrase is “salt of the earth” (to halas tes ges), then the use as fertiliser is the primary meaning. Salt for the earth, in effect. Maybe. And if so, this can work to keep us humble: we are, perhaps, not a million miles away from being like manure to be worked into the mud! But the meaning is as likely to be “salt out of the earth”. So we cannot say.

You are the salt of the earth.

You are the light of the world.

Light is an easier symbol to understand, I’d say (thank goodness). But we just have to be clear that, since this text was written many centuries before electricity, here it means the light of the flame, the light of fire.

So we are salt, and we are flame.

We can say a few things about this.

First, as salt and as flame, too much of us in one place is a bad thing. Oversalted food, oversalted fields, oversalted medication, too much fire in a room – these are not just unpleasant things, they are dangerous things. So I say again, too much of us in one place is a bad thing. Except of course it’s not quite that. What is meant is rather if we are spending too much time in one place, that is a bad thing.

To be clear:

·       we gather (here we are);

·       and we are right to gather;

·       we need to gather;

·       and Gd calls us to gather.

·       It is good that we are here.

But! But we are here in order to be sent out. When at the end of the service we say or hear “Go in the peace of Christ” or “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”, this does not mean: “The service is over; we have run out of things to say, sing, and do”. No. We mean: “We, if we can inhabit and take to ourselves all that we have experienced, now have the forgiveness, compassion and strength we need to go out into the world and truly be salt and light in the wider mess that is the world.”

Second, salt and flame are very different things.

·       Salt works when it is hidden, when it is fully worked into something bigger than itself.

·       Flame works when it is on display, when it openly radiates its light throughout.

This is important. Important for us. It reminds us that we are called to both tasks.

·       Sometimes what we do is rightly and properly utterly hidden. No one notices, and that is okay. We do the right thing. An act of forgiveness here. An act of kindness there.

·       Sometimes what we do is rightly and properly public or “out there”. Taking a stance against racism here. Shutting down some gossip there. Neither the hidden nor the public ministry is more important than the other. The wisdom is knowing when to be hidden and when to be out. Salt here; flame there. We learn this wisdom by prayer, and from each other.

Third, and I don’t want to shock you here, but: salt is salt and flame is flame! I mean: the vocation of salt is to be salt, the saltiest salt it can be. Flame is called to be flame, the brightest and flamiest flame it can be. And we are to take comfort in this.

Our ministry in the world is not to do things that are utterly alien to us, that oppose or harm our true nature. Our ministry is to be our authentic selves, whatever that means. It doesn’t always mean doing what seems to come naturally, as our instincts and drives are not always right (to put it mildly). But it does mean that our vocation will be a coming to know ourselves as we really always were, as we always are. Further, we are right to be curious about our selves, and interested and find enjoyment in discovering our selves.

You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. The Greek sentences do include the verb to be (este). You may (just perhaps) remember that I’ve said that both in Hebrew and Greek you typically do not need the verb to be. It can be implicit. You the salt of the earth. You the light of the word. These would be perfectly good Greek sentences. So it may well be that the addition of the verb to be here is emphatic. You are. Who you are is the salt of the earth. Who you really are is the enlightening flame of the world.

·       So, most of your Christian life is to be lived dispersed in the world, the world in all its pain, mess and doubt.

·       Sometimes what you do will be hidden and unthanked; no matter.

·       Sometimes what you do will be public and so risky; no matter.

·       Don’t worry. In each and every moment, you are being called to do one thing only: to be what you are. To be who you are.

I’ll add: in all the renewal we are engaged in as a parish and as a worshipping community, all the change – the small and the big - is really all about helping us – as persons and as a gathering – to become who we are. Just as we want salt to be salty and the light of the flame to be light.

As this has been a reflection on a New Testament text, and knowing you as I do, I am aware that it is very unlikely I have said anything original. I give no apology. It is said with care and love. I address this to each of you as a disciple of Christ, and, yes, to me as one such too: By the grace of Gd, be who you are.

Amen.