Purpose: To be Salt and Light
Readings: Isaiah 58v1-9a; Matthew 5v13-20
Isaiah’s Time
It seems that the world in Isaiah’s
time was not so different in some ways than the worlds is now. They
look like they followed God, they did all the right things on the
surface, but underneath they we just being selfish. Then they
wondered why their prayers were not answered.
“For day after day they seek me
out” (well, perhaps that’s a bit different) “they seem eager to
know my ways as if they were a nation that does what is right and has
not forsaken the commands of its God.”
‘Why have we fasted, and you have
not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not
noticed?’
‘We come to church week by week,
you have not seen us? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not
noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting,
you do as you please and exploit all your workers.
Your fasting ends in quarrelling and
strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists.”
“Yet every Sunday you go home and
treat the rest of the day like any other. You expect people to serve
you, to entertain you and to sell you things.” … and no doubt,
sometimes there is quarrelling and strife, even here amongst
Billericians.
Religion must make a difference
Isaiah is saying that their religion
must make a difference to their lives. The people show some evidence
of wanting to do God’s will, they are even prepared to put up with
the minor inconvenience of fasting. But it doesn’t make a real
difference to how they live their lives, to how they behave on a day
to day basis.
My commentary call this ‘empty
externalism’ - religion on the outside which has no meaning to the
person on the inside.
God’s requirement
God’s requirement is in verses 6
and 7.
Isaiah 58:6 “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? 7 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 him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
It is a common theme running through
the Old Testament. In our communion prayer we sometimes have these
words from Micah 6:8:
“And what does the LORD require of
you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your
God.”
NT
Jesus has a different way of putting
it to the crowds he is speaking to in the sermon on the mount. “You
are the salt of the earth” and “You are the light of the world”.
Salt and Light
Pliny said “Nothing is more useful
than salt and sunshine”. So Jesus has used the two most important
elements of life to teach the people. I’m going to look at each
of these in more detail so that we can understand a little better how
these saying might have been received.
Salt
You won’t be surprised to learn
that salt in the first century did not come out of a plastic tub.
Instead it was collected from around the Dead Sea. That means it is
impure, it is a mixture of all sorts of things. When it gets damp,
the real salt – the sodium chloride – is dissolved little by
little. The salt still looks the same but is beginning to lose its
saltiness. In recent years in Israel, this non-salty salt was used
on the flat roofs and combined with the soil on the roof it produces
a hard and waterproof covering for the house. Perhaps we should get
some! The flat roofs are also used, children were allowed to play on
them, Peter used to pray on the roof (Acts 10:9), so that’s where
the ‘trampled by men’ phrase come from.
Worth his salt
Salt was very important, as we have
already heard from Pliny. It is where we get the phrase “He is
worth his salt” - which means he is worth his pay. Sal, the Latin
for salt is also the root of our word salary, which was an allowance
paid to Roman soldiers so that they could buy salt.
Salt was important for two reasons.
It was used for flavouring food, as it still is today, but more
importantly it was used as a preservative before the invention of
refrigeration.
Preservative
It is this preservative property of
salt that Jesus is getting at. “The salt of the earth” means that
we are the preservative of the world. We are a sort of moral
disinfectant, our purpose is to keep the world from becoming rotten.
Do you think we are doing a good job?
Light
The other thing that Pliny reckoned
was most useful was sunshine. In the days before electric lights
real work could only take place in the daytime when the sun provided
light to see by. The lamps in Jesus’ time gave off little more
light than our candles. If you were outside on a moonless night it
was impossible to travel. You might though have been able to see a
city on a hill.
I live on the top of the hill that
Billericay stands on. There is never real darkness at any time of
day or night. I can walk around the garden at 3am when I’m having
a bad night without fear of tripping over or walking into the bushes.
I can even seen enough to navigate around the house if I open the
curtains. That’s because of the street lighting outside bouncing
off the atmosphere - its called back scatter.. There is a permanent
orange glow. Without street lighting though, it is still possible to
see points of light on a clear night that are miles away. Even with
only candles there would still be something that would be visible.
Limestone at dawn
At dawn, as the first light of the
sun gets scattered around the atmosphere a city on a hill –
especially one built of limestones houses, as many were, would soon
begin to reflect light and become visible. At sunrise it would
become a beacon as the direct sun light reflected off the houses.
Think of the white cliffs of Dover in bright sunlight. We should
also remember that the sun rises much more quickly in Israel, because
it is nearer to the equator.
We are the light of the world
In the same way, we are the light of
the world, reflecting the glory of Christ Jesus. Light is good news
as the sun brings light and heat and life can get underway again
after the darkness and chill of the night. We are good news as we
spread God’s word to those still in darkness, and they too realise
that life can properly get underway now their darkness has been
eradicated.
Cost
For the Christian there is a cost to
all this. Here are a couple of examples.
West Nickel Mines School shooting
In Bart Township, Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania, on October, 2nd 2006, Charles Carl Roberts
IV entered the school house. He lined the girls up against the
blackboard. He let the boys and the adults go. Eventually the girls
were shot, but not before they had time to understand what was
happening. He committed suicide.
It is just one of an unfathomable
number of school massacres that have occurred in the United States.
Forgotten now by a world that tires of hearing about them, but still
remembered by families and the communities affected.
Bart township is an Amish community.
The Amish are a protestant denomination.
What
makes this shooting stand out from the others is that there was no
call for revenge, only for forgiveness. One of the fathers said “He
had a mother and a wife and a soul and now he's standing before a
just God.” Members of the community visited and comforted Charles
Robert’s widow and his parents.
They are being salt and light. They
are doing what they can to preserve the family of Charles Roberts,
and point them to a better future.
Gordon Wilson
My other example is Gordon Wilson,
who you may remember. On 8th November 1987 the
provisional IRA blew up the Remembrance Day parade in Enniskillen.
Gordon was injured and his daughter was killed. His response was “I
bear no ill will, I bear no grudge”. He begged the loyalists not
to take revenge for the bombing. All this was reported along with
the bombing in news reports across the world. The cost to Gordon was
not just the loss of his daughter and his injuries, but the hatred of
loyalists and a continued bombing campaign by the provisional IRA.
Much later though, this bombing, and
especially Gordon’s reaction has been seen as a turning point in
the troubles.
Gordon Wilson was salt and light in
his community because he forgave those who planted the bomb, because
he effectively prevented a retaliation and because for years
afterwards he worked for peace in Northern Ireland.
And us
In both my examples, an act of evil
spurred people to action. Their actions would not have been possible
without the solid long term grounding of their faith in Jesus. I
pray that none of us ever suffer those kind of evils, but we all
suffer evils of some sort, and we also see evils suffered by others.
Our calling is to be salt and light
in all circumstances. That means:
to be an influence in our
culture against further insensitivity and cruelty
to season the bitter,
dog-eat-dog world with grace and mercy.
to be that light shining in
the darkest corner
How can we be salt and light for them
and for the community around them?
By being there, by being active,
sometimes by opposing, but mainly by helping and being available. By
acting where others in society won’t. By being forgiving, by being
always ready to give account of the hope that is in us. By being
gentle and respectful and keeping a clear conscience.
Transforming Presence
In Transforming Presence, our bishop
calls this living distinctively. I prefer to call it being salt and
light.
