Above is a video of my homily for Sunday, February 8 which is based on these scriptures. Below you'll find the text of my homily. (If a video doesn't appear above, click here!)
You are the salt of the earth.
You
are the light of the world.
From
the lips of Jesus, challenging and daunting words.
And
note this. Jesus doesn't tell us to become the salt of the earth. He
doesn't tell us to be like the salt of the earth. Rather, he says, “You are
the salt of the earth.
And
likewise, he doesn't tell us to become the light of the world. He
doesn't tell us to reflect the light of the world. Tells us we are
the light of the world.
He
doesn't offer a choice here:
to be, or not to be, the salt of the earth;
to be, or not to be the light of the world.
Rather,
he names us, his followers - he names us his salt, his light. He makes us
responsible for being his salt on earth, his light in the world.
It
might be helpful here to understand the cultural context in which Jesus is
using these images: the context that colors what Jesus meant and how his first
listeners understood what he was saying.
For
instance, if you think that Jesus is speaking here about the salt that we pour
on popcorn or add to the stew that's cooking in the stove, you’d be wrong. If
you've ever visited in the Middle East, you may have seen along the road, in
villages, clay ovens. Such ovens have been used for thousands of years. Often a
larger oven would serve a small compound of families. That's how it was in the
time of Jesus, and it's still that way in some places in the Middle East - and
on this side of the world, you find these clay ovens in the poor communities of
Haiti.
Now,
the common fuel for such ovens wasn't oil or gas or wood. These clay ovens were
fueled by camel dung, and donkey dung. I know - it’s gross. But
even worse: children were given the task of going out and collecting
the dumb - and mixing it with -- salt! And then molding it into patties
that would be left out in the sun to dry.
Then
a whole slab of salt was placed at the base of the oven, and the salted dung
patties were placed on that. You see, salt has catalytic properties, which
cause the dung to burn. But eventually, that salt slab loses its catalytic
capacity. It burns out, becomes useless. Or as Jesus said: good for
nothing except to be thrown outside and trampled underfoot.
In
Aramaic and Hebrew, the two languages that Jesus would have been familiar with:
one and the same word means earth and clay oven. You are the salt of
the earth -- you are the salt of the clay oven.
So
what Jesus has in mind when he tells us you're the salt of the earth, is
that we are to be the salt. We are to be the catalyst, the fire,
the heat in the clay oven. For Jesus and the people of his time - to be
the salt of the earth, meant to be the fire starter, to be the heat
that fuels the community oven, where people gather to be warmed and fed.
Challenging
and daunting…
Clearly,
it would be much easier for us if Jesus had been thinking of a saltshaker on
the dining room table. But he was talking about something much earthier
than that. Too earthy for your taste? Well, the work the Lord assigns to
us - to us who are supposed to be the salt of the earth - that work is pretty
earthy. It's nitty gritty, it's practical, it's basic.
Isaiah,
in the first reading tonight, Isaiah gave us a To-Do-List for this work.
Remember what he said?
Share
your bread with the hungry.
Shelter the oppressed, and the homeless.
Satisfy
the afflicted.
That's
exactly what we sang in the opening song (Christ Be Our Light by Bernadette
Farrell).
These folks - the afflicted, the homeless, the
oppressed, the hungry - they are in the news every day of the week. And the words of Jesus call us to figure out
how we might be the salt of the earth for those whose needs are
so very great.
Challenging
and daunting…
Then
there's the business of being light for the world - and that curious bushel
basket that Jesus talks about.
Let’
again, look at how the people in his time would have understood that. In the
homes of first century Mediterranean people - the same people who depended on
clay ovens for heat and food - in their homes, there was no electricity, no
batteries. So after sundown, their source of light was little oil lamps. They
were small. They would easily - one of them could fit just in the palm of your
hand. They didn't throw an enormous amount of light. But - think about when the
power lines are down and you don't have any electricity at home: you light
candles. Think about the difference in the darkness of your house when you
light one candle. It cuts through the darkness. It doesn't light everything up
like daylight - but you can now navigate through the darkness - just like a
little clay oil lamp.
Just
as folks in the time of Jesus would never think of putting a little oil lamp
under a bushel basket - neither would you place your candles in a corner of
the room during a storm. You'd set those candles in places where they give
light to the whole house. Just as Jesus said. So when Jesus says we
could be the light of the world, he's not asking us to be lighthouses on rocky
coasts. No. He's imagining us to be little oil lamps in a darkened house. Just
so, just like this, he said: Your light must shine before others, so
that they may see your good deeds, so that they may see when you share your
bread with the hungry - when you shelter the oppressed and the homeless, when
you satisfy the afflicted. And if
you do these things, (Jesus says) then your light shall break forth like
the dawn.
He
goes on: if you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation, and
malicious speech - and that's in the news every day, too - If you remove
all that, then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom in your
world shall become for you like midday.
So
in the scriptures tonight, Jesus is calling us to start fires… to get
things cooking, to be the light in the darkness: in the darkness of
poverty, hunger, homelessness and oppression.
Challenging
and daunting…
In
just 10 days, it will be Ash Wednesday. The beginning of Lent: a season that
calls us to prayer, fasting, and caring for the poor and the afflicted. It's
not too early to start thinking about how each of us will live Lent this year.
And perhaps a good way for framing our thoughts about that would
be to consider how, this Lent, you and I might grow in being the salt of the
earth and light for the world.
Perhaps
we might consider a Lenten effort, more earthy, more nitty gritty, more
practical, more basic - than giving up chocolate for 40 days…
As
we come to the Lord's table tonight, pray with me that Jesus will light a
fire in our hearts and fan to flame the light of faith that's
already ours: the same light of faith that got you to come here tonight, in the
cold and during the Super Bowl. You're here!
Pray
with me that we might be: the salt of the earth, and light for the
world.
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