5Th Sunday in Ordinary time
In this weekends Gospel passage Jesus speaks again in the present tense, “You are the salt of the earth.You are the light of the world.” It is very common these days, upon entering a church or religious institution, to see the community’s “Mission Statement” prominently posted. Usually, such a statement is the result of a prayerful dialogue by the community to arrive at a description of its identity and mission in the light of the Gospel. Jesus’ mission statement to us, his followers, fits the requirement of a brief, focused and easily remembered summary of our task. Even those who don’t read much scripture can quote today’s teaching, “You are salt of the earth….You are light of the world.” Jesus begins to describe the task for his disciples by using two images. We are to affect the world the way salt and light affect their environments.
Salt seasons food, and in Jesus’ world, it was used as a preservative. It kept food from spoiling. Light removes or pushes the darkness back. Even one lighted match can be seen at a distance on a dark night. With the salt image comes a warning. “But if salt loses its taste…it is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” that means that if we loose our ability to show we are people who believe in Jesus then we will be trampled underfoot by the faithless secular world We must change what needs changing in ourselves and the world around us to be the salt of the earth that brings the saltiness of faith to other people. Remember the saying, “If it were a crime to be a Christian, would they have any evidence to convict you?” Would the charges against us be upheld and what exactly would we be convicted by?
The danger for the church and us its members is that, being in the world, we can take on worldly ways and lose our “saltiness” of faith. As salt of the earth we are called to draw out goodness in the world by supporting what protects, nourishes and enhances life, while rejecting what limits or destroys it. If we cannot bring about better conditions through everything we do and say then Jesus is right, we are salt without flavor and useless for his purposes of passing on the good news. In this Gospel reading Jesus urges those who had just heard His teaching on the Beatitudes not to “light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket.” No, “your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” We need always to look outward to those who are looking for light, as well as to those who have given up hope of ever finding it! As we hear the challenging call that Jesus gives us we can feel what those first disciples must have felt we are not large or influential enough to affect the world and resist the powers that “run the world’s affairs.” On our own, that’s true. But remember we are not on our own. Through Word of god and the Sacramental life of faith we are formed and reformed by God. We strive, with God’s grace, to live out the gospel mission statement to be salt of the earth and the light to the nations as we go forward in faith and hope.
Fullerton T 