Fifth Sunday after Epiphany – February 6, 2011 – Year A (RCL)
Today’s readings offer yet another opportunity to explore the dynamics of evangelism and Christian mission.
The apostle Paul, writing to Christians in the city of Corinth, emphasizes the need for Christian faith to “rest not on human wisdom but on…the power of God.”
The only wisdom worth having, as far as Paul is concerned, is not what he derogatorily refers to as “the wisdom of this age”, but what he calls “God’s wisdom”.
God’s wisdom is “secret and hidden”, not immediately understood by those Paul refers to as “the rulers of this age” because they are preoccupied with what they consider to be their own wisdom; on the other hand, to those who love God, God’s wisdom is revealed by God’s Spirit, and—the implication is pretty clear—it is this wisdom, God’s wisdom, that the Church is to proclaim to the world.
In the passage we heard from Matthew’s Gospel, the continuation of what we know as “the Sermon on the Mount”, Jesus calls his disciples “the salt of the earth”, as well as “the light of the world”.
I don’t know about “the light of the world”, but I suspect most of us have heard someone we know and love on more than one occasion characterized as “the salt of the earth”.
Still, salt enjoys somewhat of a checkered reputation; the average American is said to consume 6000 mg of sodium a day, much of it in the form of table salt, when the recommended amount a person should consume is much closer to 2000 mg a day; for health reasons I like many others have made a concerted effort to cut down on my salt intake, but sometimes it seems like a losing battle, doesn’t it.
Of course, the importance of salt was unquestioned in Jesus’ day.
Salt accomplished many things in the ancient world; it was used, as it is now, as a preservative, as well as to season food; because it was such an essential ingredient that was difficult to process it was considered to be a valuable commodity, serving as currency, for example, with which members of the Roman military were paid.
(We can thank that practice for a phrase that is still heard today: “He’s not worth his salt.”)
Closer to home, the weather this week had all of us scattering what I’m sure felt like tons of salt over our doorsteps and driveways and shuddering a bit when we saw signs like “We are temporarily out of ice-melt,” when we passed the local hardware store.
Actually, we don’t exactly know how Jesus meant this reference, but when he called his disciples who were on the way to becoming the Church “the salt of the earth”, he obviously intended to say something about their value and their potential for being part of the kingdom of heaven, much as he did when he called them “the light of the world”.
“[But] if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.”
I’m sure it’s no surprise to learn that couples who choose this passage to be read at their marriage service usually ask me to leave that particular sentence about being trampled under foot out!
I suspect that they find what Jesus goes on to say about light a little easier to deal with: “A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under [a] bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.”
Jesus called his disciples “the light of the world” because the light that God had kindled in them was meant to drive away the darkness and make the whole world light.
That’s something any couple worth their salt would be proud to accomplish!
Evangelism and mission.
Both the Church that Paul planted in the city of Corinth and the Church that Jesus called into being around him were a gift from God, a deputation from God, we might say, a deputation from God entrusted with a message, a message of Good News for all people, echoing the prophet Isaiah’s call to the fast of God’s own choosing: “to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, …to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house”.
Some two thousand years have not changed the objective of the mission that God entrusted to the Church; only the participants have changed; now it’s up to the disciples’ successors.
If you and I are the Church, then we, like every other manifestation of the Church in the world, are now “the salt of the earth”; we are “the light of the world”, called to help uncover, called to “bring to light”, the wisdom of God.
Being “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” was a tall order for the disciples, a tall order for the infant Church, just as being the salt of the earth and light of the world is a tall order for us who come after them—a challenging assignment, but by no means impossible.
It does help to know where we stand, and for this insight and several others which support what I have to say this morning, I am indebted, as I have been for the past two Sundays, to a book that the late Urban T. Holmes, III, the dean of my seminary, wrote some years ago: Turning to Christ: A Theology of Renewal and Evangelization.
Dean Holmes may have written the book a good while ago—actually, while I was in seminary, but what he has to say is hardly outmoded.
“…theology today needs to [lead] us back into the mystery of God. This means, first, that the faith and belief of the church are alien to the prevailing world view. Christian thinking is over against secular thought and, consequently, the church [finds itself] sending its message to an unevangelized world. This refers not just to some land on the other side of the world, but to our next-door neighbor, our spouse, or our children. Second, there is no sense of the mystery that surrounds our little island of knowing, and it is the task of Christian mission to make persons aware of that mystery and to lead them into its power.”
Several things intrigue me about Dean Holmes’ perspective: first of all, the fact that what he chooses to call “the mystery of God” sounds very much like what the apostle Paul referred to as “the wisdom of God”; second, the assertion that, even today, what the Church has to offer, what the Church has been given to proclaim to the world, remains foreign to the world; and finally, the suggestion that those who are in need of Christian evangelization include more that those we presume to have never heard the Gospel: They would seem to include baptized Christians as well.
Lest we jump to the conclusion that Dean Holmes is echoing the tone of certain evangelistic preachers who like to play on our uncertainties (“You may be a member of a church, but maybe you’re not sure where you stand with the Lord…”), I want to consider for a moment the implications of the notion Christians may be part of “an unevangelized world”, relatively speaking.
The goal of evangelism or evangelization is conversion, and conversion, as I suggested last week, is more than just an isolated event, but a continuing process.
The apostle Paul attests to the principle of conversion as a process, when he appeals to Christians in the city of Rome: “Do not let yourselves be conformed to this age, but let yourselves be transformed [by which he means “converted”] by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)
Having in us “the mind which was in Christ Jesus our Lord” is not something which we can bring about overnight.
Repentance is only the beginning.
Repentance, you may remember, means literally “re-thinking your situation”—turning from one way of looking at things to another way of looking at things—especially when the old way of looking at things no longer satisfies.
Emilie Griffin, one of the commentators that Dean Holmes cites, describes conversion as “a big turning followed by a series of [smaller] turnings.”
The implication is that once you have experienced what it is like to turn your mind in an entirely different direction, the easier it will be to do it the next time.
The “entirely different direction” in which you turn your mind—the “big turning”—is, of course, turning towards God or, rather, as Dean Holmes would surely express it, turning towards the mystery of God—and turning away from the so-called “certainties” of the world.
The “succession of turnings”, major or minor, which follows the “big turning” are the adjustments we need to make to “stay on course”, so to speak.
Put in sacramental terms, the “big turning” may be said to occur at our baptism (if we are children when we are baptized, our parents and our other sponsors carry out this initial turning for us), and the succession of turnings thereafter follows throughout the course of our life and ministry as members of the Body of Christ.
In Dean Holmes’ words: “The baptized person is one who has turned, is turned, and continues to turn.”
Then he refers to that old Shaker hymn we enjoy singing in church now and again, in which “the process of conversion is likened to a slow, stately dance, where ‘…to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed, to turn, to turn, will be our delight till by turning, turning we come round right.’”
Two weeks ago I suggested that the proper attitude for an evangelizing Church is one of invitation, the attitude of being willing to offer hospitality to people who need it.
What better place to seek shelter from values that no longer have meaning than in the safety of a place where people see themselves as depending upon God for their orientation, depending upon a God whose love draws them toward perfection!
In this sense fellowship in the Church can be a haven for working out one’s faith.
If I accept the invitation and discover the Church to be a place where I can ask the hard questions of life instead of settling for the easy answers, I will be more likely to stay.
If I recognize that those who have invited me into their fellowship wrestle daily with the exact same questions that I do, I will know that I have found a place where I can find God and God can find me.
What does it mean, then, for the Church to be “the salt of the earth”, to be “the light of the world”?
It can mean something as simple as phoning each other, as we did this past week, to see if any of us needed help to cope with the dangers and the inconvenience that had come with the storm.
It can mean something as unexpected as our neighbor’s grandson and his tractor appearing seemingly out of nowhere yesterday afternoon to plow our driveway.
Or it can mean something as remarkable as the picture I saw on You-Tube of that enormous line of Arab Christians joining hands to protect their Muslim brothers and sisters from harm in Cairo’s “Liberation Square” while they knelt in prayer.
What does it mean for the Church to be “the salt of the earth”, to be “the light of the world”?
It means a Church that sends its members into the world to make a difference in the world.
It means a Church whose members seek to know the mind of Christ.
It means a Church that offers all who need it a safe place to explore the boundaries of their faith—a sacred place where seekers after truth may turn together in the warmth of the Light and with graceful, measured steps and prayerful hearts embrace the mystery of the God who is Love itself.
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