If Christianity became illegal tomorrow, is there enough evidence in your public life to accuse you of this crime? Could you be arrested based on your daily life? If the police came knocking, would they have reasonable suspicion to arrest you? It may sound extreme, but it gets at the point of today’s Gospel. As Jesus continues the Sermon on the Mount, what some scholars call the greatest sermon ever preached, He offers two images of salt and light. How simple these images are, yet how full they are of meaning.
Jesus first calls us to be salt. You may not know this, but salt is the original flavoring. Salt has been an essential aspect of cooking for millennia. In fact, people at times in the ancient world were paid not just in money but also in salt, from which we get the word salary. Salt served not only as a flavoring, but also as the only means to preserve meats and other foods before mechanized refrigeration. The only other thing that was as important in the ancient world as salt was light.
Perhaps it may be hard to imagine, but imagine a world in which the brightest light you could have once the sun set was from fire. Light is essential when there is so much darkness. We have ready access to light at the flip of a switch, but there are still many people throughout the world who have only a torch or a fireplace to serve as the only light at night. In the time of Christ, the availability of salt and light could very well demonstrate your wealth to your neighbors.
Why is it that Jesus chooses to highlight these two items? Because this is what He wants the Church to be in the world. The Church is meant to demonstrate the wealth of God’s grace to all, just as salt and light demonstrated wealth in Christ’s day. However, the Church’s riches are not meant to be kept to herself; these riches of grace and mercy are meant to be shared with the world. This is done because of the effects of sin upon the world: the world becomes tasteless and dull, as if it has no flavor, and the world grows dark, in need of light to illumine the landscape. This is the duty of the Church.
Brethren, we are meant to be the salt and the light that this world so desperately desires and needs. Traditionally, two things were given to the newly baptized child by the priest: salt as the first blessed food to be eaten, and light in the form of the candle bearing the light of Christ. We are meant to give this world the flavor of Christ, to preserve it from sin so that it may be palatable to us once more. We are meant to shine in the darkness of the world, so that others may see the light and be drawn away from the darkness. But how do we do this?
Many see this task as quite difficult. What can we do in the face of so many influences around us? How can we change anything, let alone draw people to Christ? We will want to adopt business techniques or political moves to do this. We may look into what has been most successful throughout history. But Saint Paul tells us what will be most successful for each one of us in our second reading. It is not necessarily the ways of the world, but the demonstration of the spirit and power of God.
In Saint Paul’s day, the Greeks were known for the art of rhetoric, how to speak eloquently and elaborately. They almost reduced it to a science, this ability to persuade, to argue, to move the crowd to your position. Contests were held to see who was the best rhetorician. But Saint Paul, a Jew with limited Greek, came to Corinth and preached not with sublimity or words of wisdom; he preached the truth that he knew and believed, the truth that burned inside his heart and mind. By his fidelity to the reality of Christ, Saint Paul converted many to the faith, showing that the true power in this world is not human wisdom but the power of God.
We are not all perhaps as eloquent or as learned as many of the people around us; we may know plenty of people who could be better witnesses than ourselves. But God does not call the qualified; He qualifies those whom He calls. And each of us is called to be salt and light. We do this by imitating Saint Paul, who knew nothing but Christ and Him crucified. We then live out that knowledge, knowing that we can do all things through Christ, through the power of God. To become salt and light does not mean doing grand things, but doing everything in light of Christ.
How many of us pray before every meal, even when we go out to eat? How many of us spread prayer throughout our day? How many of us have the Bible at hand to read, or the works of the saints? How many of us read through the Catechism or another explainer of our beliefs and practices? Instead of focusing on the teams playing in the Super Bowl tonight, we could focus on learning all the apostles and what they did. Instead of fawning over the Wildcats or Cardinals, we could memorize the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes so that we can begin to live them better. It doesn’t take much, only the reminder that we are here not for this world, but to draw ourselves and others towards the next.
Brethren, let us not lose our flavor or grow dim, but let us be the salt and light of Christ. Let our good works shine before others so that our heavenly Father is glorified. Let us do whatever we are capable of doing so as to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every corner of our lives. Do not give in to the pressures of the minority who hate us or the quiet indifference of the majority who don’t care. Even if you only change one person, you have been what Jesus called you to be. Let us be the salt and the light for our little corner of the world, so that God our Father may be glorified and that we may open the way to eternal life for ourselves and those around us.
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