Sunday
July 23
Salt and Light
By Marsh Chapel
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The point of salt is to be salty. We are the salt of the earth.
The point of light is to shine. We are the light of the world.
The point of life is to love. We are alive.
I.[1]
Jane was a traveler, and as happens to travelers from time to time, one day she found herself in a new city—the City of Everywhere. Perhaps you’ve been there.
Jane had not, but being a city girl at heart, having grown up in the land of the bean and the cod, she was open to the experience.
After all, the City of Everywhere was beautiful; the streets were clean, the architecture was appealing, and the people were so friendly. There was just one thing, one tiny detail that, as Jane walked down the street, she thought was a little strange.
You see, no one, not a single person that she passed was wearing shoes.
Strange, Jane thought, as she ducked into a coffee shop.
As she was waiting for her iced latte, looking around at all the shoeless people, her curiosity finally got the better of her and she said to the manager, “Excuse me, manager. I’m new to your city. What a wonderful place, the streets are so clean, the architecture so appealing, the people so friendly. I just have one quick question. Tell me, why doesn’t anyone wear shoes?”
The manager gave her a knowing smile and offered in a thoughtful voice, “Ah, that’s the question, why don’t we?”
“Right.” Said Jane, “That’s what I’m asking, why don’t you wear any shoes? Don’t you all believe in shoes?”
“Believe in shoes?!” said the manager, “Of course, we believe in shoes, that’s the first article of our creed—shoe wearing. Oh, think of the suffering shoes prevent; think of the sores, the splinters, the stubs avoided by those wonders of wonders—shoes.”
Jane, a little freaked out, smiled and nodded her head and quietly left the coffee shop. (With her iced latte of course.) As she walked down the street, she was in such a state of consternation that she almost missed the beautiful stone building in front of her.
It had a spire that reached to the sky and colorful glass windows with pictures in them. As she was staring at it, an old man said to her, “Beautiful isn’t it?” “Yes,” said Jane, “What is it?”
“This?” said the man pointing to the beautiful building, “Ah, this is our pride and joy. This is our shoe manufacturing establishment.”
Surprised, Jane responded, “You mean you make shoes there?”
“No, no, no,” laughed the man, “don’t be silly. No, this is where we talk about making shoes. We have a staff of people we pay to speak to us each week about shoe wearing. We broadcast the message live on the radio for thousands to hear and there are moments when the speakers are so persuasive about shoe-wearing that people weep and commit to wearing shoes in the week ahead.”
Sneaking a peak at his feet, Jane asked the man, “You go here?”
“Every week!” said the man, “and even when I miss I tune in on the radio or listen to the podcast or read the blogpost later in the week.”
“Well, why don’t you wear shoes, then?” said Jane.
The man, looking her in the eye, nodded with a knowing smile, “Ahhh, that’s the question, why don’t I?”
Just then, over the man’s shoulder, Jane noticed a small cobbler’s shop across the street. She excused herself to the older man and crossed the street into the shop. Though the sign said “open,” there was not a single customer there. Interrupting the cobbler as he was putting the finishing touches on a beautiful pair of shoes. Jane asked the cobbler, “Why is your shop empty?”
The cobbler responded, “As you can see, I have plenty of shoes, but people around here just want to talk about shoes. No one actually wears them.”
Then Jane had an idea. Surprising the cobbler, Jane bought as many pairs as she could carry and ran across the street to the man she had just left and said to him, “Sir, good news, I have shoes for you. They are different shapes and sizes, but surely there is a pair that fits you? Isn’t there?”
The man, looked down at the shoes and then up at Jane, then back down at the shoes and back up at Jane and his faced turned a little crimson, “Thank you miss, that’s very kind, but you see, it’s just not done.”
Said an exasperated Jane, “Why don’t you wear shoes?”
Said the man, “That’s the question, Why don’t we?”
And as Jane traveled back from The City of Everywhere to here, that question resonated in her mind, “Why don’t we, why don’t we, why don’t we?”
II.
Jesus was standing on a hill giving the sermon of his life before he gave his life as the sermon.
He began poetically, perhaps you’ve heard it, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek,” and so on and so forth.
And then, according to Matthew, he got to the meat of the sermon…or at least the seasoning.
Looking at the disciples, he said, “You are the salt of the earth.”
Now if we’re honest, that’s sort of a weird thing to say, but setting the strangeness aside for a moment, we should recognize what he was doing.
He was pausing in the middle of the sermon at the beginning of his ministry, to remind the people gathered around him of who they were, of why they were important.
“You are the salt of the earth.”
To be clear, he was not speaking literally, he was speaking theologically.
He was saying to the disciples and in turn to us that we are people of worth. By virtue of our very being we have worth.
Not because of the things we do, but because of who we are.
And sometimes, as we know, we could use the reminder.
After all, we live in a world that from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed tries to convince us that we are not enough. That who we are is not enough. That our worth comes from how we look or who we know or who knows us.
But friends, it’s not true.
We are more than our tweets, more than our Facebook or Instagram likes. We are more than the way the world perceives us, more than our jobs, our grades, our bodies.
We are the salt of the earth. In other words, we matter not because of the things we do, but because of who we are.
And for those who may have forgotten between last week and this one, let me say it again, you are as I am a child of God.
But accepting that, friends, is only the first step. We also have to live like it matters.
Jesus continues, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste (its saltiness) how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot.”
In other words, friends, the point, the entire point of salt is to be salty.
We know from our own experience that when we lose our proverbial saltiness, when we forget who we are in the eyes of God, when we try and find our worth in those fleeting things of life, money, sex, accomplishment, it can feel like the world is walking all over us.
The good news is that even then, we have worth.
You see, not only was salt an important preservative of the ancient world and a form of currency, (hence something not being worth its salt), it was also frequently used as a leveling agent for the most common fuel for outdoor fires of the time: manure.
That’s right: manure. Salt helped manure patties to burn longer, hotter, and more evenly, and then, when they were done, the solid charred remains were used on roads to help absorb mud.
In other words, they were literally trampled upon…and still had worth.
And while that doesn’t sound particularly pleasant, think for a moment about what it would mean for us to be leveling agents for the world. What would it mean if we took seriously the call not only to preserve the message that Jesus was sharing—to not only talk about loving—but to be the agents who helped spread that message evenly. To all. To spread it in such a way that long after we are gone, the love we shared made the path a little easier for those who come after us.
Or said another way, friends, what would it mean if we wore the shoes we talked so much about?
Let’s be honest, Christians haven’t always done this well…if at all.
When was the last time Christians made the news for their love? Think of the last year alone and all of the fear of refugees, of immigrants, of our Muslim brothers and sisters. What has been the Christian voice?
The entirety of the Christian faith is predicated on the notion that we are to welcome the stranger in our midst—to love our neighbor as ourselves. It’s not a part of our faith, it is our faith. And yet, when our voice is needed, we’ve been silent at best, and complicit at worst.
Friends, salt is meant to be salty. We are the salt of the earth.
But just in case the salt metaphor is not working, Matthew has Jesus switch to a new one…light, though the point is the same. He says, “A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on a lampstand so that it may give light to all in the house.” In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven.
Do you hear? Let your light shine before others.
The point of light is to shine.
So, in case we’ve missed it, here’s the point—we are not people who get together to just talk about light, we are people who shine it. We are not people who talk about shoes, we wear them. Or, to drop the metaphors for a moment, we don’t just talk about life, we live it…and the only way to do that is through love.
I give you a new command, love one another.
Sometimes we can get really cynical about this whole faith thing. We look at it and shake our heads and think, this is all a bunch of manure. And most of the time, we’re right.
The truth is, our faith is only as good as the people willing to live like it matters.
We have spent too long convincing ourselves that our faith is about what happens when we die. But the opposite is true…it’s about what happens when we live, not at death, but right now.
And the only way to life is through love.
Friends, what is it in your life that is worth dying for? Isn’t it worth living for as well?
As Howard Thurman said, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive then go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
And if changing the world seems too hard, let’s start with the part we have some control over—ourselves…our interactions with each another. If we can make those relationships a little more loving, if we can practice forgiveness and grace and compassion in those, if we can make a little kingdom of heaven here, then there just might be hope for The Cities of Everywhere.
And if there comes a time in our travels through life when we look in the mirror and discover that we don’t love as we should, then we owe it to ourselves to ask the hard question: Why don’t we? Why don’t we? Why don’t we?
-The Reverend Doctor Stephen M Cady II, Senior Minister from Asbury First United Methodist Church in Rochester, New York.
[1] This allegory is based on “The City of Everywhere” by Hugh Price Hughes which I first discovered in the writings of Howard Thurman.
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