Flavour and Light

Flavour and Light

Text:  Matthew 5:13-20

            The package crinkles and pops as the seal is pulled apart.  My hand dips in and draws out a crisp which crunches between my teeth.  Before long the bag is empty and I toss it in the bin.

            Steam rises as I unfold paper.  The smell of battered fish and the sight of thick chips make my mouth water.  I don’t want vinegar but I can smell it coming from others’ portions.  Mine is covered with generous lashings of salt.

            And if you don’t fancy crisps or fish suppers, what about a handful of salted nuts:  peanuts, pistachios, or cashews?  What about a juicy tomato sprinkled with salt and drizzled with olive oil?

            I was five years old before I saw the ocean.  Our family set off towing a caravan from Saskatchewan to Seattle.  As we made our way down the western sea board towards the Redwood Forest we stopped at a beach.  I will never forget the experience of taking off my shoes and socks and feeling the sand between my toes and wading in the immense Pacific whose waves tumbled onto the shore.  I remember the sensation of water drying and leaving a white, sandy residue.  When sitting in the back seat of the car I made the discovery that the ocean was salty and licking my legs – at least until my mum told me to stop.

Salt creates a craving for more.  Salt hooks our taste buds.  Excessive salt in junk food and many products that we buy off of supermarket shelves is a medical concern.  Lowering the amount of sodium in our diet is essential to lowering our risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and hardening of the arteries.  It’s easy to loose sight of the fact that salt is essential to our existence.  Salt is not the problem.  It’s too much that causes the damage. 

In August 1997, months after marrying Viviane, my father-in-law, Max, and brothers-in-law took me mountain biking in the Vercors mountain range.  Thirty two kilometres of pedalling up steep slopes and controlled descents on a hot day involved a lot of sweat.  Max kept sharing out sodium tablets as we gulped from our water bottles.  That day I learned how essential it is not to loose too much salt from the body.

“You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus says to all those who follow him.  The ‘you’ is plural and is addressed to the community of disciples.  You are a people giving a distinctive, full flavour to everyone.  You are a community of the contented because you have the attitudes that come from totally trusting God.

“You are the salt of the earth.”  When people get their first taste of this kingdom community their appetite is whetted.  This community of salt is the flavour of God’s right ways:  his life-giving, loving ways.  As the salt of the earth Jesus’ community is essential to the health and well being of the world. 

What a disaster then if salt looses its zing!  Now we know that it is not chemically possible for pure salt – sodium chloride – to lose its taste.  Chemistry was not on the horizon in Jesus’ time.  Instead, this saying was based on the experience of harvesting impure salt from places like the Dead Sea.  If the salinity was dissolved out of mineral compounds then there would be no salty taste.

There’s more.  The word translated ‘taste’ can also mean foolish.  Salt was often an image for wisdom (cf. Colossians 4:6).  It’s seems that Matthew’s Jesus is saying that if his community of followers lose their distinctiveness in the world then they become foolish.  The wisdom of the beatitudes – the manifesto for a life wholly trusting God – is what makes the community of Jesus’ disciples a seasoning in the world. 

“You are the salt of the earth” is augmented by “You are the light of the world.”  From tasting the flavour of the kingdom of heaven we are a revealing light pointing to the glory of the Father in heaven.

Our light cannot be hidden anymore than the light of a city built on a hill.  For a prairie boy this image is hard to conjure up.  I do however recall my amazement when travelling eastwards from Moose Jaw towards Regina on a clear night.  It takes just under an hour to do this journey and with forty minutes to go I could see the lights of the city.  This part of Saskatchewan is so flat that the lights of the city on a clear night cannot be hidden.

Normally we wouldn’t have any cause to try to hide the light coming from a city.  Yet during World War II the need to hide the light of cities was acute.  Comprehensive instructions were given to ensure that every chink of light was blocked.  Air Raid Precaution Wardens would check to make sure that not even a sliver of light escaped.  It was feared that the night time light from major cities would make easy targets for enemy bombers.  Unfortunately, extinguishing lights caused a huge number of accidents because people simply could not see where they were going.

I wonder if Jesus chuckled when he suggested the idea of a lamp being lit and then hidden under a bushel basket.  It’s as ridiculous as putting thick black bin liners as lamp shades in your house or office.  What is the point of putting on the lights if we are going to block them out?  Putting on the lights is so that we can see what we’re doing.

“You are the light of the world.”  Our light is not to be blacked out or hidden.  Our light is to shine so that people can see our good works.  We don’t do good works so that we can be noticed.  Our actions point beyond us to the Father in heaven.  We shine so that he can shine even brighter.

Being salt and light is about living out and teaching the ways of the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus’ words indicate that there were those who saw him as a law breaker and a prophet basher.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  Matthew’s Jesus had no intention of making the law and the prophets a thing of the past.  Instead, his life and teachings bring to completion the trajectory of everything in the law and the prophets.  There will not be any alteration to the iota - the smallest Hebrew letter - nor to the stroke of a letter until heaven and earth cease to exist and all that needs to be accomplished is done.

Jesus sets the bar of excellence impossibly high.  Breaking the least law and teaching others to do the same will mean relegation to the least place in the kingdom of heaven.  On the other hand, those who keep the commandments and teach them to others will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus shocks us further when he demands that his followers exceed the high standards of the scribes and Pharisees.  These were the folk who observed the law right down to the last jot and title.  How can we possibly outdo them? 

These words of Jesus don’t seem like the Jesus who hangs out with a disreputable crowd (9:9-13), risks becoming unclean by touching the untouchables (9:18-26), and who flouts the regulations on the Sabbath (12:1-8).  In the light of Jesus’ way of interpreting and living out the law, what does he mean by exceeding the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees?

The flavour of light...the tang of the salt...the brilliant shining of the community of Jesus is love.  When the Pharisees were giving Jesus a hard time about hobnobbing with the wrong sort of people he tells them, “Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (9:13).  When the Pharisees tested Jesus’ commitment to the keeping of the law by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ he replied by saying that it was summed up by totally loving God with every fibre of our being and loving our neighbour as we love ourselves (22:34-40).  Fulfilling the law and the prophets is about much more than rules and regulations.  It is about being called into a loving relationship with God and others.  The Sermon on the Mountain takes us beyond the superficial righteousness of law keeping to the heart of the law:  love.   

Murder is committed when hatred first creeps into the heart.  Love is absent when sisters and brothers in Jesus bear grudges and drag each other to court.  Love is absent when a lustful eye looks at a woman as a sexual object.  Love is absent when a woman can be discarded at a whim.  Love is present when our word is kept.  Love is present when we surprise wrongdoers by refusing to retaliate and love our enemies.

The flavour of salt is love.  The rays of light are love shown in good works which point to a loving Father in heaven.  We are salt and light for others.  We live and teach the commandments to love God and neighbour in every part of our lives – in every set of relationships – for others.

A week ago Saturday (29.01) Viviane and I joined in the celebration of opening the new community hall and worship centre for Newport Congregational Church.  A Salvation Army officer brought greetings and spoke a few words that have stayed with me this week.  He told the story of how an elderly William Booth got up to address a crowd of Salvationists in the Albert Hall.  People were expecting him to speak at some length.  Instead, he rose to his feet, pointed upwards, and said one simple word:  “Others.” 

How are we salt and light in Witney for others?  Do we flavour our community with loving welcome as people use our toilets and feed and change their babies in the Townsend Lounge?  Are we shedding light on the Father in heaven by creating a welcoming space for people to have coffee, tea and a biscuit or cake on a Thursday and Saturday?  Do we see Noah’s Ark on a Monday and Tuesday as places of welcome where the zest of love can be tasted and the light of good works point to the Father?  Churches Together in Witney are being salt and light through the late night cafe and Street Pastors.  Base 33 is also providing an open door of welcome to chaotic lives.  Are we salt and light to our community in the relationships that we have with our neighbours?  Are we bringing flavour...are we shining the love of Father in every part of our lives?