5th Sunday after the Epiphany

February 6, 2014

Matthew 5:13-20

Divine Salt and Light

In Nomine Jesu

What am I doing with my life? Its’ a question that will often supersede all the other questions of life that I don’t have answers for. It’s a question that bubbles up to the surface of our life at various times. When we are little and dreamy it’s a question that comes alive in books and fantasies as we wonder what we will be when we grow up. When we are young and putting down roots, it’s a question that is wrestled with ever so fiercely as we plan our future, choose our schools, pick careers, and carve out new dwelling places. When we are advanced in years, it’s a question that assuredly is viewed retrospectively, “what have I done with my life,” and so it is often feared and hard to swallow. The pain and the hurt, the suffering and the affliction, the losses and the dead ends, it all brings us back to the fundamental questions of our existence, of the origins of life and the apparent meaning and purpose we so eagerly groped about for the years of our earthly life.

To our great amazement and through it all, the divine Salt, the Son of God, is salting us, unflavored and unwilling creatures that we are to be sons of God, born of His life that others may live through us and come to abide in this eternally seasoned life which has no end. To our great wonder, and through it all, the Light Creator is enlightening us, burnt out and dimmed bulbs that we are, to be the rays of light that pierce the darkness of this unbelieving world and to be its harbor of salvation, its oasis of forgiveness. Through the Salt and the Light that has sacrificed Himself, who made Himself rotten and unseasoned, buried in the darkness of death and hell, He seasons us to be living sacrifices, a flavoring of love and mercy to the unloved and the shunned, a light of grace and a city of salvation to a world that is quickly passing away into obscurity and eternal judgment.   

You, the poor in spirit, the mournful and the meek, you the ones who crave after righteousness, you the merciful and the pure in heart, the peacemakers and the persecuted for the sake of righteousness, yes you, are called to follow the Crucified One. Who me? Are you out of your mind, Jesus? I can barely keep it together for myself much less my neighbor, even less the one who refuses to be salted and enlightened. If I am the salt of the earth then this earth is going to be quite bland, even rotten. If I am the light of the world, then this world is going to be quite dark, even pitch black. Its not just the feelings of inadequacy that surface here, its that the task is too great, its that the calling and vocations you have called me to I have in every expectation failed to live up too. I am not the perfect father, husband, or pastor. Yet, Jesus doesn’t call the perfect. Jesus doesn’t call the ones who are salty and florescent in the eyes of the world. He doesn’t call the strong in spirit and the ones whose heads are never bowed down in tears. He doesn’t call the arrogant and the egotistical who scavenge the earth for justification. He doesn’t call the merciless and the heartless, the instigators of bloodshed, the ones who have an ax to grind and a light to snuff out. He calls you, as you are, to be who you are, as you live in Him, the Salt and the Light of the world, planted in the places you call home and life.      

Jesus says, “You are the salt,” not “you should be the salt.” Jesus says, “You are the light of the world,” not “you should be the light of the world.” Jesus’ call to be salt and light is about Jesus who is the Salt and the Light. His call is His Word and His Word is Himself. His call has little to do, if at all, with constraint, law and duty, and everything to do with blessing, gospel and being. Jesus doesn’t appeal to some inherent saltiness given at your birth, or some inner spark that you must fan into flame for real and authentic discipleship. Being a disciple is all about the Teacher, about the One who calls, about the One who gives the character and nature of the life of the disciple. You, the disciples of Jesus, are by definition the people who salt the earth and who light the world; no one else has this calling. You are it. Follow Me. What is more, you don’t need to fear failure. You don’t need to be timid in the task. Your identity as salt and light do not depend on how salty or bright you are, but is created and preserved by the Word of Jesus. By virtue of being in the Light of all light, you are the light of Him who is the Light of the world.

In the same breath, the tentatio, the affliction of this calling is to be who you are in the midst of enemies that desire you to be who you are not. To live as tasteless tormentors of body and soul, when in reality Jesus has called you as one who is forbearing and forgiving. To live as a child of darkness deceiving and being deceived when in reality you are a child of Jesus’ marvelous light. To live as one who simply procreates and consumes carnivorously the resources and flesh of your neighbor, when in reality you are called to bear in love and patience the burdens of others. Don’t be fooled by the evil one. For if the church looses its salt, its light, its unique and orthodox voice, its life-giving calling unto this dark and dead world, then it shall be hopelessly spoiled and its light shall be extinguished by the darkness that will have destroyed it by conforming it to a monotone voice of madness. If the church stops being the church, what it’s been called to be then its no longer the church, it’s an anti-church consuming the very lambs of its fold. “The call of Jesus Christ means being salt of the earth or being destroyed. It means following Christ or—the call itself will destroy the one called” [Bonhoeffer, DBW 4:112]. That is the stark reality that we are faced with.

As a shepherd of your body and soul don’t turn away from being who you are, into being something that you are not. Live as you have been called, and so call others to live as you live. Live in the gifts of Jesus, freely given to you and keep you seasoned for sacrificial service to those who live in sin’s dark delusion. Live in His Word that calls you not to doubt but firmly believe that you are who you are, and this not of yourself, but in spite of you, and only because Christ has salted and enlightened you with His Strong Word for selfless living. Live in your baptism as you have been called and so call other to these waters of daily repentance, purity and love before your Lord and neighbor. Live in the gift of the Lord’s Supper, as you have been called as beggars so call other beggars to eat and to drink of the only flesh that avails to eternal life, the only food and medicine of immortality, the only oasis of heaven come down to earth for earth’s sinful mortals. The gifts of Jesus define and sustain your life and its identity. Thus, you are that which salts the earth. You are that which gives light to the world.    

What I am I doing with my life? I am doing that which God has called me to do. It’s ordinary. Though not as the world lives, but as I have been called by the Salt and the Light to live. We do this in ways that exceed the stars of the night and the sands of the ocean.  We do this as fathers and mothers, who put bread on our children’s table, who guide them in the paths of righteousness with church and home devotions, who listen to them, love them, and play with them, who sled with them and drink hot chocolate with them, who push them on the swing and watch them laugh and enjoy this created life. We do this as husbands and wives, children and teenagers, friends and neighbors, sitting in nursing homes and sleeping in cribs. What am I doing with my life? I am living it in all its complexity and all its simplicity for my neighbor, and so I give glory to my Father who is in heaven. Granted, I will trip and fall, fail and falter in these vocations. I will fail me. I will fail others. Yet the salt of my saltiness and the light of my light, He will never fail me or the ones I love, and even the ones I struggle to love. He is my forgiveness and my faith. He is my blood and my righteousness. He is my hope and in Him I am at peace. He is the salt of my holiness and the light of my eternal and glorious resurrection.       

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son [+], and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.