Preacher: Julia Baker

Scripture: Matthew 5:13-20

I love the winter ocean. My boots crunch over the frozen sand where crystals of waves, salt in movement have frozen. A churned gray-blue sea and sky. Even the light is more subtle, catching flecks of freeze and illuminating them from within.

Standing on the lip edge of the water I feel the vastness of this God breathed into being Universe. The hidden by day star canopy above. The evolution of was, will be, and not yet the spinning time behind and before us. 

I sense our bigness and our smallness. God’s grandeur and right here closeness.

I sense into the many who have stood on the rim of the earth. Hoofed ones, winged, human ancestors. The profoundly particular of each and the cosmic all One. 

We come from a powerful lineage of Salt and Light workers who have carried and passed the torch to us from that day years ago when Jesus spoke the Sermon on a Mount: 

When he spoke, the crowds were those who lived on the margins of society, those oppressed by the Roman Empire, the peasant class. 

….those in ICE detention centers. to those sheltering in place afraid to leave their homes, those living on the edge, whose food stamps are taken away, those who get messages of “not enough, unworthiness” from the powers that be.

Jesus spoke words of Blessing to them…Blessed are those…

His words and the world he was calling forth flipping the system, flipping the notions of the good life, of where and what true power really is…

From the poet Steve G. H.:

Blessed are you who are vulnerable or undocumented,

        for you belong to God.

Blessed are you who are pepper-sprayed,

        for your eyes see most clearly.

Blessed are you who respond to brutality with kindness,

        for kindness alone will change the world.

Blessed are you who are neighborly amid terror,

        for you are at home with God.

Blessed are you who protest injustice,

        for this is God’s voice.

Blessed are you who shoot with cameras instead of guns,

        for so does God.

Blessed are you who are harassed and arrested,

        for you are most at peace, and most free.

Blessed are you who are shot or maimed,

        for so they treated the martyrs before you.

Blessed are you who are despised and deported,

        for so God’s beloved are always treated,

        yet you never leave God’s loving home.

—-

And then Jesus places us  in the lineage reaching back to the prophets of old. Abraham looked up into the stars “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” A covenant named and spoken — through Jonah, Samuel, through Elijah, through Ruth…. we are heirs to this line of light. 

Light of truth that Jesus acknowledges will not always been seen in the time it is spoken, will not be understood and accepted. “They persecuted the prophets before you…” 

But take heart….

Jesus then names those gathered, he names the lineage past, he names who we are. 

You are the salt of the earth.

Salt. My boots crunch over the sea edge. 

Salt this enhancer. Bringing out the flavors that are already here.

Salt to preserve and cure. 

Salt to treat wounds, to heal, to sanitize. 

Salt to melt what is frozen. 

Salt to irritate and challenge, a good needed sting of cleansing, awakening. 

Salt of creative response. 

—-

Salt, especially in the time of those first hearing these words, had high daily life needs and value. Practically and otherwise. In the Hebrew  Scriptures salt was used in Israel’s sacrifices, “the salt of the covenant.” 

Jesus then continues,  You are the light of the world. But, dear ones, don’t hide that light.

Just off the shore the beaches I walk in Maine are lighthouses. 

If the lighthouse operators turn the mirrors inward. There would be glorious light for them to see, but it would do no good to those needing the guidance to the shore. 

Our call is to share the light, to let what is in us be illuminated outward.  To pass light from candle to candle in the darkened hush of the Christmas Eve service, 

to hold candles of song as we sing outside of hotels where ICE agents sleep, harmonizing to the words, 

“It’s okay to change your mind, show us your courage, leave this behind. It’s okay to change your mind, you can join us, join us here anytime.” 

—

To those listening to Jesus salt and light were references to wisdom and thus often associated with the upper class.

Jesus is turning things upside down, saying to those on the edges, the poor and downtrodden — you are the salt and light. 

Bert Newton says throughout Jesus’ teaching he is seeking to “awaken the common people to their own power to heal, to teach, to liberate. The new society, the kingdom of heaven, will be a society in which the people hold power and wisdom, in which all the people are salt and light for each other.” 

—

When have you been named? When has someone spoken “You are…” and seen who you are. And through their speaking it, you were able to embody what was already true about you more deeply.

You are salt. You are light.  

Jesus is not saying when you do fill in the blank then you will be salt and light. 

You are part of the covenant lineage. You are already these things. A statement of identity. 

As Debie Thomas writes: 

“We are the salt of the earth.  We are that which will enhance or embitter, soothe or irritate, melt or sting, preserve or ruin.  For better or for worse, we are the salt of the earth, and what we do with our saltiness matters.  It matters a lot.  Whether we want to or not, whether we notice or not, whether we’re intentional about it or not, we spiritually impact the world we live in.  

—

There are so many beautiful examples of ways people are being salt and light in community care these days. 

Where are you seeing the light of that hope?

Where is Jesus compassionately speaking your name – speaking “You are…”? Calling you to step more deeply into who you are as a person of salt and light?

It is not always easy to say yes. Where is the salty sting of discomfort? What internal story lines, what external barriers are being invited to shift – through the gentle thaw that a sprinkling of salt and the shining of Christ’s light can bring?

—

I am brought back to the sea. The immense grandeur and the light shining diamonds across the waves. The tiny fleck of a salt grain. 

We are so cherished in our magnificence as we stumble and soar. As we heal and sting. As we again and again remember who and whose we are. And invite others into the endless Salt and Light of God’s Love. 

Amen

May you go being salt and light to your corners of the world. 

And for these days ahead, may the words of  Carrie Newcomer reverberating within you: 

“The shadows of this world will say

There’s no hope why try anyway?

But every kindness large or slight

Shifts the balance toward the light.”