Salt and light

Isaiah 58:1-9a and Matthew 5:13-20

 

What are you here for? 

What a dangerous question to ask people who have come to worship. You might all suddenly slap your hand to your forehead & say ‘well, now you come to ask, we have no idea – there are so many other things we could be doing this morning – having  lie-in, reading the Sunday papers, washing the car .. the list is endless’.

 

And if it’s not bad enough to have to face up to self-doubt, we hear a gospel reading in which Jesus says to us “ you are the salt of the earth, you are light for the world” – and we all know that salt isn’t mean to sit in the pot on the table, any more than light is meant to be hidden, it is meant – salt and light – to be spread around, to bring savour and illumination to the whole world.

 

So why come to this – or any -  chapel building?

 

Jesus makes it clear to his listeners that the law is there to help people to live lives of righteousness, worshipping God with lives of justice and mercy, not locking themselves away in buildings to rehearse the law together. We might conclude that serving God happens out there – in the big wide world, not in here in our chapel.

 

Jesus didn’t say anything about buildings for the people who followed him, and some people conclude from this that Jesus didn’t mean us to have church or chapel buildings at all. And when the writers of the letters in the New Testament talk about the ‘church’,  - for example the “church at Ephesus” they mean the people and not any building.

 

But here we are sitting in a building built so that the people of God can be more effective, a building built to God’s glory. We recognize that our God is a God who works through bodies – solid stuff – real matter – and is not just a God of airy-fairy ideas.

Isaiah brings the importance of embodiment home very powerfully. God is described as ‘the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity’ – not much room there for a down to earth theology, you might think. But did you hear what Isaiah says this Holy God is looking for? Not fasting and pleading and religious law-keeping, but justice and freedom and service of others.

 

Through Isaiah, God says

“Is not this the fast that I choose… to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn”.

 

Jesus echoes these very words when he tells his followers the parable of the people separated like sheep and goats who say ‘when, Lord, did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink – when did we see you naked and clothe you, or sick or in prison and visit you?’.

Both Isaiah and Jesus are clear – you cannot call yourself a follower of Jesus or a worshipper of the Holy One if you are indifferent to the bodily needs of other people.

Shining like a light is about how you live your life and treat others.

 

And God thinks bodies are so important he made one his earthly home when he came to us in Jesus Christ.

So what does the importance of bodies – the bodily needs of others, the bodily display of God’s love for us in Jesus – tell us about our chapel buildings?

 

They are here to be physical signs of God’s love, places of justice and mercy, light and hope. They are to be used to help us to care for others, welcome others. They are here to be places where we hear God’s word to us, remember Christ’s presence with us, and celebrate the living Spirit at work in all our lives. They are here to change and respond to the needs of the society around – not as clubhouses for the faithful people of God, but as lighthouses of God’s gospel of love for the world.

We are here to embody God’s love for others, as we meet in our building which enables others to see that this is where we gather.

 

But the really good news? Jesus says ‘you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world’.  Not you can be, you ought to be, or you need to be… you are.

 

However we might appear to others, however our chapel might look to the outside world, Jesus says that together we are salt and light for the world.

 

I quite often quote look at The Message version of the Bible, because this modern rendition helps us to hear even very familiar words of the Bible in a new way. This is The Message version what Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel (v 13-16) :

“Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavours of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.

Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”

So let’s shine, let’s live in colour, let’s bring flavour and gorgeousness into our world, good people of God.

Let’s respond to what God is asking of us -  and may God bless us to be a sign of the rule and reign of God – in hope and joy, peace and justice, now and always. Amen.