5th Sunday: We are the hands and feet of Christ

 

"You are the salt of the earth . . . you are the light of the world"

Matthew 5: 13-16

The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020826.cfm

We are warned that too much salt in our diet is unhealthy.  We look at the salt content of food we buy and may be shocked to see how much is contained in canned soup for example. Yet we know that we need a certain amount in our diet.  We use salt to enhance the flavor of food, but we’re also concerned about its effect on our blood pressure and water retention. Still, I like salt on my food – what about those salt and vinegar potato chips?  Delicious, in moderation of course. Too much of a good thing can be bad.

In the same way, we are concerned about the general cost of energy, so we use new forms of light that are developed for lower energy yet shine with equal brightness such as in LED lighting. Our comparisons these days seem based more in science or common everyday use with no particular life changing qualities. Yet from the Gospel today we hear something more “earthy” as Jesus often used as metaphors in his teaching.

“You are the salt of the earth . . . You are the light of the world.”  Interesting comparisons Jesus makes in the Gospel this Sunday from Mt 5: 13-16: salt and light. As last Sunday’s Gospel opened the famous Sermon on the Mount, so today we hear it continued in this imagery. In these passages Jesus explains the quality of discipleship and how we live out that vocation as witnesses for Christ amid a flavorless world.

We may think of ourselves as compared to other things such as a particular animal as in “gentle as a lamb” or “strong as an ox,” I generally haven’t heard that we compare ourselves to a common daily flavor enhancer such as salt.  Likewise, to imagine that we shine like a light may require some explanation.

Jesus’ use of these images is important for he means them in a different context. He means this as a reminder of our need for true conversion. Here, the Gospel continues the image of Jesus as a wise and practical teacher. He offers guidance on the Christian life for his followers to those who will hear him and pay attention. After speaking of the “poor in spirit” and the “merciful” and “peacemakers,” he now indicates the effect of living in such a way as his disciples in his use of salt and light metaphors.

In ancient times, salt would flavor food but was also precious as a food preservative and was even used as payment for services rendered. We may imagine it was a kind of gold for barter and trade and valued widely. One would be “worth their weight in salt.”   Salt had many implications for its value and usefulness.

Jesus reminds us to not be “bland” and lukewarm Christians but give “flavor” to our Christian faith.  Preserve the faith passed on to you and be energized by it.  Bring the Gospel into a bland world searching for meaning and purpose. Recognize the importance of attracting others to follow the Lord and his Church.  If we Christians/Catholics are just blah, same old same old, or as Bishop Barron has famously described: “beige Catholics,” exhibiting no fervor or excitement about following the Lord, then why would anyone join us?  What would be the attraction? Where would be the salt?

A Christian who simply keeps his faith quiet and private, our beautiful contemplative communities aside, or one who never shares in the joy of the Gospel or being a man/woman of conviction in the way of the Lord, is ineffective and tasteless.  Jesus implies: “But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?  It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Ouch but true!

By comparison, if only we would be as committed to, as excited about our faith as so many are about sports events or politics, (for many their secular “religion”); just think what a powerfully “salty” community we might have.  Just think of the Super Bowl or the Olympics or a favorite college football team.  While a good game is indeed fun, we sure have no tasteless fans there.  How does such an event compare with your experience of Sunday liturgy or your latest encounter with a fellow parishioner or your most recent discussion about the faith? What role did you play and how flavorful were you with another?  While no one wants to turn Sunday Mass into a wild football game still the point is made. Where’s the conviction and the enthusiasm for what God has done and continues to do?

The image of light is clearer.  Jesus teaches, “. . . your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father” so that others can see and be attracted to the Lord. Not fascinated with ourselves and all the good we supposedly do but rather find a welcome to Christ and his way in the Church.

The first reading from Isaiah offers concrete ways to give flavor and light to our faith:

“Share your bread with the hungry; shelter the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them . . . then your light shall break forth like the dawn . . .” Love lived out in concrete behavior towards others is the point Isaiah makes and that becomes the light we shine. As one author described, “Christianity with work boots.”

So our readings this Sunday have an especially practical application to how we live out the Gospel values laid before us. How we exist in this world with purpose and meaning. In the world of rabid independence, gender confusion, and questions about what constitutes the human person, our light must shine on both what is good and indicate what is not or what is false.

This is a kind of wisdom literature from the Son of God himself. To be a genuine and effective disciple of the Lord and an effective Catholic witness to the faith, we must be distinctive salt and a shining light, each in our own way according to our ability.

Our weekly assembly makes this clear when we refer to the Holy Eucharist as “food for the journey,” the Bread of Life and we are sent forth at the end to “Announce the Gospel of the Lord” or to be Christians who are “glorifying the Lord by your life.” In the end it is Jesus himself who sends us out on his mission.  How salty will we make ourselves and how bright will we shine?

As the well-known contemplative in action from the 16^th century, St. Teresa of Avila, famously reminded us:

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with

Which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands,

With which he blesses all the world,

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which

he looks compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

(Teresa of Avila)