A healthy pinch of salt
The 5th Sunday after Epiphany
As with many of the parables and pronouncements of Jesus he takes
something well-known and gives it a twist.
That salt and light are necessary and good is the truism in this
Sunday's passage from Matthew's Gospel.
Of course this is the case:
Without a healthy pinch of salt all the flavours in the dish are
understressed and hidden. Without light
the colours and contours of the room are hidden and one would be excused for
having missed them entirely. The absence
of salt and light keeps the world hidden and unremarkable.
Year A
Matthew 5:13-20
As with many of the parables and pronouncements of Jesus he takes
something well-known and gives it a twist.
That salt and light are necessary and good is the truism in this
Sunday's passage from Matthew's Gospel.
Of course this is the case:
Without a healthy pinch of salt all the flavours in the dish are
understressed and hidden. Without light
the colours and contours of the room are hidden and one would be excused for
having missed them entirely. The absence
of salt and light keeps the world hidden and unremarkable.
The twist in this passage is Jesus' claim that his newly gathered
band of followers is that salt and light for the world. In Luke and Mark, as here in Matthew, the
Sermon describing the blessedness of his followers and their vocation in the
world appears almost immediately following the call of the disciples - when
they bear very little with them to the hillside. They were fishermen or householders once -
once upon a time they were far more implanted in structures of human community
than they are now. Now they are
(merely) followers - part of the first community Jesus has built around
himself. Here in Matthew's version the
followers' effect on the world is described using the dual metaphors of salt
and light.
Moses abandoned his father-in-law' sheep to see why a bush was
burning on the hillside. The prophet
Amos turned away from the cultivation of figs.
David was summoned from the back forty.
The great turns in Salvation history are usually applications of human
freedom at the impulse of God's word. As
proud as we may be of having held to a steady course for the sake of our
families and our treasured networks it will be those curious and sometimes
costly about-turns which we find to be necessary or right or which we feel
called to undertake in the midst of life which will give our life's story it's
ultimate sense. Our example of
discipleship (and not just rigorous consistency) points the world to the value
which must be discovered like a treasure in a field and not merely chipped from
a quarry. Our children could be
concerned - let them be concerned! Our
abandoned co-workers might well cock their heads and wonder at it.
Every day need not be the same.
Life can taste and look that good.
