Rev. Rebecca Heilman-Campbell
Matthew 5:13 – 16, Isaiah 58:1-9
My son’s favorite book right now is a book by Todd Parr titled, The I Love
You book. And in this colorful children’s book, it lays out for a child, that each and
every day, no matter what big emotion he might carry (and we are in a season of
big emotions), no matter what day he has, no matter what actions he takes,
Momma and Daddy loves him. And every time I read it, it gets to me, especially
after a hard day of parenting! It says, I love you when you don’t sleep with an
image of a baby wailing in a car and I love you when you sleep. I love you when
you are stinky and I love you when you are squeaky clean. I love you when you
are scared with an image of a child waking his parents up at night and I love you
when you are brave. The book ends with, I love you just the way you are.1 We can
all agree that the love is the easy part, of course that never changes. For me, it’s
the regulating of my own emotion in the moment that’s the hard part. How do we
both nurture this child into a good, loving human being, setting healthy and safe
boundaries while also embracing the little and big personality that is exploding
within him right now? When Mari doesn’t sleep, it’s hard not to be frustrated and
exhausted. When Mari is sick, it’s hard not be feel guilty and overwhelmed. When
Mari is stinky and refusing a cleaning, it’s hard not to throw my hands up and let a
naked dirty toddler run the house. But even through the tantrums and the
shaking of heads and the opinions and the tears and the dirty diapers and the
water covered bathroom after a bath, I love him exactly for who he is and who he
is becoming.
Christ is telling us the same in our story today. This story is the continuation
of the Sermon on the Mount and immediately follows the Beatitudes. And now
Jesus grammar switches to second person and Christ directly talks to his disciples
and to us this morning, saying, “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of
the world.” Period. It’s not a command, but a direct statement, a fact. You are the
salt and light of the world. Amy Jill Levine reminds us that “The disciples do not
exist to show off their taste or color; they exist not for themselves but for the
world.”
Salt, as we know, can be used as a preservative, a seasoning. It does not
need to be enhanced by something else, rather it is the enhancer. It’s a simple
spice that with just a pinch it brings a meal and its flavors to life. However, during
Jesus’s time, salt held a more significant role. The word salt comes from the Latin
word, sel, which is also the origin of the English word, salary. While today, salt is
ever where, not used as a salary, during Jesus’s time, it was precious and thought
to be used as a form of payment, as a salary, to Roman solders in the Empire.
They called it salarium, a descendent of the word, salt. And so there was a
deeper value in Jesus’s statement to be the salt of the earth. It’s rare and
important, precious and necessary for flavor. It’s valuable. You are the salt of the
earth. You have spice to share, flavor to share. It’s worth something. It’s as
valuable as light.
You are the light of world. We need light for plants to grow, to see more
clearly. We had candles and flashlights and generators at the ready these last two
weekends in case we lost power from the ice and snow. Light is a constant in our
lives, when light rises in the morning and sets in the evening. It brings warmth on
a cold day and shade on a warm day. We use it as a metaphorical illumination as
the Psalmist writes, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Light
is as precious as salt. It can easily be snuffed out if not preserved.5 And so just a
Jesus says in the Gospel of John, I am the light of world, Jesus says here and so
are you, you are the light for the world.
And these aren’t new roles for the disciples or for us. Jesus isn’t inviting us
to be and do something new. When Jesus says these sentences with confidence
and as a fact, he is reassuring his disciples that this is who you have always been
as much as a parent encourages and embraces a child for who they are. You don’t
have to work to become salt and light. You are the salt and the light of the world.
As simple as that. God made us this way, each beautifully and wonderfully made
in God’s image and with God’s gifts to not bottle it up, but to share it for the
world. And you don’t have to think about it. It’s who you are, even if you can’t
name it. And so our job is to claim and embrace our gifts that God gave us and
season and light up the world, individually and as a community of faith.
Individually, it’s being who we are at our best and most comfortable place. It can
the simple gesture of a gentle smile and a helping hand. It could be as big a
helping with Room in the Inn or Nations Ford Elementary. It could be writing to
our congress people or protesting on a Wednesday morning. It’s simply being
yourself and knowing your actions to care for this world is enough. Whatever you
can do, is enough.
As a community of Trinity, it’s finding ways to be hospitable and welcoming
to all. It’s feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. It’s welcoming the stranger
and embracing the broken. It’s standing on street corners to protect children and
families from ICE and border control. It’s making bold decisions about our
campus and how we can be an open and caring space for the community.
Beloved, we have to be salty and luminous, embodying these gifts and who we
truly are. Not letting them sit ideal and side lined, apathetic and forgotten.
Which takes us to our first reading of the day. Isaiah is writing to post-exilic
Jews, returning from under the powerful and oppressive thumb of the
Babylonians. Isaiah is writing to a community who is in the critical and difficult
task of reshaping and rebuilding their community. The community is in crisis and
has turned to God, but in a selfish way. Walter Brueggemann explains that the
people are complaining, turning inwards and that their purpose for worship is to
call God’s attention to themselves. They seem to believe that the purpose of
worship is to gain advantage – that is, worship has become a means to an end,
no longer an end in itself. To say the least; the post-exilic Jews have become the
salt and light for themselves, not for the world. A slippery slope for us all.
Have you heard the phrase, “Everyone wants a village, but no one wants to
be a villager”? It feels more and more relevant in our post pandemic age of
rebuilding and reshaping a community, like the Jews were doing during their post
exilic period. It’s easy to get caught up in ourselves, becoming apathetic to the
needs of the world. It’s easy to only think about traditions and our own comforts
and missing how God is present with us now, missing what God is up to in our
day to day lives and in the life of the church and community. To be spicey and
salty for the world, means to ask the hard questions like “What are the things that
God has asked of us, around which our identity is formed, that perhaps we are
profaning? To be luminaries and beacons for the world means to ask what is
breaking God’s heart in our community, and how is our congregation uniquely
positioned to address it and shine a light on it? As Nick preached last week, the
Way Forward Task force and now, the Implementation Team has been working
hard to ask these questions and to find potential answers for them. What are the
needs in the community of Charlotte and how is Trinity uniquely positioned to
help address them? How can Trinity sprinkle a little bit of salt into this world,
bringing it to life in all the ways that Christ asks us? Walter Brueggemann says
that, “Restored community is not rooted primarily in bureaucracy or technology
or high finance or ingenuity. It begins, rather, in noticing the neighbor in public
ways – from which arises a public future.”
When Christ called us the salt and light for world. He said it as form of
empowerment, encouragement for his disciples to not live for themselves but for
those in the world. Whether you see your gifts or not. Whether you see Trinity’s
gifts or not. They are there. They are as present and as loved as a parent loves a
child. And so it’s our job to embrace them, use them faithfully for the world. St.
Augustine once remarked that when we receive Communion, we “receive what
we are.” May we receive what we are, accept who we are, and sprinkle salt and
light into God’s world.
Pray with me. Loving God, we believe. Help our unbelief. Amen.