Epiphany 5

Year A
Sunday 6 February 2011
St. John’s Church in the Village
New York City
The Rev’d Lloyd Prator

This part of the gospel of Matthew follows, immediately, the Sermon on the Mount. There is a little editorial subtlety here which it is well to note. Matthew was written for a Jewish audience. Even the most casual observer notices that so much of the gospel builds upon Jewish practice, copies Jewish ideas, or, in some cases, presents ideas which challenge the then-contemporary Jewish practice.

Ancient Jews—as do modern ones—celebrate the giving of the Law. The Law is the way that Jews are meant to relate to god. And, here we are in the beginning of Matthew Gospel and we are finding what we might almost call a “New Law” for Christians.

Perfect reading for this Epiphany season. The Church year has a kind of rudimentary logic to it. we begin in Advent anticipating Christ. We celebrate Christ who finally gets here in Christmas. At Epiphany, we are told that Christ is not just an event in first century Judaism, it is for all times and all cultures. And now we are here in this season after epiphany, and, what do we ask now?

What would you have us do? Last Week, Father Cross, in his remarkable sermon about Micah, the OT prophet, reminded us that the essential OT message was to love justice, seek mercy, and walk humbly with our God. today, we might well be asking, what does that entail? What would you have us do.

Today’s gospel tells us that we are called to be salt and to be light.

Of course, these are metaphors, images meant to guide our behavior. Metaphors are powerful. If someone says you are light, you are not inclined, unless you have a really literal turn of mind, to think that you should put a flashlight behind your ear. More likely, you let the metaphor expand your ideas and offer various possibilities to you as you think about who you are. Two metaphors today: salt and light.

Salt. A few years ago, I had to begin regulating my salt intake, and at that time I thought a lot about salt. Salt really does not impart a particular taste to food. It accentuates the flavor which is already there. It makes a steak taste meatier; it makes scrambled eggs taste eggier. It accentuates that which is already there.

Thus it is a perfect way to describe one dimension of the Christian life. We are meant to accentuate what is already there in ourselves or others. I had a college roommate who played varsity tennis. Actually, he always wanted to play football, but when you are five feet seven and weigh 132 pounds, linebacker is probably not in your future. But he could—and did—train to be an excellent tennis player, indeed put himself through university on a tennis scholarship. He accentuated what was already there in him, not wasting time lamenting what he could not be.

Same thing about others in community with us. You are going to be perpetually frustrated if you continually expect of others what they cannot provide. This is especially true if you are in management, or work with others in volunteer organizations. Like Churches. You are going to be continually frustrated if you ask a receptionist to help you with accounting. Or if you promote a great salesman to be director of sales. There is such a thing as being promoted to your level of incompetence. Not everyone is a leader, some are workers.

Salt accentuates the taste already there. Your relationship with God is one which will call out the best in you, but not make a pianist out of a bricklayer.

And, second metaphor: You are the light of the world. The thing about light is that it shines in the darkness and shows up what is there. Light leads to our seeing the truth. I recall years ago, traveling to Canada on the train, and as was often the case with rail travel, I got seated at a table in the dining car with people I did not know. We talked a little about religion and philosophy. I said something about the common human quest for the truth, and that religious faith or philosophical searching was a quest for the truth. A thorough going relativist, he pooh poohed the idea of truth and said that searching for the truth was meaningless. I thought about that later, and wondered if he really believed that. After all, was not all science a search for truth. That complicated mathematical formula on the wall in Good Will Hunting was about a search for the truth. All diagnostic medicine is a search for the truth. Later I came to consider that the highest human quest is the search for truth and for beauty, which may be two sides of the same coin.

When we promise in our baptism to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to stand against all evil which distorts the human condition, and to b e faithful to the worship of God in word and sacrament, we are engaging a search for truth.

Christ is the light which exposes what is true about the world, about our sin, about our despair and hopelessness, and about his give of hope in the midst of our darkness.

The teaching of Christ calls us each to consider ways we can be salt, ways in which we can be light. In taking those two metaphors seriously, we are engaging to follow Christ. For he is the one whose interior salt calls out the best in us, and whose light leads us into all truth.

To the Lord who is the source of all light and truth, be all honor and glory now and forever. Amen.