Isaiah 58:1-12

In our reading this morning from the Hebrew Scriptures, Isaiah calls the people on their hypocrisy.  He warns them that worshiping God and saying they are eager to follow the law is not enough.  What God really wants is for the people to feed the hungry and care for the homeless.  Then and only then, will God be pleased.

Psalm 112 (VU834)

Our Psalm reading talks about the reward of delighting in God’s commandments and calls the faithful “a light in the darkness for the upright.”

1 Corinthians 2:1-12            

In our second reading today Paul points out that, despite his education, he did not come speaking in complicated words of great wisdom, but rather spoke in ways that everyone could understand.  But when he spoke to those who understood more, he did not “dumb things down” but rather spoke on their level.  Regardless of the manner in which he spoke, however, it was always God’s wisdom, not his own, that he was sharing.

Matthew 5:13-20

Our Gospel reading is divided into two distinct parts.  The first, talks about salt and light and calls on the followers of Christ to be salt and light in the world.  The second reminds followers that the laws given to Moses by God are not be ignored.  Christ came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it and to add new understanding to the old interpretation of what it was that God wants.

Salt, Stardust, and Light,

 During Epiphany, we are reminded that Jesus is the Son of Mary and Joseph. Even more importantly Jesus is also revealed to be God’s Son. In this Epiphany season the Son of God and Son of man is fully revealed as the Light of the world. “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ’I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’”. God’s Light, his Son now lives in our hearts and lives. This gift of God’s grace is not only for us alone. Christ the Lord and Savior is meant to be God’s gift of salvation to and for the entire world. How? Christ lives in us to shine through us. May Jesus’ words echo: LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE BEFORE US.

2 Where are we? Who are we? Why are we here? What are we meant to be doing? How are we to go about this thing we call life? These are the elemental questions that humans have been pondering for thousands of years. These, says Huston Smith in his classic book, The World’s Faiths, are the basic questions that form the basis of all human spiritual yearnings.

There are many voices surrounding us on all sides claiming to answer these questions for us – in effect telling us what to do. Yet, we pray: “Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the freedom of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ.” We seek freedom and abundance, yet most of us remain confined, bonded, to three verbs, as Evelyn Underhill explains in The Spiritual Life: “to Want, to Have, and to Do. Craving, clutching, and fussing, on the material, political, social, emotional, intellectual – even on the spiritual – plane, we are kept in perpetual unrest: forgetting that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance, except so far as they are transcended by and included in, the fundamental verb, to Be: and that Being, not wanting, having and doing, is the essence of a spiritual life”

We seek to know the essence of our Being – what it means to be truly human. Jesus offers what we mistakenly believe to be metaphors: we are salt and light – and as such, we are capable of fulfilling all that God requires of us as laid out in commandments and reminders from prophets. Prophets, who were and are poets.

Like Isaiah, who helps us to imagine what it really means to observe a fast: he says “Is not this the fast that I choose: to lose the bonds of injustice, to undo the strings of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not 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, and your healing shall spring up quickly… Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.”

Some five hundred years, later Matthew’s Jesus confirms, our light, the light of Christ, the light of God’s purpose, shines brightest when we do just these things (cf. Matthew 25:31-46). This is the essence of our Being. This is why we are here in a world in desperate need of more light. The Light of God and the light of Jesus. This is how to fulfill our Being light: by reconciliation. By striving for justice and peace and dignity for all people – not some people, not most or just a lot of people.

This is what it means to be the salt of the earth. Salt. Another poet of our age, May Sarton writes in her 1958 poem, In Time Like Air:

Consider the mysterious salt:
In water it must disappear.
It has no self. It knows no fault.
Not even sight may apprehend it.
No one may gather it or spend it.
It is dissolved and everywhere.

But, out of water into air,
It must resolve into a presence,
Precise and tangible and here.
Faultlessly pure, faultlessly white,
It crystallizes in our sight
And has defined itself to the essence.

She goes on to say that Love is just as mysterious. Jesus is calling us to be Love like salt. Love is to make up the very essence of who we are and why we are here. We come from Love, we return to Love, and Love is all around. Should we forget this elemental essence of our existence, we are made up of a mixture of saltwater and stardust – a very mixture of light and salt. Funny how the ancient wisdom of Isaiah and Jesus suddenly unites with the discovery of our origins in science!

The Apostle Paul calls us to consider what it means to be “truly human” in his Corinthian correspondence: “We speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.’”

Yet, the “rulers of this age” continue to keep us busy Wanting, Having, and Doing; craving, clutching and fussing “on the material, political, social, emotional, intellectual – even on the spiritual – plane,” kept in perpetual unrest. The secret and hidden wisdom of God calls us to recall the essence of life, the essence of our being made of salt and stardust is to remind us where we come from, where we are going, and what we are meant to be doing – if anything at all – which all revolve around Love – restoring justice, peace and dignity for all people in a world that too often wants us to believe it is every man, woman, and child for themselves. This is why Underhill calls us to stop all else and take time to simply Be – for it is in taking time to recollect the essence of being truly human that we are set free to be who we are meant to be and remember what we are meant to be doing.

The elements of creation, like salt, water, light, and stardust – acts of kindness and love for all creatures great and small – define the very essence of who we are and whose we are, which Jesus sums up in just a few words about salt and light. When we live lives of justice, peace, and dignity for all people and all of creation, says the poet Isaiah, “Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly.”

There is healing from all that seeks to keep us in a state of perpetual unrest. The prophet imagines what that looks like. The apostle calls us to remember what it means to be truly human. Jesus reminds us what it means to be the salt of the earth, and the light that shines upon others so that they might join us in giving all glory to the God – God, whose property is always to have mercy, who sets us free and gives us the liberty of that abundant life made known to us in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

1 © Permission for use. All materials found in word-sunday.com are the property of Larry Broding (Copyright 1999-2017). Viewers may copy any material found in these pages for their personal use or for use in any non-profit ministry. Materials may not be sold or used for personal financial gain.

2 © The Rev. Kirk Alan Kubicek is rector of St. Peter’s Church in Ellicott City, Maryland, a parish in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. He also travels throughout the church leading stewardship events for parishes, dioceses, clergy conferences, and diocesan conventions. He has long been involved in the work of The Episcopal Network for Stewardship (TENS), and the Ministry of Money. He frequently uses music and storytelling in his proclamation of the Word.