FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Isaiah 58:1-12

Psalm 112:1-10

1 Corinthians 2:1-16

Matthew 5:13-20

Prayer of the Day: Lord God, with endless mercy you receive the prayers of all who call upon you. By your Spirit show us the things we ought to do, and give us the grace and power to do them, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
⁷ 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?” Isaiah 58:6-7.

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot.” Matthew 5:13.

Salt had numerous uses in the first century. It was used for enhancing the flavor of food as it is today. Salt was also employed as a preservative, critical for warm climates. It was used to brighten the light of oil lamps, increase the efficiency of baking ovens and as a cleansing agent. Salt was a component in ritual sacrifices, sometimes spoken of as a symbol of Israel’s covenant with God. For more on this, see Nolland, John, The Gospel of Matthew, (New International Greek Testament Commentary, c. 2005 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.). We need not settle on which particular use Jesus had in mind to appreciate the metaphor. Whether acting as seasoning, preservative, cleanser, brightener, cooking aid or ritual symbol, salt is always used to benefit something else. The one thing salt cannot do is salt itself. Salt that has become degraded, diluted or altered in some way such that its effectiveness is impaired cannot be restored by adding more salt to it.

As we move further into this section of Matthew known as the Sermon on the Mount, we hear Jesus becoming increasingly critical of the religion practiced by many of the scribes and Pharisees. He makes clear, however, that his criticism is not of Judaism and its practices. To the contrary, he makes clear that he did not come to abolish, but to fulfill the Torah. Jesus is fully supportive of his opponents’ practices of fasting, prayer and almsgiving. His criticism goes rather to the failure of their fasting, prayers and giving to inspire them toward observance of the “weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.” Matthew 23:23. In this Jesus was consistent with the prophet Isaiah who chides his own contemporaries for their scrupulous observance of ritual fasting on the one hand while ignoring the needs of their needy neighbors on the other. Faith that does not embody empathy toward the world of neighbors is not Christian, however much it might be plastered with crosses and smothered with mouthed praises of Jesus.

If the Sermon is to be preached faithfully, the preacher must recognize that it is an indictment of our own worship as much or more than that of Jesus’ contemporaries. Ours, too, is often worship that is more form than substance. It is one thing to issue preachy-screechy social statements condemning poverty. It is quite another to “bring the homeless poor into your house.” It is easy enough to condemn colonialism from comfort of our homes and offices built on land our recent ancestors stole from indigenous tribes. It is quite another to consider what it might mean to reverse the colonial systems from which we obviously continue to benefit. It is easy to lament and issue declarations of apology for our church’s participation with and complicity in our nation’s shameful history of slavery. As those of us who have been urging the church to take concrete steps toward restorative justice and reparations for Black Americans, acting on such bold declarations is not something our leaders are keen on pursuing.

The Sermon on the Mount is good news. To the poor it throws open the door to God’s reign of plenty; to those who groan under the yoke of oppression, it promises liberation; to those who are persecuted, it promises vindication and blessing; to the rich, it promises liberation from addiction to wealth; to the privileged, it promises demolition of the walls that separate us from the neighbors who have for too long paid the price for our consumptive way of life. In the Sermon, Jesus invites us to join him in a new way of being human in an increasingly inhumane world. No matter how beaten down one might be under the crushing oppression of empire, no matter how deeply one might be implicated in driving that oppression, the inbreaking of God’s reign opens up opportunities for repentance, justice and reconciliation (in that order). Jesus invites us to become “like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail.” Isaiah 58:11. He calls us to become a sign of what our world can be.

That brings us back to salt, the substance that seasons, cleanses, preserves, enlightens and sanctifies-among other things. Disciples understand that they cannot establish the reign of God through their own efforts. They can, however, and must witness to it in deed as well as word. That is what food pantries in the church basement are all about. They do not make much of a dent in world hunger, but they season a nation, half of which is starving from lack of nutrition while the other is starving from lack of compassion. Protests against Donald Trump’s private army of ICE thugs killing their neighbors may not break the resolve of our government to inflict terror upon our neighborhoods. But it will shine a light on oppression and highlight the humanity of its victims. Sanctuary churches are not the solution to anti-immigrant violence and oppressive policies. But they do, along with numerous other communities of faith and humanitarian organizations, hold together vulnerable communities and provide essential support for families in the greatest danger of arrest and deportation. The preachers who find courage to speak truthfully to their congregations about what discipleship means in an age of bigotry dressed up as patriotism will not move the needle of public opinion. But they can perhaps light a flame that God’s Spirit will one day fan into a fierce and cleansing fire. Like salt, Jesus’ disciples are called to be agents of seasoning, preservation, cleansing, illumination and sanctification.

It may seem counterintuitive to think of salt as a healing agent. Nobody likes the idea of “rubbing salt into a wound.” But pain is an inevitable part of healing and recovery. A pinch of salt in the right places can be the catalyst for needed change. Here is a poem by Larry Neal celebrating the many people whose lives and struggles have seasoned the long (and as yet incomplete) sojourn of Black Americans toward liberation from the oppression of white supremacy. 

O God make us strong and ready

Source: Hoodoo Hollerin’ Bebop Ghosts, (c. 1968, 1974 by Larry Neal; pub. by Published by Howard Univ Press). Larry Neal (1937–1981) was an American writer, poet, critic and academic. He was a well known scholar of African-American theater who contributed to the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Neal was a major force pushing for black culture to focus less on integration with white culture. He sought rather to lift up its unique features within an equally important and meaningful artistic and political field celebrating Black heritage.

Neal was born in Atlanta, Georgia, to Woodie and Maggie Neal, who had five sons. He graduated from a Roman Catholic High School in Philadelphia in 1956. He later graduated from Lincoln University, Pennsylvania in 1961 with a degree in history and English. He then went on to receive a master’s degree in Folklore which became a major subject of many of his later works. Neal was a professor at Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia and a copywriter in Wiley and Sons. He held professorships at City College of New York, Wesleyan University and Yale University. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship for African-American critical studies. You can read more about Larry Neal and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.