Salt and Light

I didn't record the Children's talk, the podcast only applies to the main sermon 

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 Children's talk:

When it's really dark outside, what do we do? We turn on the lights, and we draw the curtains, and we are all snug and cosy indoors. Here in London, we don't often see it being really dark, unless there's a power-cut, because of the street lights and all the lighting up.

When I was a girl, the street lights in the town where I went to school were switched off around 11:00 pm or so, and last weekend Robert and I stayed in a village in France where that still happens. And it gets really, really dark. What if you were out then? You'd be glad of a torch or a lantern so you could see where you were going, wouldn't you? And you'd be glad if someone in the house you were going to would pull back the curtains so you could see the lights.

In our Bible reading today, Jesus says that we, his people, are the light of the world. He didn't have electric lights back then, it was all candles and lanterns. But even they are enough to dispel the darkness a bit. And when lots of them get together, the light is multiplied and magnified and gets very bright, so people who are lost in the dark can see it and come for help. Which is why, Jesus says, we mustn't hide our light. We don't have to do anything specific to be light, but we do have to be careful not to hide our light by doing things we know God's people don't do, or by not saying “Sorry” to God when we've been and gone and done them anyway!

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Main Sermon:

“You are the salt of the earth;” says Jesus, “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.”

“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.”

Salt. These days it's often considered a bad thing, as too much is thought to be implicated in raised blood-pressure, and so on. But back in the days before refrigeration and so on, salt was vital to help preserve our foods. Even today, bacon and ham are preserved with salt, and some other foods are, too.

Salt is also useful in other ways. It's a disinfectant; if you rinse a small cut in salty water – stings like crazy, so don't unless you haven't anything better – it will stop it going nasty. And if you have something that has gone nasty, like a boil or an infected cut, soaking it in very hot, very salty water will draw out the infection and help it heal.

Salt makes a good emergency toothpaste, and if you have a sore mouth and have run out of mouthwash, again, rinse it out with salty water and it will help.

But above all, salt brings out the flavour of our food. Processed foods often contain far too much salt, but when we're cooking, we add a pinch or so to whatever it is to bring out the flavour. Even if you're making a cake, a pinch of salt, no more, can help bring out the flavour. And if you make your own bread, it is horrible if you don't add enough salt!

Imagine, then, if salt weren't salty. If it were just a white powder that sat there and did nothing. I don't know whether modern salt can lose its saltiness, but if it did, we'd throw it away and go and buy fresh, wouldn't we?

And Jesus tells us we are the salt of the world. Salt, and light.

But how does this work out in practice? I think, don't you, that we need to look at our Old Testament reading for today, from Isaiah.

In this passage, Isaiah was speaking God's word to people who were wondering why God was taking no notice of their fasting and other religious exercises. And he was pretty scathing: it's no good dressing in sackcloth and ashes, and fasting until you faint, if you then spend the day snapping at your servants and quarrelling with your family. That's not being God's person, and that sort of fast isn't going to do anybody any good.

Jesus said something similar, you may recall, in another part of this collection of his sayings that we call the Sermon on the Mount: “And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.  But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

It's what your heart is doing, not what you look as though you are doing that matters! Isaiah tells us what sort of fasting God wants: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs 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?”

This is what God wants. It's not just the big picture, you see. Yes, maybe we are called to be working for the rights of Palestinians in Israel, or whichever tribe is oppressing whoever – sadly, it seems inevitable throughout history that whenever two tribes try to share a territory, there will always be friction, whether it is the Muslims and Hindus in India and Pakistan, or Greeks and Turks, Tutsi and Hutu, Loyalists and Nationalists in Northern Ireland, or Palestinians and Israelis. Throughout history it has been the same – and that it has not been very much worse has been down to the efforts of God's people, often unsung, often not thanked, often, even, persecuted and tormented for their efforts. But they have been there, and they have helped. And God knows their names and has rewarded them.

But it's not just about the big picture, is it? It's about the little things we do here at home, every day. We can't always take homeless people into our homes, although some do – but we can give to the food bank, either in cash or in kind. And maybe we should be asking our MP awkward questions about exactly why, in 2014, our food bank is so necessary! There's a man has opened a soup kitchen in Brixton – a secular one, as he reckoned people in need shouldn't have to sit through prayers that meant nothing to them in order to get a meal. That's terrific work, and we should support it – but again, why is it necessary in 2014?

That's part of what our being salt and light to our community is all about. Not just doing the giving, not just helping out where necessary – although that too. But asking the awkward questions, not settling for the status quo, making a nuisance of ourselves, if necessary, until we get some of the answers.

It's not always easy to see how one person can make a difference. Sometimes, I don't know about you, but when I watch those nature documentaries on TV and they go on about how a given species is on the brink of extinction and it's All Our Fault, I wonder what they expect me to do about it, and ditto when we get programmes about climate change and all the other frighteners the BBC likes to put on us. But it's like I said to the children – maybe one little candle doesn't make too much difference in the dark, except for being there and enabling us to see a little way ahead. But when lots of us get together, it blazes out and nothing can dim it. One person alone can't do very much – but if all of us recycled, and used our own shopping bags, and public transport when feasible, and limited our family sizes, then there would soon be a difference.

Obviously you don't have to be God's person to do such things. As I said, the Brixton soup kitchen is firmly secular, and I know nothing about the faith of the person who runs it, even if he has any. But we, God's people, should be in the forefront of doing such things, leading by example, showing others how to help this world. Historically, we always have been. But sometimes the temptation is to hide in our little ghettoes and shut ourselves away from the world. It's all too easy to say “Oh dear, this sinful world!” and to refuse to have anything to do with it – but if God had done that, if Jesus had done that, then where would we be?

We don't bring people to faith through our words, but through what we do. As St James says in his letter, it's all very well to say “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” to someone who hasn't enough clothes or food, but what good does that do? That person won't think much of Christianity, will they?

I heard, over the weekend, about someone who was left a widow with four very small children, and how the local church heard about her plight and gave her very practical help; they were there for her when her husband died, and helped her cope with all the practical details; now they keep an eye on her and do things like paying for a baby-sitter so she can go to church events without always having to be with her children. And so on. And it is through their steady love and support, rather than through any preaching they may or may not have done, that this woman has come to faith.

Ordinary Time, and we are in a brief bit of Ordinary Time before the countdown to Lent starts, is the time when what we say we believe comes up against what we really believe, and how we allow our faith to work out in practice. It's all too easy to listen to this sort of sermon and feel all hot and wriggly because you're aware that you don't do all you could to be salt and light in the community – and then to forget about it by the time you've had a cup of coffee. It's also all too easy to think it doesn't apply to you – but, my friends, the Bible says we are all salt and light, doesn't it? It doesn't say we must be, but that we are. It's what we do with it that matters! We don't want to be putting our light under a basket so it can't be seen. And if, as salt, we lose our saltiness – well, let's not go there, shall we?

Many of us, of course, are already very engaged in God's work in our community, in whatever way – youth work of various kinds, including our Girls' Brigade, our parent-and-toddler groups, the Pop-in club and so on. We might not even think of it as God's work, but that's what it is. We are being salt and light in the community.

The question is, what more, as a Church, could we or should we be doing? What should I, as an individual, be doing?

And that's where we have the huge advantage over people who do such work who are not yet consciously God's people – we pray. We can bring ourselves to God and ask whether there are places that need our gifts, whether there is something we could be doing to help, or what. Don't forget, too, that there are those whose main work is praying for those out there on the front line, as it were. And even if all we can do is put 50p a week aside for the food bank, and write to Chuka Umunna every few months and ask why we still need food banks in this day and age and what he, and the rest of Parliament, is doing about it – well, it all adds up.

Because I don't know about you, but I would rather not risk what might happen if we were to lose our saltiness. Amen.

Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh

I decided to try recording my sermon, to see if people were interested.  Unfortunately, it turns out that you can't upload straight sound files to Blogger, so next time I shall have to record it as video. As it is, I have been faffing around with it all evening.... And, I think, may have finally won.

Getting ready

So today is Advent Sunday.

It's the first Sunday in the Church's Year, and, of course, the first in the four-week cycle that brings us up to Christmas.

Christmas is definitely coming –

if you go by what the supermarkets do, it's been going on since September!

It seems strange then, doesn't it, that the readings for this Sunday are about as un-Christmassy as you can get!

This from the Gospel we've just heard:

“For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”

It's all about the end of the world!

The time when Jesus will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, as we say in the Creed.

Now, there are frequently scares that the end of the world is about to happen –

some cult or other claims to have deciphered an ancient text that tells us that it might occur on any given date –

Last year, some people thought that an ancient Mayan calendar “proved” that the world was going to end on 21 December.

As you can see, it didn't!

And that was only one of a very long line of end-of-the-world stories which people have believed.

Sometimes they have even gone as far as to sell up all their possessions and to gather on a mountain-top,

and at least two groups committed mass suicide to make it easier for them to be found, or something.

I don't know exactly what....

And because some Christians believe that when it happens,

they will be snatched away with no notice whatsoever, leaving their supper to burn in the oven, or their car to crash in the middle of the motorway, a group of non-believers even set up an organisation called After the Rapture which you can sign up to, and if and when it happens, they will look after your pets for you!

They assume that, as they are not believers, they will be left behind.

The people behind the website, I mean, not the pets!

People who believe in what they call the Rapture take it from this very reading, where it says that two people will be in the field and one will be taken and the other not.... but we don't know how much notice we get, if any!

It sounds to me rather more like the sort of pogroms where the dictator's army swoops down and takes people, chosen at random or not, away to imprisonment.

God is not like that, of course, but such things have happened throughout history.

Actually, the second coming/the end of the world is a very difficult thing to think about

because it hasn’t happened yet!
The Bible shows us most clearly that the early church was convinced that it was something that would happen any minute now,

certainly in their lifetimes.
But here we are, two thousand years later,

and nothing has happened.
So most of us don’t really believe it will,

or if we do believe it, it isn’t a belief that’s in the forefront of our minds.
It doesn’t really affect the way we live.

But maybe it should.

Jesus said we don't know when it's going to happen.

Nobody knows.

He didn't know.

He assumed, I think, that it would be fairly soon after his death –

did anybody expect the Church to go on for another two thousand years after that?

Certainly his first followers expected His return any minute now.

What is clear from the Bible –

and from our own knowledge, too –

is that this world isn't designed to last forever;

it's not meant to be permanent.

Just ask the dinosaurs!

We don't know how it will end.

When I was a girl it was assumed it would end in the flames of a nuclear holocaust;

that particular fear has lessened since 1989,

although I don't think it's gone away completely.

These days we think more in terms of runaway global warming,

or global pandemics of some disease they can't find a cure for, or something, or a major asteroid strike.

But what is clear is that one day humanity will cease to exist on this planet.

We don't know how or when,

but we do know that God is in charge and will cope when it happens.

Whatever is going to happen, whenever it happens, we need to be ready.
Our readings today all reflect that.
Our Gospel reading sounds a bit disjointed, almost as though Matthew has collected odd bits of Jesus’ sayings.
But it still has a clear theme –
be ready, because you never know!

Some years ago there was an ad put out by the police, I think, saying that leaving your doors and windows open was absolutely inviting burglars to come in.
I don’t think Jesus could have seen that ad,

but the end of the gospel reading reminded me of it:
“If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.

So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

Okay, so we need to be ready.
Fair enough, but how?
How do you get ready,

how do you stay ready,

and above all, how do you go on being ready when nothing seems to happen?

I think the answer is also in the parallel with the thief in the night.
We make it a habit, don’t we,

of checking that our doors and windows are locked before we go out,

even on a short trip to Lidl or Tesco.
If we have our car, it’s automatic to check that we haven’t left anything visible, and that it is locked, before we leave it.
And we have insurance to cover us in case the worst happens anyway,

no matter how careful we’ve been.

Well, it’s the same, I think, in our Christian lives.
We can build good habits of prayer, of reading the Bible,

of fellowship and of coming to the Sacrament regularly.
These are what John Wesley called “The means of grace”,

and they are the building blocks of our Christian life.
They are as essential to our Christian life as food and drink are to our physical life.
But they are also habits that one can acquire or break.
You’re in the habit of locking your front door whenever you leave the house –
are you in the habit of contacting God every day, too?
You make sure you’ve shut your windows –
are you sure you take the Sacrament?
And so it goes on.

Parallels only work so far, of course,

especially because it’s not all down to us.
I know we sometimes talk as though it is,

and, of course, we are always free to say “No” to God –
though I do very much hope we won’t choose to do that.
But God has far more invested in the relationship than we do –
either that, or God is so far above us that he’s totally uninterested in us as individuals.
And we know that’s not true!
So it must be true that God is numbering every hair on our head,

and being far more interested in maintaining a relationship with us than we are with him.
We don’t have to do all the hard work.

Nevertheless, good habits are good habits,

and we need to acquire them!
And with God’s help, we can.
We don’t have to do it alone, because God indwells us,

through the Holy Spirit,

and enables us to actually want to read the Bible and pray, and worship, and take Communion, and so on.

We don’t often think about the end of times and the Last Judgement,

and that’s probably as it should be.
If we thought about it too much, we’d never get on with our lives,

and we’d end up being so heavenly-minded we’d be of no earthly use.
But we do need this annual reminder,

because we don’t want to end up living as if this life were all there is, either.
Obviously we don’t absolutely know that when we die,

we’ll go on with Jesus somewhere else.
It might just be wishful thinking on our part.
But that’s what faith is all about!
We can’t know, not really, but we can choose to believe it,

and to live accordingly.
And to work together with God to become the best we can possibly be.

And then, if, or perhaps when the unthinkable happens,

then we’ll be ready.
Are you ready?

Oh, one loose end –
in my parallel with burglar-proofing our houses,

I mentioned insurance.
Do we have insurance?
As Christians, yes, we do.
We have Jesus’ promise in John’s gospel:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Those who believe in him are not condemned;
but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

Says it all, doesn’t it!