Salt and Light

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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 “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.

We can help the Robes project, either with cash or by volunteering on a Friday night.

And maybe we should be asking our MP awkward questions about exactly why, in 2020, our food bank is so necessary!

Why do we need a soup kitchen in Brixton in 2020?

Why are we still suffering from austerity, especially when the government promised we wouldn’t?

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 – especially David Attenborough – 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,

if we all used our own shopping bags,

including for loose fruit and vegetables,

drank water from the tap rather than from a plastic bottle,

used 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.

Lots of excellent projects, including the Brixton soup kitchen, are firmly secular.

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?

A few years ago a friend told me about someone she knew who had been 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;

and they kept an eye on her and did things like paying for a baby-sitter so she could 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 came 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, the Robes project, such community outreach as happens here….

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 Bell Ribiero-Addy every few months and ask why we still need food banks in this day and age and what she, 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.

They Left Their Nets

“And immediately they left their nets and followed him”.

This is a very familiar story, and a very familiar image, too.

We still talk of following Jesus today, 

although most of us are called to do so within the context
of our families and our jobs.

I rather think that by the time the Gospels were written down, 

most people who were called to follow Jesus 

were doing so within the context of their own lives, too.

All the Gospel writers tell us this story, though, 

so it must have been an important one.

St Luke goes into a bit more detail than either Matthew or Mark, 

whose account is more-or-less identical to Matthew’s.

In Luke’s version of events, Peter –

only he was still Simon, in those days –

had been out in the boat fishing all night, with no sign of a fish anywhere. 

One of those days when you reckon there simply aren't any fish in the lake,
even though you know quite well there must be. 

But the fish were hiding. 

And so Simon and his colleagues decide to call it a night, 

and they pull up their boats on the beach and start to wash the nets.

And along comes Jesus, with a whole crowd of people following him. 

"Can I borrow your boat a minute, mate?" he asks. 

And Simon rows him out just a tiny way offshore, 

so that he can speak to the crowds from there. 

We aren't told what he told them, but we know that Jesus' message tended to be
that the Kingdom of God was now here, and was well worth seeking for.
And I expect he told them, too,
a bit about the sort of people God wanted in the Kingdom –

people who go out of their way to help others,
even people they've nothing in common with,
even people who they can't stand;

people who don't bear grudges,
who don't use other people in any way,
or get angry with them in a destructive way;

people who, basically, treat other people with the greatest possible
respect for who they are,
and who go out of their way for them.
For anybody, just as God himself does.

Anyway, when Jesus had finished his teaching, he grins at Simon and goes,
"Ta very much, Mate.
Tell you what, why don't you take that boat out into deep water,
just over there [points] and see what you don't catch?" 

Simon's sceptical, but –

well, why not. So they row out and throw their nets over one last time....
and the amount of fish in there, the nets couldn't cope and, eventually,
nor could the boats.

And Simon's reaction is to throw himself at Jesus' feet –

I assume Jesus was still in the boat with them –

and say "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man!"

And Jesus reassures him:

“From now on, you will be catching people.”

And not only Simon Peter,
but Andrew, James and John all leave their nets to follow Jesus.

John’s gospel is different again, as it so often is.

In his version of events, Andrew, Simon’s brother, is a disciple of John the Baptist,
and after he hears Jesus speak,
he goes and spends the day with him at his home.

And then comes to find Simon Peter,
and tells him that they have found the Messiah –

and Simon believes them and leaves everything to follow Jesus.

Incidentally, I hadn’t quite noticed, had you,
the first part of our Gospel reading today,
where Matthew explains that Jesus left Nazareth
after John the Baptist had been put in prison, and settled in Capernaum?

One doesn’t really think of his having a home of his own –

we’re so used to the “Foxes have nests” image.

Not quite that, it’s
“Foxes have dens and birds have nests,
but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

But at this very early stage, this isn’t quite true.

Jesus has taken a house –

or at least rooms –

in Capernaum.

And people could go and visit him there, and eat with him.

The wandering came later on in Jesus’ ministry. 

All the gospels agree that this is a very early stage in Jesus’ ministry.

They place it almost immediately after he returns from being tempted in the desert, where he’s wrestled with the temptations to misuse his divine powers, and has become a lot clearer about who he is,
and what he’s been called to do.

I’m not sure how much he actually knows, at this stage, of what lies ahead,
but he does know that he is to preach that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand
and, like all the preachers and teachers of his day,
he is gathering disciples to help him with this task,
perhaps helping with their physical needs –

Judas, you may remember, kept the communal purse –

and learning from him all that they needed to know in order to spread his message.

Although, as we know, it wasn’t until after the Holy Spirit came, at Pentecost,
that they were truly able to understand
and to spread the good news of the Kingdom.

But that came later.

For now, they left their nets and followed Jesus.

And that’s the important thing.

They followed Jesus.

Sadly, it wasn’t very long before that stopped being the case.

Factionalism arose in the early church.

St Paul picks up on this in his letter to the Corinthians.

He has heard, from people who lived in Chloe’s household,
that there are an awful lot of squabbles and factions in the local church,
with some people saying they follow Apollos, 

some saying they follow Peter
and some saying they follow Paul...
I wonder whether some also said they followed Jesus,
or whether that was Paul being sarky, we don’t know.

I also don’t know who Chloe was;

we don’t hear of her again,
so we have to assume that she was basically one of the believers in Corinth,
and perhaps gave house-room to one of the churches there.

Peter, of course, is Simon Peter, and Apollos, too, is well-known.

He was a Jew from Alexandria who met up with Paul
and his friends Prisca and Aquila in Ephesus, and was converted there –

he was already a believer in Jesus, but hadn’t got further than John’s baptism.

Prisca and Aquila bring him up-to-date,
and then he goes off to Achaia to preach the gospel there,
and is, apparently, a very effective evangelist.

Certainly Paul often refers to him,
and sends affectionate messages to him in his letters.

Achaia, by the way, is a prefecture –

the local equivalent of a county or other administrative area –

in Greece, bang next door to the prefecture of Corinthia,
whose capital is, of course, Corinth.

So it’s not too surprising that the Corinthians knew Apollos,
and some of them were claiming to follow him.

But, of course, it is Jesus that they needed to follow,
as St Paul makes quite clear, spelling it out to them in words of one syllable.

It’s nothing to do, he says, with who baptised you.

He, Paul, hardly ever baptises anybody, leaving that to the local church.

It’s the message that matters, not the person who preaches it.

“Christ did not send me to baptise,” one modern translation puts it.

“He sent me to tell the good news
without using big words that would make the cross of Christ lose its power.”

The “not using big words” was particularly difficult for Greek people,
as their tradition was very much one of philosophy and of debate.

They had trouble visualising a God who was actually involved with human life,
a God who cared,
a God who cared to the point of becoming a messy, emotional human being.

A God who cared to the point of dying on a cross.

So for them, all too often, Christianity was a matter of intellectual assent,
of rules and regulations,
of doing things in a certain way.

And the person who taught you about this
became almost as important as the message itself.

I think we’re awfully prone to doing that today.

It’s a lot easier to give intellectual assent to one’s faith than to live it.

It’s a lot easier to live by rules and regulations than to live by faith in Jesus.

It’s a lot easier to belong to a denomination than it is to be a Christian!

Don’t get me wrong –

there’s nothing the matter with denominations as such!

It’s denominationalism that is the problem –

where we think that because we are Methodists, 

we are in some way better than Anglicans or Baptists or Free Church people.

We aren’t.

We may have some quite profound theological differences –

especially with the Baptists and others who believe in a limited atonement –

but we are all following Jesus as best we know how,
and we are all sinners in need of redemption.

And that, for St Paul, was what mattered.

The message of the Cross.

The message that we can all be saved.

Simon, Andrew, James and John left their nets to follow Jesus.

We aren’t all called to leave where we are and what we are doing –

in fact, few of us are. But we are all called to follow Jesus!

Not all of us are called to be evangelists, but we are all witnesses to Jesus.

That, by the way, is a function of being Jesus’ person;

he told us that when the Spirit came we would be his witnesses –

not that we would have to be, or that we ought to be,
but that it would happen as part of receiving the Spirit.

If we are truly following Jesus, if we are truly his person,
then we are witnesses to him, even if we never mention our faith out loud.

His Spirit shines through us.

Of course, none of us is perfect.

The Bible is full of examples of when Simon Peter got it wrong –

most notably when he panicked when Jesus was arrested and tried,
and pretended he’d never met him.

But he was forgiven, and restored,
and he went on to become one of the greatest leaders the Church has ever had.

Sure, he wasn’t perfect, even then –

he had his quarrels with St Paul
about how far people who weren’t Jewish should be allowed into the Church,
and under what conditions –

but “the big fisherman” was definitely a great leader.

He became the person God had created him to be,
and fulfilled the role God called him to fill, even though he was far from perfect.

We are not all called to be leaders,
but we can still become all that we were created to be,
because we can all be forgiven and restored and enabled.

They left their nets to follow Jesus.

It’s not what we leave, if we leave anything, that’s important –

it’s that we follow Jesus.

Amen.

Echoes

I do apologise for the cough at the beginning of the podcast, and the slight delay before the sermon starts; I have just moved to a Chromebook computer and have yet to make audio editing work on it!  Next time, perhaps....




The story of the flight into Egypt, from Matthew’s Gospel, is really rather strange.

It’s certainly not found elsewhere;

in fact, Luke’s version of events is so different you sometimes wonder whether they are talking about the same thing.

Here we are, in Matthew,

finding the Holy Family living in Bethlehem,

fleeing to Egypt,

and then settling in Nazareth,

well out of reach of Herod’s descendants.

But Luke tells us that the family lived in Nazareth in the first place,

went to Bethlehem for the census,

and, far from avoiding Jerusalem,

called in there on their way back to Nazareth!

And, indeed, went there each year for the festivals –

I wonder, don’t you, whether they stayed with Mary’s cousin Elisabeth

and whether Jesus and John played together as children?

Not that it matters.

We all rationalise the two stories into one,

and add our own extraneous bits –

the ox and the ass, for instance,

are figments of people’s imaginations, not part of the Luke’s account.

And from Matthew’s telling of it, the Holy Family lived in Bethlehem anyway and didn’t need to use a stable!

And, as we shall hear next week that they were astrologers, not kings,

and Matthew doesn’t actually say how many there were!

And do you really think people kept bursting into song,

like they do in Luke’s gospel?

I rather think that Luke, like Shakespeare, was writing what he thought they ought to have said, rather than what they actually did say!

But both Gospels –

for both Mark and John choose not to start with Jesus’ birth,

but at the start of his ministry –

both Gospels agree that Jesus was born to a virgin,

was conceived in her by the Holy Spirit in some way we simply don’t understand.

And they both agree that he was born in Bethlehem,

to a mother named Mary and a father named Joseph.

Both gospels also provide a genealogy for him,

tracing him right back to Adam in St Luke’s case,

and forward from Abraham in St Matthew’s case!

And occasionally tracing by different routes.

But it doesn’t really matter, as I said.

The Bible people were not writing to modern standards of historical accuracy, but they are still telling us true stories, however they might vary in detail.

It’s what they are telling us that matters, not the historical details!

Have you ever noticed, too, that Luke’s version of events is from Mary’s point of view, but Matthew is telling us it from Joseph’s?

I hadn’t before this year, but you’re all probably going, “Well, duh!”

But if you hadn’t thought of it, it’s absolutely true.

Luke shows us Gabriel going to Mary and saying “Hail, thou that art highly favoured;

blessed art thou among women!”

But Matthew shows us Joseph’s reaction to the news that Mary was expecting a baby and it wasn’t his.

Quite why Mary chose not to discuss the angel’s proposition with Joseph before she agreed escapes me.

He could, and arguably should, have discarded her publicly and ordered her stoned to death.

But he didn’t.

He decided he’d end the betrothal quietly, with no public scandal.

And then he listened to the angel who said that he should marry her anyway, because her child was conceived by God.

As if that made it better…..

I think I rather like Joseph, don’t you?

He comes across as someone who’s willing to listen,

and to change his mind.

He comes across as someone who listens to God,

and is prepared to accept that God speaks to him in dreams.

He is forced to choose between being seen as righteous, and doing what he believes is God’s will, which may well make him a laughing-stock.

Imagine, Joseph, of all people,

can’t you hear them mutter in the market-place?

Joseph, willing to raise another man’s child!

Joseph…. Just fancy that!

In our reading today, again, Joseph listens.

He acts on what he hears –

he takes his family and flees to Egypt,

and when he is told it is safe, he brings them home again,

only to Nazareth, not Bethlehem.

But this whole story that we heard read to day has echoes in the Old Testament, doesn’t it?

And it echoes down the years.....

There is Israel going down into Egypt

and being called up out of Egypt in the Exodus as God's son (hence the quotation from Hosea in verse 15),

but we also have echoes of when Pharaoh tried to kill Hebrew infants

which led to Moses being hidden the bulrushes.

Jewish legends about this event also have dream warnings

just as we have here

and I expect Matthew knew about them when he was writing the story.

At that, wasn’t there another Joseph who knew all about hearing God’s voice in dreams?

What these echoes do is to root the story in history.

The provide a setting for Jesus, if you like.

Sending Jesus wasn’t just something God decided to do totally randomly –

he was firmly rooted in the history of the Jews, who were expecting a Messiah.

Matthew, who is thought to have been Jewish, is trying to show how the Scriptures led down to this moment.

Rather like, if you will, when Jesus explained the Scriptures to Cleopas and his wife on the road to Emmaus, so they were able to see that they pointed to Jesus, and to the Resurrection.

For Matthew, all the Scripture quotations act as proof that Jesus is who He claimed to be.

It’s not the sort of thing scholars nowadays consider proof,

but that doesn’t matter.

For Matthew, as for all Jewish scholars of the time,

that was how you proved things:

was there a relevant quotation in the Scriptures?

He wants to set the Messiah in context.

And showing that history is repeating itself:

a new Pharaoh killing the babies, a new Joseph listening to dreams, a new journey into Egypt, and a new Exodus out of it.

And it echoes down to our own day, doesn’t it –

refugees, people fleeing in terror of their lives, genocide....

it never ends.

The magi –

wise men, astrologers, it’s thought –

came to Bethlehem to worship the new-born infant,

and we are invited to do the same.

But we don’t just worship him as a baby –

it’s not about going “Ah, cootchy-cootchy-coo, isn’t he sweet!”,

and having cuddles,

like we do when we admire babies.

No, worshipping the Baby at Bethlehem involves a whole lot more than that.

It’s about worshipping Jesus for Who He became, and what he did.

We kneel at the cradle in Bethlehem, yes –

but we worship the Risen Lord.

We celebrate Christmas, not just because it’s Jesus’ birthday,

although that, too,

but because we are remembering that if Jesus had not come,

he could not come again.

And he could not be “born in our hearts”, as we sing in the old carol.

We worship at the cradle in Bethlehem,

but we also worship Jesus all year round,

remembering not only his birth,

but his teachings,

his ministry,

the Passion,

the Resurrection,

the Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

And we worship, not only as an abstract “Thing” –

what was that song:

“I will celebrate Nativity, for it has a place in history....” –

it’s not just about worshipping a distant divinity,

but about God with us:

Emmanuel.

Jesus, as a human being, can identify with us.

He knows from the inside what it is like to be vulnerable, ill, in pain, tempted.....

From the story of the flight into Egypt, we see him as a refugee, an asylum-seeker, although he was just a baby, or perhaps a small boy at the time.

From the story that Joseph chose deliberately to settle his family in the sticks, far away from civilisation, we see Jesus as living an ordinary, obscure life.

His father, Joseph, was, we are told, a carpenter, although in fact that’s not such a great translation –

the word is “Technion”, which is basically the word we get our word “technician” from.

A “technion” would not only work in wood,

but he’d build houses –

and design them, too.

He was a really skilled worker,

not your average builder with his trousers falling off.

Jesus would have been educated, as every Jewish boy was, and probably taught to follow his father’s trade.

After all, we think he was about 30 when he started his ministry,

and he must have done something in the eighteen years since we last saw him, as a boy in the Temple.

God with us:

a God who chose to live an ordinary life,

who knows what it is to be homeless, a refugee;

who knows what it is to work for his living.

Who knows what it is to be rejected, to be spat upon, to be despised.

Who knows what it’s like to live in a land that was occupied by a foreign power.

This, then, is the God we adore.

We sing “Joy to the World” at this time of year, and rightly so,

for the Gospel message is a joyful one.

But the story of the flight into Egypt reminds us that it is so much more than just a happy-clappy story of the birth of a baby.

It is the story of the God who is there.

God with us.

Emmanuel.

Amen.

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