Spicy and Light
The Gospel reading this weekend is often quoted and easily recognized. “You are salt for the earth; you are light for the world.” This passage from the Gospel of Matthew is part of the Sermon on the Mount. To put it in context, the Sermon on the Mount was one of the first times Jesus spoke to a group that gathered. He was still relatively new on the scene. People were getting a feel for him and what he was all about.
My reflection on this Gospel took me down a different path than usual. Usually, when I reflect on or write about this passage, it is from the perspective of using our gifts to benefit the community. However, today it has taken me to a different focus.
The question I am reflecting on is what is most important, the salt and the candle or the flavor and the light? When we read this passage, it is easy to travel down the road of believing that Jesus is calling us to recognize and use our “salty” nature and to place the light of our faith on a lamp stand.
I was successful and loved when I was a young high school principal. So much so that when I left my first school, it floundered. Regretfully I have to admit that stroked my ego because I was essential to its success. I was the school’s salt. I was their candle. A wise older nun from my convent quietly suggested I reevaluate my understanding. She helped me see that a school’s success is not measured by what happened while I was their principal but by what happened after I moved on. In other words, the true success was not in being their salt but in leaving them filled with flavor. It was not in being the candle but by leaving the light.
In this passage, Jesus is telling the people the same thing. This teaching comes immediately after the Beatitudes. In the Beatitudes, Jesus picked the people out of the drudgery of their lives and promised them that God was with them. It was encouragement. It was hope.
Now Jesus is telling them that what they have been given is not just about them or for them. At this early point in His ministry, Jesus sends them out to bring hope and encourage others.
The caution for them and us is that it is not about them. It is only about God. It is not about how God has blessed them but the blessing they leave with others. It is about keeping their eyes not looking inward but looking outward toward God, from whom all blessings and hope come. It is about leaving people better, just as Jesus did for them. It is about giving away the flavor of God and open-handedly leaving our light with them. It is about giving others our light and the savory spice that blesses us without pause or hesitation.
What a great lesson to learn. It is not about me. It is about the God who is my strength, light, and love. Ego can be a problem for all of us sometimes. This passage asks us to overcome the need to be essential and embrace the desire to fade into the background as we give others the light and flavor of God. When we do, this life stops being about me and starts being only about the God who works in and through me.
We are all called to be salt and light. But more importantly, we are missioned to give away our salt and bless others with the fullness of God’s light. We are summoned to graciously abandon every bit of the salt and light we have into the hands of the other who needs it.
Amazingly when we stop being the salt and light and unreservedly give it away, we find our larders filled again and again with the intensity of the spice of God and the overwhelming light of God’s love.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
