Sunday 16th February 2020 -Second Sunday before Lent
In the early twentieth century, the term ‘light pollution’ entered the language, as cities increasingly adopted electric lighting. Light pollution because it compromises health, disrupts ecosystems, and uses phenomenal amounts of energy.
Over the same period, we have also increasingly become aware that too much salt is bad for our health. Much of the food we consume has a high salt content, which raises blood pressure and can lead to heart attacks, strokes, and kidney disease.
Not the cheeriest way to begin a sermon, I appreciate, and when Jesus told his disciples that they were the ‘salt of the earth’ and the ‘light of the world’, the negative connotations I’ve just mentioned were many centuries away. What would been evoked in the imaginations of his hearers were the kinds of reference to salt and light to be found in Jewish scriptures, some of them rather unexpected to our ears. Newborn children being rubbed with salt, for example; not, as far as I’m aware, a practice recommended by the British Medical Council. That’s Ezekiel chapter 16, if you want to look up the reference. Covenants were sealed with heavily salted meals (Numbers chapter 18) and Second Chronicles 13.5 tells of a ‘covenant of salt’. Job 6.6 tells us what we know, that salt brings out the flavour in food, and Ecclesiasticus 39.26 that it is a basic necessity for life.
I could go on in this vein for some time, adding observations about the importance of salt in wider human culture since ancient times, for example as a food preservative and an important trading commodity. But I’ve said enough to indicate what is at the heart of Jesus’s teaching, which is not only about the positive importance of salt, but also that this importance lies not in the thing itself, but in what it achieves as part of something else: such as a meal, or a covenant, or in sustaining human life. The disciples, then, must find their significance not by huddling together in the salt cellar of the church, but by being part of something greater: the kingdom or reign of God.
As for the place of light in the Hebrew scriptures, Genesis 1.3-4 is the obvious place to start, where earth is ‘a formless void and darkness covers the face of the deep’. The creation of light allows us to see the world as it is. In Isaiah 42.6 the vocation of Israel is to be ‘a light to the nations’, and then in chapter 58 (our first reading this morning) this vocation is spelt out in terms of loosening the bonds of injustice, sharing bread with the hungry, and letting the homeless poor into your house. Then, says, Isaiah, and only then shall your ‘light break forth like the dawn.’ Here are practical examples that are indeed part of something greater, actions that could be described as ‘salty’ in that they point to the reign or kingdom of God.
‘Letting the homeless poor into your house’ made me think of our Cathedral hospitality to some of our local homeless men, and of how challenging this can be at times. When our new coffee machine arrives, we will have to decide how freely to make that coffee available, not least because last time some of it ended up being thrown over the windscreens of nearby cars; and on one memorable occasion (to me at least) I spent a long time cleaning a huge expanse of the Deanery frontage: it was impressive to discover just how much wall can be covered by a single well aimed hot beverage. I hasten to add that this is behavior is not remotely representative; but rather to point out that while ‘letting light break forth like the dawn’ sounds poetic, the practical implications will never be cost-free.
Having spoken of salt and light, Jesus goes on speak of a city on a hill, and a light filled house. It is in human community and human society that the meaning of his metaphors is to be worked out. The church is a particular form of human community which is called – I say it again – to point to something greater than herself, in all kinds of practical ways. The calling of disciples and the church is to ‘let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, and give glory to your Father in heaven’.
Here today’s Gospel take what may seem a surprising turn. For the key to being a light filled church community involves the continuing validity of the Jewish law and the prophets. But perhaps this is less surprising when we recall that the whole point of the law, the Torah, is to articulate what it means for human life to be shaped by God’s purposes. A faithful community loves God, and avoids the idolatrous overvaluing of lesser things. A faithful community cares for the poor and maintains justice. And the role of the prophets is to point out when things go wrong, and to recall the community to what is meant to be.
Needless to say it is not only in the Israel of the prophet Isaiah, or of Amos or Hosea, that the community falls short. Sadly, for many today, talk of the church as salt and light will ring a little hollow. Take for example, the broadcast last month of a two part documentary called Exposed: The Church’s Darkest Secret. This laid bare in devastating fashion the way in which senior figures in the Church of England, over many years, protected Bishop Peter Ball from being called to account for appalling abuse.
It is impossible for a community with dark secrets to shine as brightly as it ought. Hence, thank goodness, the centrality of safeguarding in the contemporary church. What this means, to quote from a House of Bishops policy statement, is that the whole church – all of us, together – ‘will promote the welfare of children, young people and adults, work to prevent abuse from occurring, seek to protect those that are at risk of being abused and respond well to those who have been abused.’
As part of this, the Social Care Institute for Excellence, or ‘SCIE’ has been commissioned to undertake an independent audit of the safeguarding arrangements of each diocese of the Church of England. SCIE are also auditing every cathedral in the land, and our turn will come in June, when over two to three days they will shine a light on safeguarding at Portsmouth Cathedral. I welcome this wholeheartedly, as the process can only help us to improve in an area of our life that we already take incredibly seriously.
The abuse of children and vulnerable adults is, appallingly, something seen in many areas of society. But it is particularly shocking in church communities seeking to be shaped by the law and reign of God. As we heard in our reading from Isaiah, and hear time and time again in the preaching and the life of Jesus, God calls us to be the kind of community where all can thrive and flourish, from the youngest to the eldest; that values the homeless and the hungry, the orphaned and the oppressed. And over the centuries the church has pioneered a massive civilizational shift inspired by the revelation that God is closer to the weak than to the mighty, to the poor rather than the rich. Hence the myriad almshouses, schools, hospitals, shelters, soup kitchens, relief organisations, medical missions and charitable societies that over the past twenty centuries have been founded and run by disciples of Jesus Christ. To this day, the sheer volume of compassionate action supplied and sustained by church communities is immense. Here Jesus’s call to be the ‘salt of the earth’ and ‘light to the world’ has been, and is being, heeded.
In the light of all this, the Church has been unpardonably slow in getting her act together in relation to abuse. Too slow also, I think, in responding to rather different form of human destructiveness: the degradation of the very planet on which we live, subject to light pollution and pollution of many other kinds. This year our Bishop’s Lent appeal reflects a national focus by the Church of England on environmental issues. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent book is by the environmentalist and theologian Ruth Valerio, and there is a #LiveLent ‘Care for God’s Creation’ daily reflection guide, with a version for children. The diocesan website will tell you that we have a diocesan Environmental Awareness Group, which has put together a set of actions we can all take for each day in Lent. It also tells you, and I quote, that:
‘Bishop Christopher, the Dean, our Archdeacons and Diocesan Secretary want to set an example to the diocese by taking some of those actions themselves during Lent…To follow their progress, check the diocesan website or follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram during Lent 2020.’
Well there we are; I’ve got nowhere to hide. But then again this is a positive example of community at work, in which mutual encouragement and challenge plays a part in helping us to respond to the call of Christ to be ‘salt and light’ in a positive and life-enhancing way. The significance of salt, remember, is not the substance in itself but what it achieves as part of something else, something greater. And the significance of light lies in what it reveals. Let us pray today, and through the forthcoming Lenten season, that in our lives and actions may be seen glimpses and signs of the reign of God, that our light may shine before others, that they may see our good works, and give glory to our Father in heaven. AMEN