Every week I run an online Lectio Divina. I send out the Readings for next Sunday by email and then by Wednesday morning each person sends back the words that has spoken to them. You can see and hear me give this Homily on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ekQXBo_0w4
Having gathered all these phrases together, I then send all of them back, so that everyone can see what others have chosen. It’s a fascinating exercise because of the variety of different passages that people notice and share, often highlighting for me something I hadn’t noticed myself, so send me your email me if you are interested in joining in.
However this week what struck me was that although many people picked up from the Gospel (Matt 5:13-6) the theme of light and our need to share God’s light with others rather than hide it, no one picked up the equally important image of salt. Now I think that’s a pity because salt even more than light behaves in a strange way. If you think about it, we only notice salt in a meal if there is too much or not enough. If the cook adds exactly the right amount of salt, then it simply isn’t noticed. It does what it is supposed to do, bringing out the flavours in the food, without drawing any attention to itself at all.
The problem with the light image is that it is linked to this talk about “good works” which makes most of us wonder if we are doing enough, or doing the right thing, so that people may praise God in heaven. In other words, it leads to endless introspection of what we do or don’t do. Somehow the idea of us being salt doesn’t do this in the same way. Yes, we might worry about whether we are too salty or not salty enough, but that is more about what we are in our hearts than what we do on the surface. Anyway, I like think that God is the chef, and that means we can leave it to him to work out how much is needed in any situation we find ourselves in. It reminds me of a passage I love from St Therese of Lisieux
“I scatter to right and left the good seed that the good God puts into my little hand for my little birds. What happens then is its own business. I do not concern myself with that at all… The good God says to me ‘Give, give. Always give, without bothering yourself at all about the results.’”
St Paul says much the same in our 2nd Reading today (1 Cor 2:1-5) where he says that his speeches and sermons do not depend on his own power but on the power of God. How easily we can spend too much time wondering whether we should have said this or that, or what we should say next, rather than putting ourselves more firmly into the hands of God. Indeed, what is much more important than what we do is what we are in our hearts. We can do good works till we are blue in the face, but if those good works are simply about impressing God or other people about how good we are then they are a waste of time. Unless we allow the chef to do the cooking the result may well be a disaster.
The other important thing about salt in New Testament times, and indeed for many centuries after, was that it was very precious, very valuable indeed. So when Jesus says that we are salt, he isn’t just saying we have a role to play in making the world a better place, as salt makes a meal more tasty, he is also saying that we are precious in the sight of God. It’s a point he makes in another place when he tells us that every hair on our head is counted, and that we are worth more than loads of sparrows (Matt 10:28-31). People sometimes ask me how they can be closer to God, what can they do, what kind of prayers can they say? My answer is to tell them to spend time just recognising how much God loves them. Prayer is much more about allowing God to speak to us, allowing God to be the chef, than about us working out what to say to God.
This is a crucially important point. Our “good works” that Jesus talks about will only reveal God to others, will only encourage others to give praise to the Father in heaven, if they come from God working in us and through us, rather than from our own unaided efforts. That is why being at Mass is so important, because it is the way Jesus has given us, above all other ways, of receiving God into our hearts and minds. Yes, we must be open to God’s love in our individual prayers, but we must also be open to him coming to us in the Blessed Sacrament, so that Mass is not simply an external observance but a real spiritual communion with God.
This kind of prayer is an act of will, and prayer must often be like that. Yes, we may sometimes feel God’s love in wonderful ways, and we must praise him when this happens, but at many other times we may not feel this. Then we simply have to tell ourselves “God loves me. God loves me. I am precious in his sight”, and we have to say, as we prepare to receive him in Holy Communion “Lord, only say the word and I shall be healed” (and mean it) and to look at the Blessed Sacrament and say “My Lord and my God.” (and mean it) We humans are such fickle creatures with all sorts of conflicting thought and emotions, so although we may have certainty of God’s love sometimes, there will be other times when we can become totally uncertain of God’s love, even of God’s existence. We then have to maintain our saltiness, simply by telling our mind and our heart that these things are true, even when we cannot feel them, even when we feel we have lost our saltiness and are in the dark.
We had the same message from part of our reading from Isaiah today (58:7-10) “Cry, and the Lord will answer; call, and he will say, ‘I am here.’” But we may cry and think he doesn’t answer, and then we have to tell ourselves he does answer, but probably not in the way we expect, and we must say “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.” And we must not think that other people find faith and its practice easy. Even St Paul speaks of the “fear and trembling” he experienced when he shared the faith with others. Why should we be any different?
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