1 Corinthians 2: 6-7 (NRSV Updated Edition)
Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are being destroyed. But we speak God's wisdom, a hidden mystery, which God decreed before the ages for our glory
Matthew 5:13-16 (NRSV)
“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.
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
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"In Matthew's gospel Jesus tells us that we are salt. Does that mean we know about God's secret wisdom? Is that what makes us salty? Paul says God determined this wisdom in advance, before time began, for our glory. God was working for our benefit in a way beyond our imagination before the world began. It's so good we have trouble believing it and it's for our glory, not God's glory. It's from God but for us. [...]
"God's wisdom embraces self-sacrifice and forgiveness; that's the secret hidden from the beginning of time and now revealed in Jesus and him crucified. Living out self-sacrifice, co-suffering love and forgiveness makes us the salt of the earth. [...]
"God's wisdom is grounded in non-violent, non-rivalrous, and totally forgiving love. It contrasts sharply with human wisdom where every word and action is subject to rivalry and fear, vengeance and hierarchy. [...]
"[... O]ur saltiness comes from being attuned to the wisdom of God; that wisdom that knows about sacrificial self-giving rather than sacrificing the other, that knows about co-suffering love rather than making sure only the other suffers, and that knows about a forgiveness so deep it leaves no enmity in its wake. This wisdom knows we are the light of the world, a city on top of a hill that cannot be hidden."
- Thomas L. Truby, from sermon delivered on February 5, 2017
(https://girardianlectionary.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Truby-Epiphany5-2017-The-Big-Difference.pdf)
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"[T]he Christian religion continues to sing and preach and teach about Jesus, but in too many places (not all!) it has largely forgotten, misunderstood, or become distracted from Jesus' secret message. When we drifted from understanding and living out his essential secret message of the kingdom, we became like flavorless salt or a blown-out lightbulb - so boring that people just walked away.
"We may have talked about going to heaven after we die, but not about God's will being done on earth before we die. We may have pressured people to be moral and good or correct and orthodox to avoid hell after death, but we didn't inspire them with the possibility of becoming beautiful and fruitful to heal the earth in this life. We may have instructed them about how to be a good Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic, or Methodist on Sunday, but we didn't train, challenge, and inspire them to live out the kingdom of God in their jobs, neighborhoods, families, schools, and societies between Sundays."
- Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus, pg. 84
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"What would it mean to seek to be table-salt Christianity today? How is it possible to be salt that dramatically changed the taste of human life for the better, giving life to the earth in the 21st century? To answer this question you have at once to take into account an entirely other perspective about the “spread abroad” quality of inherited Christianity.
"Elsewhere I have argued that Christianity has had such a profound cultural impact it decisively and progressively affects our underlying responses and opinions, above all in our recognition of the victim through an undertow of Christ's compassion. This paradoxical impact explains why there is in fact so much implicit Christianity in so-called secular culture and why it is so easy to find a kind of diffused humanism and spirituality entirely away from the churches. For this kind of thing Jesus used parables of seed and its amazing, unstoppable growth. If we take the liberty of mixing this phenomenon with the image of the salt, it's as if the whole world is suspended in a kind of saline solution! Everything today is mixed with Christianity.
"However, this is of very little comfort when there are also many accumulated crises facing humanity. As a planet we have desperate decisions to make about inequality, poverty, the climate, weapons and war. Never in fact has the need for genuine disciples been more critical. I would say, therefore, that it's the single tangy grain of salt resting in the water which reveals what the whole medium really is. [...]
"Such a single grain can be achieved only in direct relationships where it is possible to see the qualities of compassion, nonviolence, forgiveness and peace at work. It is a challenge, and failure and false-starts are a constant possibility. But [we should not underestimate] the seasoning power of a single grain of salt, that tangy thing Jesus was talking about!"
- Anthony Bartlett, from blog post entitled “Salt Solutions” (no longer available online)
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"The salt - this would have referred to two sorts of things. The salt was sometimes referred to wisdom, the kind of salt that comes with the savour of fine things that have been understood. These are people who are going to be producing the wisdom of this world the salt of the world. But also the salt that would be put on sacrifices that they would be pleasing to the Lord. These are the people who, by giving themselves away in the midst of the world and its lies and its violence, are showing what is true and a revealing God. So they are taking part, going to be taking part, in his one true sacrifice which is to come, which of course is not the same as any of the world's sacrifices, which are to protect us from the light, but are the ways of allowing the light to come in. So he's saying this is going to be up to you this is going to be your task. [...] [T]he savour is going to be related to you learning how to give yourself away and discover wisdom during that.
[...]
"[Putting your lamp on a lampstand] gives light to the whole house, whether you want it or not, so he's saying. “So here in the same way let your light shine before others.” In other words, you're going to become the celebratory lights that other people might try to put out, but you are not to allow yourselves to be put out. You are going to become that which lights the whole house, the whole city, you're going to become the light of the world.
"“So that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in Heaven.” In other words, you're going to become witnesses through going through this process that makes you radiant witnesses for the one who is bringing you into being, so as to show the light of God, [...] your Father in Heaven.
[...]
"So, another challenge to us to find the way of radiance, the way of saltiness, as we come through Matthew's gospel, finding ourselves on the inside of the precarious of the world, and finding that God is in there, always trying to come through into us so as to make God's self better known through us, who will be discovered to be God's daughters and sons."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023 A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_19HUQX1UQ)
[Source of Brian Maclaren quote and links to Thomas Truby sermon and Anthony Bartlett blog, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/epiphany5a/]
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