My science teacher in middle school
used to take Wednesday off. He would sit
at his desk with his feet up and let us students use the class period to read,
any book we wished, and one of us would bring in popcorn for the rest to snack
on. When my turn came to provide the
snack, I spent some time on Tuesday night popping corn on the top of the stove,
and as each batch was finished, I’d empty it into a large paper grocery bag. Then I would add a little melted butter and
some salt. And I would close the bag and
shake it a few times, to mix everything thoroughly, and add a little more
butter, and a little more salt.
I’d never made such a large quantity
of popcorn before, and I guess I misjudged how much salt it would take to
properly season it. Because the next
day, after I’d passed my big bag around the science room and everyone had scooped
out a pile onto a paper towel, I served some out for myself. And when I put that first handful into my
mouth, it was so salty I could hardly keep myself from spitting it out
again. I thought maybe it was just because
mine came from the bottom of the bag, but a quick glance around the room showed
that no one was eating it, and there were still a lot of popcorn on the paper
towels. My pride wouldn’t let me admit
that I’d brought inedible popcorn to science class, so I kept munching away
until I couldn’t force myself to take another kernel, and I still carry in my
body the memory of the strange, headache-y, queasy feeling of eating far too
much salt.
Salt is not food. It enhances the flavors of food. It keeps it from spoiling. It is absolutely necessary for life, but by
itself it is useless. You can’t eat
salt. We ought to bear this in mind
when we hear Jesus say to his disciples, “you are the salt of the earth.” It is the same message in that other saying,
“No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and
it gives light to all in the house.” It
is the message that William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury during the
Second World War, summarized when he said, “The Church is the only society that
exists for the benefit of those who are not its members.”
Sometimes the church has acted as
if the world existed for its benefit, and has bent worldly wealth and power to service
of church leaders and institutions. At
other times we have tried to sever the connection entirely, and create a
self-enclosed society, only concerned with its own other-worldly purposes,
disinterested and unperturbed by the tensions and upheavals outside her
sanctuaries. But these sayings of Jesus
make it plain that if we are going to be the renewed people of God that he
sought to give birth to, then the rest of the world has to be at the very heart
of who we are. We are to dissolve into
it, to transform it into something truly nourishing and delicious. We are to light it up, so that its own true
beauty and color and full dimensions can be seen.
The paradox that we have to live
with is that the world doesn’t necessarily want the salt or the light of the
Gospel. Remember that these sayings in
Matthew come right after the part where Jesus says “Blessed are you when they
revile you and persecute you and utter all manner of evil against you on my
account.” And living for the sake of
people who don’t see any benefit in what you have to offer is an uncomfortable
position to be in. So sometimes we make
a case for ourselves in human terms.
We’ll justify our existence by claiming that we “transform lives,” and
point to our members who have kicked the bottle, or worked out their marital
problems, or gotten good jobs since they started coming to church. Or we’ll talk about how we inspire social
action that improves our communities, and point out our involvement in
distributing food to the poor, or housing the homeless.
But as important as these things
are, trying to justify ourselves in these terms can obscure the heart of what we
are about. It conceals the truth that we
have been given a vision of personal transformation that goes far beyond
helping people get back to “normal” as social convention defines it. It is to be silent about the deeper kind of
social action, a new solidarity that heals the root structures of rivalry,
indifference, and suspicion in human relations.
We’re running up against this
problem now as we organize for an event that we’re calling the Big Night
Out. This effort involves reaching out
in a way that we haven’t before to people around Petaluma--friends, and friends
of friends, and even complete strangers.
And we are inviting them to a charity event to raise funds for a good
cause called St. John’s Episcopal Church.
As we do this, we are appealing to them by describing the benefits we
provide, in terms we think they can understand.
We are talking to them about the restoration of this beautiful building,
with its architectural distinction that lends so much character and value to
the historic downtown area. We are
talking about our long relationship with COTS, which provides services to those
who have lost their homes, or are in danger of losing them, and how we are
sharing a quarter of the funds that we raise to support that work.
And I think that this is a sensible
approach to take. But it is also
important for us to be conscious of what it is we’re not saying. It’s not that we’re inviting people to this
event under false pretenses. Its just
that we don’t really expect them to understand.
We don’t know how to talk to them about what really makes St. John’s
tick, or what value it really has to the community, because there is no way to
do it without using the language of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that very thing that we are reticent
about is the taste of the salt, without which it is not good for anything but
to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
But we’re afraid that if we try to explain ourselves to people on those
terms they will immediately stop listening, because they’ll think that we are “religious,”
that outmoded and incomprehensible thing, and some hidden agenda to brainwash
them and entice them into joining our cult.
It’s a quandary, and I have no
better response to it than one I found last week in a little pamphlet put out
by the Taizé community in France, which is the inspiration for our monthly
service of chant and silence here at St. John’s:
“But if the
salt were to lose its saltiness…
It must be
recognized that we Christians often obscure [the] message of Christ…
We are at a
point in history when we need to revitalize this message of love and
peace. Will we do all we can so that,
freed of misunderstandings, it can shine out in its original simplicity? Can we, without imposing anything, journey
alongside those who do not share our faith but who are searching for the truth
with all their heart?
In our
attempt to create new forms of solidarity and open up new ways of trust, there
are, and there always will be trials. At
times they may seem to be overwhelming.
So what then should we do? Is not
our response to personal trials, and to those which other people endure, to
love still more?”
We are reaching the point in the
renewal of this congregation where we are starting to understand that we have
been called together to do something for our neighbors. But to find what that is, we have no choice
but to meet them where they are. And we
are looking not so much for people we can help, as for conversation partners. We are seeking not so much an effective
rhetoric of persuasion, as a common language in which to begin to understand
each other, and share our wonder and anguish about the things that matter most. And we are waiting on the power of the Spirit
to do what we can never accomplish by ourselves, to open minds, to soften
hearts, to take down walls, to heal, and salt, and light our world.
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