Our Vocation and Mission as Salt and Light, Fifth Sunday (A), February 5, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
February 5, 2023
Is 58:7-10, Ps 112, 1Cor 2:1-5, Mt 5:13-16

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• Time at university is often one in which students ponder deeply about who they are and who and what they want to become. They think a lot about the future, about the difference they hope to make with their life, as they pray about why God created them at this time and place and what he is asking them to do with the gift of their life.
• In the Sermon on the Mount, which we began to consider last Sunday, Jesus speaks straight into these questions. He describes for us our vocation and mission as Christians, how as his followers we’re called to be different than the rest, to live by a separate set of standards than good pagans who love those who love them and are good to those who are good to them, and to have our holiness surpass that of the most fervent Jewish scribes and Pharisees according to the Mosaic Law. He calls us throughout the Sermon on the Mount, in short, to be like him, to be like his Father, to be perfect as he is perfect and holy as he is holy.
• We saw this last week as Jesus gave us the beatitudes, which highlight the difference his wisdom and the world’s, between the path we’re called to walk and the path that others walk. Whereas the world thinks we have to be rich to be happy, Jesus says we need to be poor in spirit. Whereas the world thinks we have to be a sexual phenom to be fulfilled, Jesus states we need to be pure of heart. Whereas the world things we must dominate others, Jesus says we must be meek, merciful and a peacemaker. Whereas worldly gurus say we should aspire to be popular and have everyone like us, Jesus says we should rejoice when others persecute us because of our fidelity to him. In each of these areas, Jesus is calling us not to live as others live, not to think as others think, but to think and live like him. As Saint John Paul II said once in a homily to young people on the Mount of the Beatitudes, “Looking at [Jesus],” John Paul said, “you will see what it means to be poor in spirit, gentle and merciful, to mourn, to care for what is right, to be pure in heart, to make peace, even to be blessed while persecuted. This is why he has the right to say, ‘Come, follow me!’” Jesus doesn’t just proclaim the beatitudes but is the beatitudes, and there’s almost no greater way to describe how Christians are supposed to live differently than others than by saying that we are called to be men and women who not only know the Beatitudes but live them like Christ.
• Immediately after giving us the Beatitudes, we come to the today’s Gospel, in which Jesus describes the vocation and mission we receive from that difference. With unforgettable, down-to-earth images, Jesus says that we have a double calling and task with respect to everyone else: to be the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World. We have a mission that goes far beyond the walls of our Churches. Together with Christ and our Christian brothers and sisters, we have been called to go out and transform, as Salt and Light, the rest of the human race. It is a partial but profound answer to the mystery of why we exist, why we’ve received the grace of baptism and the Christian faith, and what we’re supposed to do with our life, starting here at Columbia.
• In order to understand what our God-given vocation and mission entail more clearly, we need to ponder the images Jesus used and what they meant when he used them.
• When Jesus called his first followers to be the salt of the earth, they would have understood it in three different ways, because there were three fundamental uses of salt in the ancient world.
  • The first was as a preservative. Salt was used to preserve meat and fish from rotting. There was obviously no electricity or refrigeration at the time. If fish or meat was going to last in the sweltering Middle Eastern climate, it needed to be salted. The salt was different than the meat or the fish, pointing to the fact that as Christians we’re supposed to be distinct from the world, in it but not of it (Jn 17:11,16). There is also an ancient saying that the animal and fish that were being preserved were already dead; salt would serve almost as a life-preserver, something that would keep the meat or fish filets from likewise dying. Salt, therefore, almost had a sense of the resurrection, giving them life whereas they, like the fish or animals from which they came, should be dead. All of this points to the fact that Jesus calls us to be his instruments to prevent others from going to corruption, from dying, but rather to keep the world and others good. We all know that there are certain people who when they walk into a room help others to be the best versions of themselves, to use good language, to speak more about faith, to find opportunities to serve others. We also know that there are persons who are inert and make no impact, as well as those who behave in such a way that they bring out the worst vocabulary and behavior in others. By calling us to be salt, Jesus wants us to preserve others from going the way of sin, and to lift them to a higher standard by the way we ourselves live.
  • The second purpose of salt was to start a fire. I apologize if what I’m about to say will gross some people out, but it’s key to grasping what Jesus in teaching. At Jesus’ time, people would take dried animal dung, mix it with a lot of salt and then light it on fire. The dung alone couldn’t be ignited, but when it was mixed with salt, the salt would be able to be lit and then would gradually heat the dung, which kept heat for a really long time. Salt was the ancient equivalent of starter wood or lighter fluid for a barbecue. When I attended various Energy Summits at the United Nations during my work for the Holy See, I learned that in various poorer villages in the developing world, particularly in Africa, India and other parts of Asia, salt is still used for this purpose, because it’s cheaper than wood and more available that modern forms of energy. We see in this use of salt two essential lessons. First, salt can redeem almost anything, even turning excrement into something good and useful. As Salt of the Earth, we’re called to be God’s instrument for drawing good even out of the evil environments we encounter, to help even those who were given over to wrongdoingb to start producing something good. Secondly, salt is supposed to be a fire-starter. We are supposed to be easily lit and capable of heating up others. Thus, as Christians, it is totally incompatible for us to be waiting for someone else to light a fire under us, to stay put until someone else makes the first move. We’re supposed to be the starter wood, the lighter fluid. Even if we’re surrounded by what seems like detritus and death, Jesus is reminding us that by our baptism and ignited by the fire of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation, we’re supposed to be entrepreneurs of goodness, the people who turn things around and right side up.
  • The third and final function of salt at Jesus’ time is one we’ve maintained today: to give flavor to the food we consume.A little bit of salt, we know, can influence a whole meal. This points to the fact that we, as salt of the earth, are called to give flavor so that others can “taste and see the goodness of the Lord” (Ps 34:8). We’re supposed to enhance the taste of all human actions by bringing authentic joy. Many in the world think that to have a good time, there has to be the worst of a frat house atmosphere, drenched in booze, drugs, dim lights, lots of willing members of the opposite sex and other types of behavior that leads people to hangovers, methodone treatments, STDs and other preventable consequences. Others have resigned themselves to a humdrum, perpetually overcast, almost lifeless existence. Jesus, however, who came so that his joy might be in us and our joy complete, so that we might have life and have it to the full (Jn 15:11, Jn 10:10). He calls us as salt to show what real joy in life is, to be people who are profoundly happy even in the simplest things, who know they are truly blessed because they live with Jesus who is the cause of our joy. By calling us to be salt, Jesus is saying that we need to bring that joy to the world, especially to those circumstances in which joy is absent or caricatured.
  • So to be the Salt of the Earth, we need to prevent corruption by Christ-like goodness, to transform what is fallen by the fire of faith, and to teach everyone the path to true and lasting joy.
• The second, complementary image Jesus uses to summarize our vocation and mission as his followers, is to be the light of the world. Two weeks ago at Sunday Mass, we pondered how Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s words about Zebulun and Naphthali seeing a great light. Jesus, the Light of the World (Jn 9:5), has passed that light onto us. He tells us in the verse before today’s Gospel, “The man who follows me will have the light of life” (Jn 8:12). Jesus calls us to reflect his light, by following him, by living as he lived, walking as he walked, loving as he loved, caring as he cared, doing as he has done. He sends us out as the light of the world because the world is living in the midst of so much darkness: the darkness of grief, physical pain, broken hearts, depression, ignorance and sin. Jesus sends us out to be light for those in darkness. We Christians are supposed to be like a torch in a cave that can lead people to safety, the lights on a runway that can help pilots land in the midst of storms. We sang in the responsorial psalm today, “The just man is a light in the darkness for the upright,” and Jesus calls each of us to be that light, enfleshing the brilliance of his teaching and the warmth of his love to such a degree that others will see the light of his way of life shining from within us almost without our even trying. That’s what God indicates to us in today’s first reading. Isaiah tells us that our “light shall break forth like the dawn” and the “glory of the Lord shall be [our] rear guard” when we “share [our] bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless, clothe the naked when [we] see them, and do not turn [our] back on [our] own,” when we “remove from [our] midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech,” when we “bestow [our] bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted.” When we live charitably in this way, the Prophet reiterates, “then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday.” Christ-like love united to the truth is the light the just man, the good woman, radiates like the rising sun. The brilliance we emit through incarnating Jesus’ truth and charity is how others, seeing our good deeds, will come to know and glorify God.
• But Jesus gives us a warning in today’s Gospel. For us to be able to fulfill our joint mission, Jesus says we have to ensure that our salt doesn’t go flat or hide our light under a basket. Otherwise, he says, what good are they? We are living in an age in which, to be honest, fewer Christians are living as salt of the earth and light of the world, and our societies are paying the price for it. Many countries, like our own, in which Christians comprise the vast majority of citizens, have become places where so many things contrary to the Gospel are becoming commonplace and are being ramrod through government, educational and cultural institutions; where secularist principles of radical autonomy and individualism are dominating over community and fraternity; where utilitarianism and hedonism are triumphing over human dignity, charity and loving sacrifice; where the environment is being exploited rather than stewarded; where radical redefinitions of the human person, marriage and family are trouncing even the most elemental principles of truth accessible to reason buttressed by revelation; where human trafficking, the commodification of women and children in pornography and prostitution, and the xenophobic dehumanization of immigrants are defended, where concentration camps for the Uyghurs, bombings of innocent civilians in Ukraine and so many other atrocities take place each day, including in societies in which so many citizens, and even leaders, call themselves Christians. In the last hundred years, we have to ask how the Holocaust could happen in Germany when so many Germans claimed to be followers of Christ? How could Stalinist atrocities take place against tens of millions in the Soviet Union, where so many are proudly and devoutly Orthodox? How can so many attacks against human dignity happen in our own country — where 25 percent are Catholic and nearly 50 percent are Protestant — with the taking of human life at its beginning in the womb is celebrated, where the taking of life at its earthly end is called death with dignity, where so many murders take place such that it often no longer makes headlines? The answer is because, for the majority, Christians’ salt has lost its saltiness and our light has been hidden in a closet or extinguished altogether. We haven’t been fighting against corruption, we haven’t been starting a fire of goodness, we haven’t been bringing the contagious taste of Christian living into our environments. We haven’t been radiating the light of truth and the warmth of authentic love. Today Jesus is giving us a great wake up call. And he’s asking each of us, young and old, to recognize he’s created us not to be bystanders or spectators to the major things happening in the world, but is calling us to be, like him, salt and light in the midst of them.
• And so we have to ask: How do we keep our salt salty and our light bright? With regard to salt, the biochemist in me will tell you that salt is denatured when the sodium gets separated from the chloride by other cations and anions. By analogy, how do we, as human beings, lose oursaltiness? By getting separated from Christ by other persons or things, by the cations of pleasures or the anions of negative experiences, worries and the like. To remain salty, we must stay united to Jesus in a life of prayer and the sacraments, to stay in communion with him in the Holy Eucharist, to bind ourselves regularly to him by his mercy, to stay one with him in charity. One of the most important way to ensure we keep our saltiness is to stay close to Christ on the Cross. In today’s second reading, St. Paul told the Corinthians that he had come among them knowing and preaching nothing “except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” The Cross, he said earlier, is the “scandal to Jews and lunacy to Gentiles” but “to those who are called,” it is the “power and wisdom of God.” Christ wants us to live with that power and wisdom. There is, therefore, a “cruciform” aspect to our living as Salt of the Earth. Denying ourselves, picking up our Cross and following Jesus is a way we prevent ourselves and others from going corrupt through worldly epicureanism. Living with the love that Christ shows us on the Cross is the way we spark the fire of his love continuously in the world. It’s the means by which we flavor every “plate” of human existence, sprinkling self-denial and Christ-like self-giving to every human experience. St. Paul fulfilled his vocation and mission to be salt by knowing and proclaiming Christ Crucified. We will fulfill our own when, by yoking ourselves to Christ on the Cross, Jesus’ own salt will be shaken through us.
• Similarly, we have to ensure we don’t hide the light of Christ, the splendor of his truth and the ardor of his love. We are often tempted to do so out of false humility, peer pressure, or shame to live as a Christian. But our faith is meant to be visible, to be set on a lampstand as a gift to others. There are some Christians who are afraid to live their faith in a public way, who succumb to secularist intimidation to keep their faith invisible. Their friends and acquaintances can know far more about what they think of sports, weather or politics than what they believe about Christ. Our faith, however, though intensely personal, is never supposed to be private. It’s supposed to be a light for others. In fact, it’s supposed to be the most noticeable thing about us, the first thing our family members or friends or fellow students or co-workers will say about us: that we remind them — a little or a lot — of Jesus. Commenting on this Gospel in 2014, Pope Francis said that whether we radiate this light of Christ to the world is the real sign of whether we’re truly Christian. He said, “The Christian must be a luminous person, who brings light, who always gives off light, a light that’s not his own but is a gift of God, a gift of Jesus. We bear this light. If a Christian loses this light, his life has no meaning: the Christian without light is a Christian only in name.” He unforgettably then went on to question the more than 50,000 people assembled in St. Peter’s Square for his blessing that afternoon: “I want to ask you all right now: how do you want to live? As a light that has been turned on or a light turned off? As a lit lamp or an extinguished one? How do you want to live?” The multitudes loudly shouted up to him from the square to the window of his study, “Accesa!,” the Italian world for “Lit!” or “Turned on” or “On fire.” Pope Francis was pleased by their enthusiastic commitment. He responded with joy, “That’s right, [we want to be] a light that burns! It’s God’s that gives us this light and we who give it to others. A lit lamp! [Una lampada accesa!] That’s our Christian vocation!”
• Jesus today calls us anew to be the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World. He wants to give us in the Mass all the graces he knows we need not only to prevent our salt from losing its saltiness and our light from going out, but to live up to this vocation and mission. Let us receive that help today and respond with courage. Jesus asks us today, much like his earthly vicar asked the multitudes nine years ago, “How do you want to live?” Let us respond with eagerness, gratitude, and all our mind, heart, soul and strength, “We want to live as the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World!.” That is the way our light will break forth like the dawn and we will become light in the darkness for the upright! That is the path by which we will become a city set on a hill proclaiming Christ crucified and risen! That is the means by which we will come, with many others who have received through us Christ’s salt and light, to glorify God forever in heaven! Amen!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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