Is 58:7-10
Ps 112:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
1 Cor 2:1-5
Mt 5:13-16
Something important is missing from the first reading. That something is the first six verses of Isaiah chapter 58. It is unfortunate because those verses put the reading into its proper context and reminds us that human nature and human behavior have not improved over the millennia since Isaiah was written.
The prophet denounced the people in the missing verses not because they had adopted pagan customs but because they enacted religious practices, such as fasting, prayer, and penance, insincerely without true conversion of heart. They were in fact hypocrites.
The Jewish Study Bible comments on the first six verses of the chapter by noting the people observed rituals such as fasting not out of true devotion but for their own benefit. People prayed for divine intervention in their quarrels against each other rather than praying for others.' Isaiah denounced the people because they fasted and did penances so as to manipulate God into giving them what they wanted. The reading only makes sense if one knows the first six verses because, after criticizing the people Isaiah instructs them on proper action.
Fasting does not mean starving one's body. That's dieting or anorexia. True fasting means sharing what one has with others and thus having less for oneself. Humility is not bragging about one's inadequacies. True humility means quietly doing what needs to be done without a public show of it.
"You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?" Jesus' image of 'the salt of the earth' is part of common English usage. It is a compliment to the person described as such. It means a good or worthy person, a person who places the needs of others first. Describing someone as salt of the earth implies actions free of underhanded dealings or shady behaviors that mostly benefit oneself.
Salt is critical to life. It preserves food, and adds exquisite flavor to it. Indeed, without salt some foods are inedible. Unsalted pretzels are an abomination and unsalted potato chips violate basic laws of the universe. But add a few grains of salt and flavor explodes. Salt’s importance to the normal functioning of the human body can never be overestimated.
The second part of Jesus' saying about salt is not easy to interpret. "If salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?" How can salt lose its taste?
Thanks to my maternal grandmother I pondered that point until my mid-20s when I got the answer. Grandma came to dinner every Sunday. Almost every week she would announce, "They don't make salt as salty as they used to." That didn't make sense to my sixteen year-old mind, though I didn't know why.
Flash forward to my fifty year-old self helping my eighty-three year-old mom make dinner. "You didn't add enough salt to the mashed potatoes. And remember, they don't make it as salty as they used to." (OK, count to ten. She is your mother). By then I’d had thirty-five years of medical training behind me. Her complaint about lack of saltiness made sense, not because the anonymous "they" or the Morton family had messed with salt. She had changed.
Salt does not lose its flavor, unless it is cut with something or not enough is added in the first place. Aging changes our ability to perceive or taste saltiness. Salt is as salty as its always has been. However, with age, especially after seventy-five, the tongue is less able to detect and taste salt. What seems to be salted just right to an 85 year-old may be experienced as a salt lick by a 30 year-old.
Just as salt cannot lose its flavor unless something is done to cut it putting a light under a basket, makes no sense. In telling us, "your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father." Jesus reinforced Isaiah's instruction, "If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday."
Jesus said, "I am the light of the world . . . whoever follows me will have the light of life." Our vocation is to have that light and reflect it to the world, not through what we say but through what we do and how we do it. Jesus, light of the world, and true salt of the earth, guides, preserves, purifies and protects us, just as salt preserves food and protects it from contamination, just as light shows us the way. We cannot afford to lose our taste for the salt that is the Word of God or to allow it to diminish as we age.
Ultimately, we pray with St. Paul, 'that our faith might rest not on human wisdom
but on the power of God.'
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Photography allows a degree of being whimsical when desired. I took these in Sevenhill, South Australia during the tertianship long retreat. One of the best experiences in the Society.
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