Mt. 5:13-16
Dear Friends, Here is an amazing statistic about the religious scene in the US. Roman Catholics are the largest religious group. The second largest religious assortment are those who have left the Roman Catholic Church. Equally surprising is this. In many Latin America countries, traditionally Roman Catholic, Evangelicals are the largest religious denomination.
Somewhere along the line, a great number of us, in all of these religious groups, failed to get the memo from Jesus that we need to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
When one delves into the reasons so many people have left the Catholic Church, the reasons are many and the blame is on all sides. However, the response has to move away from finger pointing. We need to get back to the Gospel message. We need to evangelize ourselves and others.
Jesus’ command to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world has received a feeble response from most of us who call ourselves Christians. Jesus command is crystal clear. We are all called to stand with the gospel in contrast to the materialistic and consumer driven society that stands so flagrantly in contrast to the message of Jesus. Our true calling as the salt of the earth and the light of the world is to be a contrast People of God, a contrast that lights the darkness of our broken world. We are called to be salt that nourishes a spiritually starving world by lives lived in justice and working toward reconciliation. We are to be witnesses of our God of love and mercy.
Paul VI taught us that evangelization is the process of “bringing the Good News into every strata of humankind and through its influence transforming humanity from within and making it new.” (Evangelii Nuntiandi #19) He went on to say we need to be witnesses more than teachers. For him, a witness was one whose life spoke so loudly and clearly of the gospel that you could not hear what he or she was saying. St. Francis of Assisi made the same point when he said, “Preach the gospel always. Speak only when necessary.”
In these three verses in today’s Gospel, Jesus is calling us to embrace the totality of the Sermon on the Mount. He is telling us to live the message and to proclaim the message. He is asking us to let our life be the gospel message for all to hear and see. We are summoned to invite all to a welcoming embrace into the loving arms of our gracious God.
This evangelizing that proclaims the gospel is all about love. We have a good example of how to manifest this love in today’s first reading from Isaiah. “Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them, and do not turn your back on your own.” (Is 58:7) This life of service, no matter how humble, is truly letting our light shine. It genuinely lets us be the salt of the earth. This opens the way to love that transforms us and our world. This is our calling in today’s Gospel. This is how we are witnesses who do not need words to proclaim the message.
We, as a Church and we as individual followers of Christ, need to encounter the power and the beauty of the call to let our light shine. We need make a difference by embracing life in the footsteps of Jesus.
Reconciliation and service, forgiveness and generosity lead to the healing powers that crush division and wipe out the insipidness of mediocrity. This is the true call to unity. We need to bring the focus back to Jesus as He presents himself and his message in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon is loaded with strategies for us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
