Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

There is a mention of salt in today’s gospel reading. Salt has had a bad press in recent years. It is true that some of our foods have more salt than is healthy. Yet, in the time of Jesus, salt was highly regarded. It was used to preserve food and to enhance its flavour. When Jesus said to his disciples, ‘you are the salt of the earth’, he was reminding them of their identity and of their calling. Today’s gospel reading follows on immediately from the beatitudes, which was last Sunday’s gospel reading. Jesus is declaring that those who live by the values proclaimed in the beatitudes will be salt of the earth. As salt preserves and enhances the flavour of food, we will preserve and enhance the lives of others whenever we give expression in our lives to that whole way of life expressed by the beatitudes. As disciples we are to be present to others in ways that help to preserve and enhance all that is good there.

Jesus goes on to address his disciples as ‘the light of the world’. He speaks of a city built on a hill-top that cannot be hidden. In Ireland, wherever the land is mountainous or hilly, towns and villages tend to be built in the valleys where there is shelter from the wind and rain. In the land of Jesus, towns and villages tended to be built on top of hills because in the heat of summer the hill-top is a more pleasant place to be than the valley. Jesus declares that a city or a town built on a hill-top is visible for all to see. Jerusalem was the great example of a city built on a hill-top. When people went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, they spoke of ‘going up’ to Jerusalem. They could see it before they reached it. Jerusalem was also a city that people went down from, as in the parable of the Good Samaritan where the man who fell among robbers was on his way down from Jerusalem to Jericho. The village of Nazareth, where Jesus grew up was built on a hill-top and was visible from the valley below and the hills around. When Jesus spoke of a city built on a hill-top that cannot be hidden, he was suggesting that we are not to hide the light that he has given us. He has shone the light of his gospel, the light of his loving presence, upon us. We are to let that light shine through us, rather than try to hide it, just as in the small windowless homes of the time no one would hide an oil lamp under a tub but would put it up as high up to give as much light as possible.

Jesus goes on to say that we let our light shine by doing good works, the kind of works that the values of the beatitudes inspire, the works that are performed by those who are gentle, those who hunger and thirst for what is right, those who are the merciful and pure of heart, those who are peacemakers and reconcilers. In the first reading, Isaiah identifies letting ‘our light shine like the dawn’ with sharing food with the hungry, sheltering the homeless poor, clothing the naked, bringing relief to the oppressed. Within the circumstances of our own individual lives, we are called to do the good words inspired by the values of the beatitudes, so that the Lord’s light may continue to shine through us today. According to Jesus, such good works springing from our faith will be like a light that will lead people to God. Because of them, people ‘will give the praise to your Father in heaven’.

The horizon of both the images of salt and light is very wide. We are called to be salt of the ‘earth’ and light of the ‘world’. The way of life that Jesus portrays in the beatitudes is with a view to all of humanity. Jesus suggests that those who live by the values of the beatitudes will have an impact for good far beyond their own immediate circle. He is declaring that when we live by the beatitudes, our good works will be like a light in a dark world, showing people the way. The gospel reading reminds us that individually and as a community of faith we have been entrusted with a world-wide mission as disciples of the Lord. Saint Paul was aware that when the light of the risen Lord shone upon him on the road to Damascus it was so that he could bring the light of the gospel to all the nations. According to today’s second reading, this sometimes filled him with ‘fear and trembling’. Yet, he could engage in this mission because he relied not on himself but, in the words of that reading, on ‘the power of the Spirit’. We can all rely on the power of the Spirit that has been given to us as we try to live our calling to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and as Paul reminds us in another of his letters, the power of the Spirit ‘at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine’. We can never underestimate what the Lord can do through us, if we allow him.