Salt and Light

A reflection and poem for the 5th Sunday after the Epiphany

Cherry took this picture the other day in our neighborhood. She wanted family to see that I am walking on ice. Several inches of snow beneath.

Once again, temperatures dropped, ice returned, and Grace Church will not meet in rural Virginia. So, for this Sunday, February 8, I am sending the audio above and a transcript and poem below.

I love the way the Gospel lesson begins today (Matthew 5:13-20).

We are meant to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, Jesus says. There’s a lot to say about that, but first I want to ponder the second part of today’s Gospel passage. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law,” Jesus says. “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

This is tough. The scribes and the Pharisees were known as rule-followers. They knew Scripture better than anyone, and nobody followed biblical law better than they did. So, when the crowd heard Jesus say that our righteousness needed to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, or we would never enter the kingdom of heaven, it must have felt as if Jesus was not opening the door to the kingdom but slamming it shut.

To make matters worse, at the end of this chapter, Jesus seems to nail the door shut when he sums everything up by saying, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.… Therefore, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt 5:44-45, 48)

But when Jesus says, “be perfect,” he is not saying we are supposed to be morally spotless. Instead, he’s telling us to be something better. Something that exceeds unblemished morality. Jesus is urging us instead to be whole, to be mature, to shower our love on our enemies, the way rain falls equally on the righteous and the unrighteous.

If anyone wants to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, they first of all have to accept that “no one is without sin.” This is what made Jesus’ defense of the woman caught in adultery so effective. He told the angry mob, every one of them with a stone in hand, “Whoever is without sin, throw the first stone.” Everybody had to walk away.

To be human is to be full of contradictions and competing energies, some of which are embarrassing and conjure guilt or shame. One way of dealing with the reality that we all sin is to double down on following the rules. Suck it up; decide we’ll never do that terrible thing again. Wear a hair shirt as a reminder, go to confession every week, whatever it takes. Just double down on following the rules; try harder.

But that never works. Never.

As St. Paul said, there’s something in us that simply takes over at times. “I do not understand my own actions,” Paul said. “I do not do the good I want to do, but the very thing I hate is what I do.” (Romans 7:19)

The biblical law, in other words, is not the enemy here, which is why Jesus said he didn’t come to abolish the law. We just have to grow up and understand what the law is for.

I’ll never forget years ago when my clergy group of 15 Episcopal priests was meeting for several days with Richard Rohr, the Franciscan priest and author who began the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico. At one point, Richard said bluntly to us church professionals, “The parish church is almost entirely focused on the first-half of life—rules and behavior that children need, in order to grow up well. But the parish church for the most part simply does not address adult spirituality.”

I think Richard alluding to the truth in today’s Gospel lesson. St. Paul put it this way in another letter, “The law was our guardian until Christ came.” Other translations say, “The law was our disciplinarian or our tutor until Christ came.” My favorite translation is, “the law was “our nanny” until Christ came.” (Gal. 3:23-25). But at some point, we have to grow up.

To exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees is to recognize there are dark forces at work in every one of us that cannot be simply banished or stoned to death. We have to welcome these darker impulses. We have to rain love on them, the way God’s love falls on the good and the bad alike. If we simply try to do away with these “bad” energies, they just head to the basement or out to the garage and do push-ups, while they wait for us to become vulnerable again. Then, they come back stronger than ever.^[1]

Repressing our inclinations to sin or trying to banish wayward energies only causes us to project our darker energy on others, and in the long run makes our shadow side stronger.

But if we welcome our dark side and get to know it, if we start to accept the reality that we have tendencies to anger, lust, greed, stubbornness, impatience,…if we accept own these things, then miraculously they begin to lose their power. We start to recognize them when they begin to emerge. And upon recognizing them, we can entertain them instead of projecting them on others.

The old adage here is “What we resist persists. What we fight gets stronger.” And the corollary is “What we embrace is transformed.”

I think this is what all those Gospel stories about Jesus embracing sinners are all about. The stories of Christ welcoming wayward folks of all kinds is a metaphor for our own inner life. As we welcome those parts of ourselves that bring guilt and shame, as we stop fighting those tendencies and instead look at them without shame or fear and embrace them, then we experience an inner softening that slowly replaces our inner stress.

And in our relationships with others, we find the same.

“You are the salt of the earth.” Salt doesn’t make food taste like salt. It makes things taste more fully like themselves, it draws out hidden flavor. And if we have made peace with our own humanity, our light and shadow together, we tend to bring out the same in people around us. The presence of one who has embraced his or her flaws and darker energy is a softened, non-judgmental presence. Such a person draws out courage in others to follow the same path and find themselves softening with compassion and tenderness.

“You are the light of the world.” This is not the light of moral perfection. This is the warm glow where one’s whole house is lit with patience, kindness, and love—even the basement and the garage, where we used to banish our darker energy. This softer light allows others to tell the truth about themselves, and makes a healing path easier to see.

This is the righteousness that exceeds that of the rule-followers. Christ, our true life, does not send our darker side to the garage or the basement. Our Christ life showers its attention and embrace on the good and the bad alike; we embrace our humanity; our darker energy begins to transform; we become salt and light.

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Here’s a poem to accompany my reflection:

"The Guest House"

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (1207-1273) 
translation by Coleman Barks in The Essential Rumi

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^[1] Thanks to my friend Landy Anderton (noted therapist in Raleigh, NC) for this analogy.