Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Eric Searcy remarks on each of today’s Scripture readings. Through Isaiah 58:7-10, he ponders human difference, its implications for how we treat each other, and God’s grace and love for all. He reflects upon Biblical leadership and God-given strength with Corinthians 2:1-5, and the meaning of being the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world” from Matthew 5:13-16.

Reading 1, Isaiah 58: 7-10

7.  Is it not sharing your food with the hungry, and sheltering the homeless poor, if you see someone lacking clothes, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own kin?

8.  Then your light will blaze out like the dawn and your wound will be quickly healed over.  Saving justice will go ahead of you and Yahweh’s glory come behind you.

9.  Then you will cry for help and Yahweh will answer; you will call and he will say “I am here.”  If you do away with the yolk, the clenched fist and malicious words,

10.  if you deprive yourself for the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, your light will rise in the darkness, and your darkest hour will be like noon.

My friend Steve, in his 30s, is a marathon runner.  He can run up mountains and not stop.  And he does it all in good spirits, able to laugh and talk while running!  On the other hand, I hate running.  I’m 69 now, never liked running and was no good at it, even in high school.  But I do like to walk.  So sometimes Steve and I walk together.

I can easily see how someone like Steve could look at somebody like me and think, wow, what a lazy slug I am.  “If only he worked harder at it and applied himself, he could do what I do,” Steve might say.  Yet, he’s never said that.  He just good-naturedly walks with me at a pace I can manage, and we talk and laugh, even going up mountains!  He actually told me once that walking up mountains was harder for him than running them.

Why am I not a marathon runner?  Why don’t I run up mountains?  Does it indicate a defective work ethic?  A lack of self-discipline, perhaps?  Just a generally inferior character, maybe?  Or do age and genetics have something to do with it?

We live in a culture that celebrates initiative, hard work, and self-sufficiency.  Those are all virtues, certainly.  Yet, over-awareness of one’s own strengths could easily lead one to believe that anyone can (or should) be able to do what we do.  But maybe they don’t have the same gifts – physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual – that we have.  Perhaps they started their marathons, or mountain climbs (or Caminos), in different places than we did.  Possibly, they even exert themselves more than we do, yet for whatever reason, they have less to show for their efforts.

American writer Charles Warner once said, “What small potatoes we all are, compared to what we might be.”   God could easily think that of us all.  Yet, I believe as part of Creation, we are all precious and beloved, just as we are.  If that is so, ought we not to look upon our fellow creatures – our kin, broadly speaking – with comparable gentleness, appreciation, and compassion?  When someone needs a helping hand and reaches out to us, can we ignore them?  Should we walk away from our own needful kin?  Who’s our kin, you ask?  That ‘60’s song said it best: “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”

In this New Year, I will aim to extend to others the patience and generosity of spirit Steve has shown to me and as God shows to us all.

Reading 2, Corinthians 2: 1-5

1.  Now when I came to you, brothers, I did not come with any brilliance of oratory or wise argument to announce to you the mystery of God.

2.  I was resolved that the only knowledge I would have while I was with you was knowledge of Jesus, and of him as the crucified Christ.

3.  I came among you in weakness, in fear and great trembling.

4.  and what I spoke and proclaimed was not meant to convince by philosophical argument, but to demonstrate the convincing power of the Spirit,

5.  so that your faith should depend not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

Paul always struck me as a leader.  I imagine crowds listening with rapt attention to him talk.  From Scriptural accounts, I feel immediacy and conviction in his words.  Truly he had power, he knew it and he wielded it without hesitation.  He didn’t just point with the sword of truth, so to speak, he wasn’t afraid to swing that sword as well.

So how then does Paul come off in this reading as so modest and unassuming?  Even kind of meek, don’t you think?  I always thought of him as a heroic spiritual titan, but here he sounds more like Francis of Assisi.  He came to the people in “weakness, fear and trembling?”  What?  Was he being disingenuous?  It all makes me think of the nature of strength.  

Some people express their strength through obvious displays of might.  Mike Tyson didn’t win prize fights by sitting quietly in his corner and sharing pithy insights on the nature of violence with opponents over cups of Gatorade.  He did his best to demolish his opponents.  Football teams don’t serenely strive to share the football equally – they want to crush the other team, own the football, and win the game.

But then I think of others who manifested strength differently.  Steven Hawking was severely disabled, yet his ideas on the nature of existence resound around the world.  Nelson Mandela arguably grew in strength and stature through years of captivity, culminating in his election to the presidency of his country.   Mother Teresa – small, unassuming, soft voiced – commanded the attention of world leaders.  Clearly, the strength and power of these people had nothing to do with force of their own.  Their strengths were rooted in things above and beyond themselves.

It might be that that’s how it was with Paul.  Maybe even he, like we all do sometimes, got to be a little full of himself and his own importance.  But the further he evolved, the more he grasped that the true strength was not himself but was the grandeur of the Divine.  Perhaps Paul realized, as it says in Isaiah, that he could “…do away with the yoke, the clenched fist and malicious words…” and only in that way could his light “rise in the darkness.”

When I was little, and was frightened by a nighttime lightning storm, my dad, Joe, would come to my room and hold me.  He’d say I didn’t need to be afraid, because it was the magnificence of God that I was being allowed to see.  A power vast, above and beyond me.  I’ll never forget that.

Gospel, Matthew 5:13-16

13.  You are salt for the earth.  But if salt loses its taste, what can make it salty again?  It is good for nothing, and can only be thrown out to be trampled under people’s feet. 

14.  You are light for the world.  A city built on a hilltop cannot be hidden. 

15.  No one lights a lamp to put it under a tub; they put it on the lampstand where it shines for everyone in the house. 

16.  In the same way your light must shine in people’s sight, so that, seeing your good works, they may give praise to your Father in heaven.

“Salt of the earth.”  That’s an expression you don’t hear often.  My Dad said that about people occasionally, always as the highest compliment.  Salt of the earth people were bedrock solid, substantial, genuine.  Maybe the closest expression to that now is to say somebody is “The Real Deal.”

This Scripture, like so many, is enigmatic to me.  I tend to think of people, places and things as having fundamental qualities that don’t change.  They are what they are, for better or worse.  So the idea that salt could stop tasting salty at first glance doesn’t make sense, does it?  But I looked it up, and sure enough, for different reasons, it is possible for salt to stop tasting salty.

Thinking about it more, there are multiple Biblical examples of people evolving into different identities.  Saul, riding to Damascus to kill Christians, became the Christian pillar Paul.  Peter, who swore allegiance to Christ, denied him repeatedly in the darkest hour.  The good thief at the crucifixion had a “death bed conversion.”  They all changed.

The Scripture goes on, though, with the analogy of how we’re all “light.”  And I infer that the light of us as described here is something permanent and inextinguishable.  But is that right?  You know perfectly well that it’s easy to put out a light.  Flip a switch and boom, the light goes out.  Blow out a candle, it’s gone.  Dump water on a campfire, all that’s left is smoke.

As I write, it occurs to me that whenever the light goes out – or comes on – it follows a choice to make a change.  Salt can lose its saltiness, if not paid attention to.  That would be an act of benign neglect, but still, it’s a choice.

Maybe deep down, we all have a kernel of pure goodness in us.   Some would call it our souls, or our spirits.  Whatever we call it, we cannot remove or destroy it.  But through choice, we can encumber and conceal that kernel of “light”, through hostile behavior, so that nobody else could see it.  Or, we could fan that flame of light in us, not so anybody else would pat us on the back, but simply because the Light impels us to live and act in a way that magnifies the light.  The light could be a lantern inside us, leading us to our true destinies.  It’s like the light itself wants to be known.

May I not extinguish my own light, but be mindful of it, and be solicitous of and responsive to this mysterious treasure I could never deserve, but was once given.  

Photo: Two people on a mountain, available in the public domain via Unsplash.