When I was a young lad, one of the things I always wanted was a chemistry set. Unfortunately for me, I was never allowed to have one mainly, I think, because my parents were worried about what I might do with it, what foul smelling concoctions I might make with it and fill the house with, as my dad said on more than one occasion. So I had to content myself with doing chemistry at school. I did enjoy doing chemistry but, like lots of things we learn, I’ve never used or done any chemistry since I left school and so now about all I can remember about it are a few chemical formulas. Things like H2O, the formula for water, CO2, carbon dioxide, H2SO4, sulphuric acid, and NaCl, sodium chloride.
That last substance, sodium chloride, is a very interesting one. As I’m sure many of you will know, it’s a compound of two elements which, in themselves are particularly nasty and dangerous. Sodium, a metal that burns and causes an explosion when it comes into contact with water. And chlorine, a poisonous gas that was used as a chemical weapon in the First World War. But if these two rather nasty elements are combined in the right way, they form something that’s not only very useful but that’s actually essential to life because, as I’m sure many of you will also know, sodium chloride is better known as salt.
In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that they’re the “salt of the earth”, and that’s a really good metaphor for the Church. Just like salt, the Church is a compound, a mixture of different elements, people in this case, with different properties, different gifts and abilities, who come together to give the world something that’s essential to life. In the case of the Church, the different elements come together to bring the Gospel to the world. The way the truth and the life that Jesus taught, that helps us in this life and is essential if we want to inherit eternal life. So, as I say, salt is a very good metaphor for the Church and the deeper we look it, the better it becomes.
Salt is made up of two elements which, in themselves can be dangerous. They have properties that are useful to us, but they have properties that can make them very harmful to us. And in the same way, the people who make up the Church have gifts and talents that are very useful to the Church and to the lives of others, but they also have faults that are not so helpful, either to the Church or to other people. We’re all like that aren’t we, a mixture of good properties and bad properties? But just as sodium and chlorine, when they’re combined in the right way and in the right measure can create something good and essential to life, so if we in the Church can come together in the right way, if we can combine our gifts and our faults in the right way, we can become something that’s good and essential to the world and to life.
Just think of Jesus’ disciples, those people whom he chose to make up the early Church. Peter, for example. If ever there was a disciple who was a mixture of the good and not so good, Peter must be the one. He was impetuous, he spoke without thinking, and acted in the same way. He thought he knew better than Jesus at times. He said he’d die for Jesus and was ready to take up arms to stop Jesus being arrested but then, when he’d had time to think about things and realised the danger he might be in, he said he didn’t even know who Jesus was. But he was chosen to lead the Church.
Or how about the brothers, James and John? Boanerges, Jesus called them, ‘Sons of Thunder.’ And it’s not surprising, when the people of a Samaritan village didn’t welcome Jesus, James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven to destroy them. And they were ambitious too; they wanted to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand in glory. But they were both totally committed to Christ.
Or Nathanael, honest as the day is long but a sceptic. When Philip told him they’d found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, Nathanael’s response was ‘Nazareth! Can anything good come from Nazareth?’
Or Paul, perhaps the greatest of all the Apostles, certainly the one who did more than any other to help the Church grow from it’s Jewish origins into the worldwide Church it became. But, on the evidence of his letters and early descriptions we have of him, argumentative and hot-tempered.
These were the people Jesus himself chose to build up the Church and take the Gospel into the world. They weren’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, they all had their good points, but they all had their faults too. We call them saints, holy people, but not because they were perfect examples of what it means to be Christians. We call them saints because they were dedicated to God and to Christ despite their faults. And because they were dedicated, even though they fell out and argued at times, and the Scriptures tell us they did that, they were able to come together and be the salt of the earth Jesus called them to be. They were able to use their good properties, their gifts and talents, and overcome their bad properties, their faults, so that they could give the world what it needed, the light of the Gospel.
And it’s the same for us today. We’re called to be the salt of the earth in the time and place that we’ve been given to live in. And we have the same problem to deal with, that we have to come together and overcome our faults so that we can use our gifts and abilities to give the world what it still so badly needs today, the way, the truth and the life that Christ came to teach us and that will lead us to eternal life.
It’s not easy though, and one of the stories I like to tell to show how hard it can be is about an argument that took place at a PCC meeting in a parish I once lived in. The Sunday before the meeting we’d had a baptism in church during the morning Mass and we’d had a problem with the baptism party. After the baptism, a few children were running around, making quite a lot of noise while the adults simply sat there talking and ignoring what the children were up to.
At the meeting, one of the churchwardens proposed that we, as a PCC, should make it a policy of the parish that, if children were being unruly during services, their parents should be asked to keep them under control and, if they didn’t, they should be told that they’d have to leave church. I objected to that, as a policy, on the grounds of the damage that would do to the Church. We were trying to encourage people, especially young people and children to come to church but if we started telling people to keep their kids quiet or leave, we’d never see them again, and they’d very likely tell their family, friends and neighbours what a miserable lot we are and tell them not to come to our church either. The warden didn’t take very kindly to me disagreeing with him and he said,
“Well, all I can say is that the Church is better off without some people and if that’s how you feel, perhaps you’re one of them!”
I really didn’t know what to say to that and I just looked at the warden, shook my head, and started laughing, which pleased the warden even less. And then everyone joined in. Everyone shouting at the same time, one or two in support of the warden’s policy but most, it must be said, in support of what I’d said, and everyone against the warden’s comments about the Church being better off without me. And after a few minutes of that, the warden said,
“It sounds to me as though it’s me you don’t want in church!”
But no one was saying that. People did want him because he was very passionate and committed to the church. What they were saying was that, in this case, they thought he was wrong; he hadn’t thought through the consequences of what he was suggesting and his comments to me were both wrong and totally uncalled for. But his response to that was to stand up and say,
“Well if people aren’t going to listen to me, as a churchwarden, and they’re not going to do what I say, I don’t see the point in being a warden, so I resign!”
And with that he walked out of the meeting. He did subsequently calm down and carry on as churchwarden, and he was much more prudent when he spoke after that, both in terms of what he thought the parish should do and in the way he responded to people who disagreed with him.
But there’s so much in that incident that’s reminiscent of what we see in Jesus’ disciples. Speaking without thinking, being bad-tempered and argumentative, raining down fire and brimstone on those who disagree with us, wanting to be in charge, and demanding that everyone else recognises that we’re in charge.
These are the bad properties that people have, and these are some of the faults that we bring to the mix when we’re part of the Church. But we have to work together to overcome all these bad properties so that we can use the good properties we have, the gifts and talents that we all have, and the passion and commitment we have, for the good of the Church, to build it up so that we can be the salt of the earth that Jesus calls us to be. It isn’t easy because one of the bad properties we all have to some degree is that
we all like to have our own way. But in the Church there’s only one way, and it’s not our own, it’s Christ’s way.
The Church is going through difficult times at the moment, we all know that, but I have no doubt whatsoever that these times are being made worse because so many people in the Church want their own way, regardless of whether their way is Christ’s way or not. And they’re prepared to argue and fall out with those who disagree with them. They’re prepared to call down fire and brimstone to destroy, in a sense, those who disagree with them, to silence them, even if that means kicking them out of the Church. As we look at the Church, I think it looks more like a dangerous and toxic jumble of elemental sodium and chlorine, rather than a balanced compound of sodium chloride. In its arguments about who’s right and who’s wrong, who’s in charge and who should either just shut up and do as their told or leave, the Church is in danger of losing it’s taste, it’s saltiness. And what will it be good for if that happens?
But we can at least play our part in making sure that the Church here, in our parishes, in that part of the world where we are, is the salt of the earth. We can do our best to overcome our faults so the we can combine our gifts and talents for the good of the Church in this place. We can, as Jesus put it,
“Have salt in ourselves, and be at peace with one another”
so that we can be the salt of that that part of the earth that God has given us to enlighten with Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Propers for the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time (3 before Lent) 5th February 2023
Entrance Antiphon
Come, let us worship the Lord.
Let us bow down in the presence of our maker, for he is the Lord our God.
The Collect
Almighty God,
who alone can bring order to the unruly wills and passions of sinful humanity:
give your people grace so to love what you command,
and to desire what you promise,
that, among the many changes of this world,
our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)
Isaiah 58:7-10
Psalm 112:4-9
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Matthew 5:13-16
RCL (St Gabriel’s)
Isaiah 58:1-12
Psalm 112:1-10
1 Corinthians 2:1-16
Matthew 5:13-20
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 