Do you eat too much salt? Not enough? Are you getting enough light during the rainy winter days? Salt and light are important. And ‘Salty fasting and Light living’…also have implications for our spiritual living as well.
Over these past two weeks, we have been listening carefully. Last we hosted the prophet Micah’s great question: “What does the Lord require of you?” Not more spectacle. Not louder religion. But to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. The week before, we heard Jesus call the ordinary. Fishers working at the shore: “Come and Follow me.” Two voices of our call: the voice that gathers us in and the voice that sends.
Today, we come to the natural conclusion of our journey. And we have listened to our call well (as the faithful)… and we have also responded well. The question next becomes ‘what kind of people are we becoming?’ And to this question of our becoming, Jesus answers: Salt and Light. Isaiah answers that we are becoming those who loose the bonds that enslave; share our bread; satisfy the afflicted. This morning, we ponder: Salty discipleship & Light living.
As we ponder this morning’s text, I suspect, both texts make us very uncomfortable. Isaiah 58 opens with a scene that feels surprisingly modern. The people are religious. They seek God daily. They delight to know God’s ways. They fast. They pray. They assemble. And yet God asks, “Why do you fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, yet we do not notice?” It is the cry of the disappointed. “God, we did the proper things. Why aren’t you responding?” And through the prophet, God answers with unsettling clarity: “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers.” You fast, but you quarrel. You humble yourselves outwardly, but injustice continues around you.
In other words: worship has not touched economics. Piety has not reshaped relationships. Fasting has not interrupted exploitation. And God says something shocking: I am not interested in your displays. True fasting, Isaiah teaches, is not about bowed heads and empty stomachs alone. It is about untying the cords of injustice. Sharing bread with the hungry. Bringing the homeless, and the poor into our home. Clothing the naked. Proper fasting is not private deprivation. It is public reorientation. And when that happens, Isaiah describes how this might look: “Then your light shall break forth like the dawn.” There is that word again. Light. A call to light living.
Now fast forward centuries later. Jesus stands on a hillside in Galilee. We sat at the hillside last Sunday listening to the beginning of the Beatitudes. Jesus has blessed the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers. He has sketched the outline of a new kind of community. And then he says to those listening…not the powerful, not the elite, but to the ordinary: “YOU are the salt of the earth… YOU are the light of the world.” Hear this as Jesus spoke it. He does not say “try to become.” Or “aspire to be.” Jesus says YOU are. “You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world.” Take that in for just a moment. Consider how you are being transformed as salt and light…
Salt has a deep meaning in the ancient world. Far beyond that seasoning in our shakers. Salt preserved what would otherwise decay. Salt enhanced flavor. It healed wounds. Without it, food spoiled. Life was diminished. Salt was deeply important for the preservation of life and healing. Light is equally important. Light reveals what was hidden. Light guides travelers in the dark. Light makes life possible. Light was the beginning point of our Epiphany season as the wise ones followed the brightest light towards Christ. Jesus is teaching that discipleship is not decorative. Our salty, light filled discipleship is essential for the unfolding Kingdom of God.
But there is a warning: salt can lose its saltiness. Light can be hidden. In other words, it is possible to be religious and yet ineffective. Present and yet powerless. Visible and yet irrelevant. That is one place where Isaiah and Jesus meet. Because Isaiah is, in essence, describing salt that has lost its saltiness. Worship that does not preserve justice. Fasting that does not flavor compassion. Religion that does not illuminate oppression. And Jesus says: that will NOT do.
Going back two weeks ago, we pondered the meaning of faith: “A Listening Faith… A Living Faith.” Micah told us what God requires. Jesus in the Beatitudes told us what that life looks like from the inside. Poverty of spirit. Mercy. Peacemaking. A hunger and thirst for righteousness. Now…Jesus tells us what that life looks like from the outside: Salt. Light. Visible goodness that leads others to glorify God. There is something deeply communal here. Salt does not exist for itself. Light does not shine for its own sake. Both exist for others. Disciples exist for others. As Jesus’ disciples we exist for others! The temptation for the church in every age has always been to to turn inward. To measure faithfulness by attendance, and budgets, and by how carefully we preserve our internal traditions. Look at how well we are doing! But Isaiah interrupts that part of our human nature. Jesus interrupts it. Proper fasting is not merely self-improvement. Proper fasting is self-offering. Salty discipleship is not one’s personal spiritual growth. It begins there; however, it MUST be embodies as public, and lived, in the world.
And if we didn’t think they could, things get even more challenging Jesus says: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Wow! How did you hear that verse? You might think of these strictly pious religious officials and wonder ‘how can I live an even more pious life than them?’ Except, that is NOT how Jesus meant it to be understood. Quite the opposite. It is NOT a call to stricter rule-keeping. It is a call to deeper integration of faith and life. The scribes and the Pharisees were serious about the law. But they only made it halfway. Jesus insists that righteousness must move beyond one’s outward signs of worship. It must move into our internal transformation…as we become salt and light for the kingdom!
Isaiah and Jesus say it plainly: God is not hungry for our rituals. God is hungry for our righteousness. Not self-righteousness. Not moral superiority. But right-relatedness…relations with God and neighbor. Salty faith and light shining from our faithful living. And this is where salty discipleship becomes concrete. Salt stings when it touches a wound. And justice often stings when it confronts comfortable systems. Light exposes what we might prefer to remain hidden. So these questions become very personal: Where has our faith grown bland? Personally…as a denomination? Where have we covered the lamp? Personally…and as a denomination? It may not look like dramatic oppression. It may look like quiet indifference. I recall several months ago, when a member of our congregation was in his final stages of life and I invited others to accompany me and serenade him with some of our beloved hymns. We met and stood outside. A few chuckled ‘what might the neighbours think?’ And we collectively agreed that maybe they will hear the living sound of faith in the neighbourhood blessing someone as they prepare for the next. Salty fasting and Light living look so many ways. But the common thread shared is they look like embodied faith. They are faith in action as we are each called and able to allow God’s Kin-dom to unfold as we are called and able.
We notice: good works are not for applause. They are doxology…they are worship. They lead others to glorify God. Justice is worship extended into the street. Compassion is liturgy lived beyond the sanctuary. Fasting, rightly practiced, makes space — not merely in our stomachs, but in our schedules, in our budgets, in our attention — for the needs of others. And sometimes our worship takes us beyond the four walls of the sanctuary. My daughter will rarely ever attend a church service. Christmas Eve as a family with sushi after…yes! But on any given Sunday it would be an unusual pattern for her. People ask me if I feel like a failure as a father. A daughter who doesn’t attend worship every Sunday. And then I explain what faith looks like in her expression. Her growth led her towards a passion for justice. And as she got older, it came to centre upon justice and reconciliation with Indigenous nations. By her early 20’s, she saw this as a vocational call. And as she works her way through law school, this has been her expression of becoming part of the generation who will bring justice, reconciliation and peace in this area. We have wonderful theological conversations and she has a deep respect for the church and an even deeper reverence for the expression of her call to justice and reconciliation.
Salty fasting and light living will not always be dramatic. Salt works quietly. Light often shines dimly. But Jesus is clear: it matters. Because when salt loses its saltiness, decay accelerates. When light is hidden, stumbling increases. The church does not exist to admire its own brightness. It exists to be a shining Christ light!
Salty fasting and light living. The call of the church and the call of each and every part of it. May it be so.
Amen.