5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 58:7-10; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; Matthew 5:13-16

The image of America as “a city on a hill”
enjoys bi-partisan approval in our public discourse.
Ronald Regan, in his final address to the nation in 1989,
said, “I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life.”
Barack Obama, speaking on 2006 while still a Senator,
said of the Pilgrim settlers of New England,
“they dreamed of building a City upon a Hill.
And the world watched, waiting to see
if this improbable idea called America would succeed.”
The image of the city on the hill is evoked to speak of
what is sometimes called “American exceptionalism”—
the idea that our nation’s unique experiment in democracy
bestows on it an almost messianic mission
to be a beacon of freedom,
bringing light to those in darkness.

The source of this image
is a sermon preached in 1630 by the Puritan John Winthrop
to the pilgrims departing England for the New World.
He told them, “wee must Consider that wee shall be
as a Citty upon a Hill,
the eies of all people are upon us.”
It is worth noting that Winthrop’s sermon
and its image of a city on a hill
lay forgotten for centuries,
being revived only in the mid-twentieth century,
during the Cold War,
to underscore the unique value of American democracy
in the struggle against totalitarianism.
But, of course, John Winthrop, in 1630,
had no idea about the Cold War.
Indeed, in 1630 he had no idea
about the United States of America,
which would not exist for another 150 years.

So what was he speaking about?
In speaking of a city on the hill,
he is referring not to a nation
that would one day emerge on this continent,
but to the words Jesus address to his followers
in today’s Gospel,
which our translation renders as,
“A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.”
Winthrop invokes these words
to remind the small group of Christians
setting out to establish a colony
based on Christian principles of justice, mercy, and love
that the world would be watching them
to see if they could in fact live by those principles.
For Winthrop, what would make this little community
become a shining city on a hill
is the justice and mercy that they show to their neighbors
and the love that binds them together as Christ’s body.
He quotes in his sermon the very same passage from Isaiah
that we have read this morning:
“Share your bread with the hungry,
shelter the oppressed and the homeless;
clothe the naked when you see them,
and do not turn your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn….
and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.”
Though they certainly failed at times to reach this ideal,
particularly in regard to their native neighbors,
this was the standard by which they wished to be judged.

As our national politics grow ever more fractious and more brutal,
and we are tempted to anger or hatred or despair or apathy,
it is good to recall the true meaning of the phrase “a city on the hill.”
The city on the hill is no earthly nation, but is the body of Christ:
it is those disciples who have been knit together by the Spirit’s grace
into a living organism animated by justice, mercy, and love;
it is God’s pilgrim city journeying through time to our eternal rest.
As much as we may rightly love our earthly homeland,
as much as we might value its democratic institutions,
we should never confuse the United States of America
with the true city on the hill.
As much as we may love our country,
it is, like all nations, at its best
a place of temporary and relative justice.
And, perhaps paradoxically, we serve our country best
if we do not confuse our love for it
with our loyalty to our true homeland,
God’s heavenly city.

Only if our hope is rooted in something
that transcends the empires and nations
built on the shifting sands of this world
can we find the justice, mercy, and love that we need
in order to care for the public things of our earthly life
without succumbing to bitterness in our losses
of vindictiveness in our victories.
Only if we obey Paul’s injunction to fix our hearts
on Jesus Christ and him crucified
will we be able to free ourselves from the partisan hatreds
that perpetually tear this world apart;
only if we commit ourselves to Jesus’s way of the cross
will we be able to show the watching world
the power and wisdom of self-sacrificing love.
If we who claim the name Christian remove from our midst
oppression, false accusation and malicious speech;
if we bestow our bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
then light shall rise for us in the darkness
and we can be,
in fear and trembling at our weakness
but in hope and confidence in God’s power,
light for which the world in darkness waits.
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Video of this homily.

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 58:7-10; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; Matthew 5:13-16

There is a word that scares many Catholics: “evangelization.”
We associate it with people going door-to-door,
disturbing innocent people’s Saturday afternoons with talk of God,
or with co-workers who always want to tell you
about their personal relationship with Jesus.
We tend to think of it a bit of intrusive over-sharing,
not unlike parents (usually the father, for some reason)
who want to tell you the graphic details
of the birth of their child
or perhaps their child’s latest adventures in potty-training.
“Look, I know this is an important thing in your life,
but I don’t really need a blow-by-blow recounting of it.”

Yet in today’s Gospel Jesus tells his disciples
that they are the light of the world,
and that they are not to hide their light
under a bushel basket.
Now normally when we use that phrase –
“hiding your light under a bushel” –
we are referring to those
who keep hidden their abilities and achievements .
But that is not what it means here;
it is not about hiding the good things we have done,
but about hiding the good things God has done in and through us.
“You are the light of the world…
Your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father.”
Our light is always a reflected light,
a light that has its source
in the glory of God that has shone upon us.
Moreover, the good news about God that we are called to share
is not merely good news for us personally,
like the birth of our child
or the joyous day when little John or Mary
finally uses the potty.
It is good news for all people:
the good news of God’s love for the world,
revealed in the saving life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
and in the sending of the Holy Spirit into our hearts.
One can hardly over-share such news.
As Pope Francis wrote recently,
“if we have received the love
which restores meaning to our lives,
how can we fail
to share that love with others?” (Evangelii Gaudium 8)

Jesus makes it clear that if we are to be his followers
we must share the light of the good news we have received,
but he also makes it clear that our sharing of this good news
is inseparable from the witness of our lives.
“Your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds…”
Of course, this does not mean
that we simply do good deeds and leave it at that,
which I think is perhaps the strongest temptation for many of us.
Talk about religion is awkward.
But if we are to give a truthful account of our lives
at some point we must commit the embarrassing social faux pas
of using the words “God” and “Jesus.”
At the same time, those words will only be interesting to anyone else,
will only seem like something other than intrusive over-sharing,
if they are linked to a life that shows forth the power of faith.
To quote Pope Francis again, “all religious teaching
ultimately has to be reflected in the teacher’s way of life,
which awakens the assent of the heart
by its nearness, love and witness” (Evangelii Gaudium 42).
We need both words and actions –
and actions that match our words.

With regard to actions:
the prophet Isaiah, in our first reading,
casts light on the kinds of actions
that show forth God’s glory:
“Share your bread with the hungry,
shelter the oppressed and the homeless;
clothe the naked when you see them,
and do not turn your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn…”
Acts of mercy and compassion toward the poor and oppressed
are one of the chief ways in which our lives reflect the glory of God,
because they reflect the way in which God
has dealt with us in Jesus Christ.
To quote again the eminently quotable Pope Francis,
“Jesus’ whole life, his way of dealing with the poor,
his actions, his integrity,
his simple daily acts of generosity,
and finally his complete self-giving, is precious
and reveals the mystery of his divine life” (Evangelii Gaudium 265).
Perhaps nothing speaks more eloquently to the world
of the mercy and love that God has shown to us
than the acts of mercy and love
that we show to those most in need.

With regard to words:
in our second reading St. Paul says to the Christians of Corinth:
“When I came to you… proclaiming the mystery of God,
I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom.
For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you
except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling…”
Paul did not arrive in Corinth
with complex arguments or fine speeches,
but speaking of his own experience of suffering,
his own experience of neediness,
his own experience of new life found through faith in Jesus.
To share the good news of God’s work in our lives
we don’t need words like “hypostatic union” or “transubstantiation”
(as much as I personally love such words)
but words like “God”
and “Jesus”
and “cross”
and “resurrection.”
Indeed, we don’t need stories
of our achievements or good deeds,
but stories of how God
has sustained us in our own neediness.
It is in confessing our own weakness,
our own struggle,
our own need for the grace of faith,
that we bear witness to the power of God.

To give good Pope Francis a final word:
“we are called to be living sources of water
from which others can drink.
At times, this becomes a heavy cross,
but it was from the cross, from his pierced side,
that our Lord gave himself to us as a source of living water.
Let us not allow ourselves
to be robbed of hope!” (Evangelii Gaudium 86)
And let us also not allow others to be robbed of that hope;
rather, by both our actions and our words,
let us always be ready to give them
an account of the hope that is in us.

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 58:7-10; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; Matthew 5:13-16

Salt has been on my mind this week.

Not only has it been all over our streets,

melting ice and messing up our cars,

and not only do the new dietary guidelines

released by the federal government

say that we Americans,

in addition to consuming too much fat and sugar,

consume too much salt,

but it is also a central image

in this week’s Gospel reading.

Jesus tells his followers

that they are “the salt of the earth,”

evoking a whole web of associations

that human beings have with salt.

Salt is almost certainly the oldest seasoning

used by the human race:

we have archeological evidence of facilities

for the refining of salt

as early as 6000 BC.

Of course, salt was used for more

than making Neolithic french-fries tastier:

salting was for many centuries

the only way we had to preserve food from decay and corruption.

Salt was, in fact, so valuable

that a wide variety of cultures have used it for religious purposes:

in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome

salt mixed with water was offered to the gods;

in ancient Israel,

salt was included in grain offerings and burnt offerings;

salt was used to purify and to exorcise,

but it also symbolized the table fellowship of a shared meal.

So when Jesus tells his followers

that they are the salt of the earth,

he is, as is the case with any good metaphor,

saying a number of things at the same time.

True disciples give our world its savor;

they are the element preserving the world

from decay and corruption;

they are an offering to God;

they are a foretaste of the day

when humanity will be gathered around the table

in God’s kingdom.

But, having told them that they are salt,

Jesus also warns them:

“if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?

It is no longer good for anything

but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

If the disciples of Jesus lose their power to season and preserve

then they are useless,

they have no purpose,

and, like salt with no flavor, they will be cast aside.

We ought to be careful here, however.

We cannot simply assume that because we see someone

cast out and trampled underfoot

that he or she is salt that has lost its taste

and become worthless.

Remember that Jesus is saying this

immediately after telling his disciples

“Blessed are they who are persecuted

for the sake of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

For Jesus, it is precisely those who,

in the eyes of the world,

have been cast out and trampled underfoot,

who are the true salt of the earth,

who give life its savor,

who preserve the world from decay and corruption.

In our second reading, Paul tells the Corinthians,

“I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling,”

not bringing with him words of human wisdom

but only his faith in Christ crucified,

Christ outcast ,

Christ trampled underfoot.

And it is only in this way

that we can proclaim the Gospel of grace.

This completely turns the logic of the world upside down.

Those whom the world might think of as failures,

who are willing to be persecuted for the sake of righteousness,

are the true salt of the earth

and possessors of the kingdom of heaven.

Earlier this week I saw a remarkable photograph

taken in Cairo’s Tahrir Square,

where anti-government demonstrations in Egypt

have been centered.

A large number of Muslim demonstrators kneel in the square,

performing the prayer that Muslims make five times a day.

They are encircled by a protective perimeter

formed by Coptic Christians

who stand with hands joined to ensure

that their fellow protesters

are not disturbed or attacked as they pray.

These Coptic Christians are a minority in Egypt,

and at times have been persecuted by their fellow Egyptians,

perhaps even by some of the very people they are now protecting.

But, by their actions,

they show themselves willing to look beyond that history

because they recognize the cause of righteousness

and are willing to risk, quite literally,

being cast out and trampled underfoot.

It is by actions such as this that the disciples of Jesus

show themselves to be the salt of the earth,

a light that gives light to all the world.

It is those who fear and flee

the persecution that often accompanies discipleship

who are the salt that has lost its flavor

and must be cast aside.

Saint Augustine wrote that

we should not fear being trampled underfoot in this world

as long as our spirit is rooted in heaven

(The Lord’s Sermon on the Mount 1.6);

For it is our being rooted in God

that allows us to live as Jesus’ disciples,

to embrace the risk of being persecuted for righteousness sake,

and to be the salt that flavors and preserves the world.