As a student in the 1980’s I went on a tour of communist Russia. Visiting a shop, I recall staring in disbelief at the butchery display, which consisted of rolls of fat with tiny flecks of meat through it, and very little else. But what caught my eye were shelves heaving with pretty, patterned boxes, all different designs and colours all with beautiful Cyrillic writing creeping across the pack.

The number of boxes was staggering and stood in stark contrast to the lack of much else to buy, not only that, but they were cheap, just a few kopecks each. My friend Annie and I stood gazing and wondering what on earth could be inside each box, and we figured that as the boxes were so attractive the contents must be too, and went ahead to purchase a couple each.

Well of course, opening them up, we soon realised that we had managed to buy ourselves some Russian salt! Two heavy boxes to carry all the way back to England! But why so much in one shop? Why package it so beautifully? Why was it so important?

In our Gospel reading we might think we’ve found the answer as Jesus tells us that we are the salt of the earth; we, you and me, each and every one of us, we are all the salt of the earth and clearly, we are precious, but why salt?

Salt is a preservative and a flavouring; it can transform food from boring and plain and bring flavours alive. When it’s mixed with food it pervades through every bit of the food – as the salt of God’s earth how are we going to go out and bring a flavour of Christ to those we meet, and enable that message and love to pervade though our communities?

Salt can’t work its magic sitting in the cupboard, it needs to be used – sparingly and carefully – but it must be used, sprinkled and mixed in to make a difference! Are we the same? Can we make a difference sitting in our comfy homes? Or by coming to church each week if we don’t share where we’ve been, with others? Probably not. In those few words, Jesus has tasked us to go out and about, to mix with people, giving a flavour of what it is like living a Christian life and helping to transform the life of others as we allow space for God to enter in.

What about salt as a preservative? If we can share faith with even a small amount of people, particularly if we do this by practical action, we will help to preserve and sustain the kingdom, helping to maintain positive morals.

Jesus suggests that salt might lose its saltiness, but of course it never does. However, it can be weakened by contamination with other things. Can we, the ones Jesus has called salt, risk letting the message of God’s love become contaminated with all the uncertainty and horror happening in our world? In fact that message of the good news, is probably more important now, in this time we are living in, with all that is going on.

But how can we do this? Well Jesus tells us that we also need to be the light. We need to undertake good deeds and let God’s light shine out for all to see, so that all will praise God. We can put our light on the lampstand, shining out for all to see and bring light into other people’s darkness, helping make things better; why on earth would we want to hide our light if it can help others? In our Old Testament reading, we see the line: Then your light shall break forth like the dawn. As Christians that light is inside us all of the time, imagine it ‘breaking forth’ like a sunrise, bubbling over for all to see each time we do something helpful or chat to someone about God! How wonderfully exciting!

This teaching that Jesus gives to his disciples, and of course that includes us, intends for this to be a way of life, our mission in the world. If we can simply get into the holy habit of shining God out of us by undertaking social action or talking openly about our church life, or our relationship with God, we can be natural seed planters shining our light – God’s light – into the darkness of others. Imagine life with every Christian going around shining their light into the lives of others, our world would look and feel quite different! Jesus said ‘A city built on a hill cannot be hid.’ We can’t remain a secret society, coming to church, mixing with each other, facing inward. We must be witnesses for God, shining light into our communities.

Towards the end of the reading from Isaiah we’re given some very direct advice about how to live our lives. It asks us not to point the finger or speak evil, or to add to the burden of others – but surely we don’t do that, do we? Maybe we need to stop and think, we’d all like to think that we live kind, benevolent lives, but sin gets in – people upset us, often without knowing it and we can be quick to react.

Maybe taking the advice to ‘offer food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted’ is where we should start, as we read again about that wonderful light that is shone when good deeds are done. And we’ve all got the perfect opportunity to do this right here on our own doorstep by offering to volunteer, as many of us already do, at the Community Hub that’s run here, or through chill and chat. This reading tells us that our light shall rise in the darkness and our gloom will be like the middle of the day – bright mid-day sunshine dispelling the darkness and helping us to feel good inside as we help others, like a deep joy right down in our soul. Helping others always has a positive effect on us too!

But it isn’t as simple as just meeting need, God wants us to give of ourselves in selfless love, to give from the depths of our soul. This is true transformation and God is there to support us in this, if only we yield to him and follow his guidance, his promises are guaranteed.

What do these promises look like? Towards the end of our reading, we are told that the Lord will guide us continually, He will satisfy our needs in parched places, strengthen our bones and water us like a garden, like a spring whose waters never fail! Wow, what an incredible promise!

And this is a guaranteed promise if we can allow God to transform us as we learn to trust and follow his guidance in all of our lives.

Service: Reverend Rebecca Yates –5th February 2023

Referenced Scripture: Isaiah 58.1-9a, Psalm 112, 1 Corinthians 2.1-12, Matthew 5.13-20