The Question Why

February 05, 2017

The Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany

 

I want to begin by talking to you about the question “why?” We start asking this question not long after we learn to speak. If any of you have spent time with toddlers, you know this to be true. Our whys get bigger and bigger until, eventually, as we reach adulthood, we ask the biggest whys of all—Why is the universe here? Why am I here? This wondering, this deep need for purpose and meaning—sets us apart in the animal kingdom. It’s what makes us human.  The great writer and thinker and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl reflected on his experience in the prison camps during WWII and he saw that those people who felt that their life had no purpose were the ones who died first. He saw a direct connection between a person’s sense of purpose and their ability to withstand suffering.

This “why”, embedded deep in our hearts from the beginning of our lives, is a holy gift. God has put this aching need for purpose and meaning into each one of us and, along with it, I believe, the responsibility for finding an answer.

Last week, in the text just before today’s Gospel, we heard Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount—blessed are those who hunger and thirst; blessed are those who have been wronged and have shown mercy; blessed are those who are in the midst of strife and make peace; blessed are those who are persecuted and reviled.

Today, Jesus is still seated on that mountain, looking out at people who are heartsick and downtrodden. And like all people under duress, they want to know “why?” Jesus has told them that God witnesses and honors their suffering. He tells them, “You have a holy purpose. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”  

Let’s take a minute to unpack what these phrases might have meant to Jesus’s contemporaries.

I think, despite our distance from Jesus’s listeners, we can still easily imagine what it might mean to be a light in darkness. If we are a candle or a lamp, then what is our purpose? No one lights a lamp if it is already light out. A candle or a lamp has to be willing to go into dark places. That’s where we are needed.

What does it mean to be salt?

In the ancient world, salt was a valued commodity. In fact, it was used as a form of payment for Roman soldiers; it is the root of our word “salary.” Specially constructed “salt roads” were built for the transportation of salt, and guarded by Roman soldiers. This is where we get our expression “to be worth your salt.” If we are salt, we are precious, worth protecting, and of real value.

Salt was also a purifier, a disinfectant. It was used as an antiseptic, to cleanse wounds and ward off germs. Even now, in parts of the world, newborn babies are rubbed with salt. If we are salt, then we need to be willing to go into places that are dirty, disgusting, and sick—those are the places that need cleansing and healing.

There was no refrigeration, so salt was used to preserve meat, to prevent it from spoiling and rotting. When Paul tells believers in Colossians that their speech should be “seasoned with salt,” he is telling them that their speech should be pure; he is also pointing to the potential power of speech to preserve community and keep it from disintegrating or spoiling. If we are salt, then we have to be willing to preserve and protect the good.

Farmers used salt. They sprinkled it on the soil to increase its yield. It had a stimulating property, much like fertilizer today. Farmers sprinkled salt on the earth the same way we still sprinkle salt on food—to strengthen and bring out the goodness that is already there. If we are salt, then we must look for ways to make God’s good world even better—to help it grow strong and bear fruit.

In addition to these everyday uses, salt was also used ritually. Anything sacrificed in the temple was salted before it was offered to the Lord. To “eat salt with someone”, that is, to share a meal with someone, was a sign of friendship, loyalty and commitment.  So, Israel’s salted sacrifices in the Temple were more than just an offering of appeasement and worship; they were a covenantal meal shared between God and his people. We read in Numbers: “All the holy offerings that the Israelites present to the Lord (are) a covenant of salt forever before the Lord for you and your descendants.” For Jesus and his listeners, salt is a sign of covenant fidelity and trust. *  If we are salt, then we must be willing to go into places where there is strife and mistrust, to make peace and to create a path towards trust and community.

Human beings crave not only salt and light; we crave meaning and purpose. God has put this hunger into our hearts, and God expects us to wrestle with that “why” and to take responsibility for answering it. If our responses are tepid, flavorless, or murky — if our salt that has lost its flavor or our light remains hidden under a bushel—we cannot serve God’s holy purpose and the world’s need.

If we think back for a moment to Genesis, and the Garden of Eden, we might say that humankind has been hungry for understanding since the very beginning. After eating the apple, Adam and Eve are sent out into the world and given tasks—to till the soil, to make more humans, to take care of the world. Adam and Eve must put their craving for knowledge to good purpose—to do things for themselves and for others.

Our lives are far removed from the life of a Galilean peasant. Human beings have accomplished much. The light of an oil lamp on a stand has given way to countless electrical wonders—strobe lights, night-vision goggles, and lifetime-guaranteed LED flashlights. Salt has given way to antiseptics, clean rooms, fertilizer, and contracts and lawyers. But even as our cultural context changes, and we lose some of the experiential potency of these ancient symbols, God’s call of purpose and meaning remains the same. We are still called to be salt—to cleanse and to heal, to make God’s good gifts even better by stimulating growth and fruitfulness; to commit ourselves faithfully to God and to one another. We are still called to be light-- to reveal truth, to reach out to others sitting in darkness, to guide and to give hope. 

And, like his first listeners, we can know that our work is holy, that our hardships are blessed, and that we are part of God’s good purpose. No matter how much our world changes, Jesus assures us that “not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from (God’s good purpose) until all is accomplished.”

Amen.