Light of the World

 Matthew 5:13-16  New International Version

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Salt and light:  The Bible tells us we should be both. Many churches follow the lectionary for their Scripture readings from week to week, and, most weeks, our church does, too. This week, the Gospel lesson was from the book of Matthew, chapter 5.

 

Our pastor actually chose the Old Testament reading (Isaiah 58:1-12) and the Epistle (1 Corinthians 2:1-16) for the week. Usually, I  look for Sunday School materials for my adult Sunday School class that correspond to the Scriptures Pastor Nate is using. But this time, there was a Sunday School lesson which related the Gospel Bible passage to the Super Bowl, so I chose it instead. (And it turned out to be a fortuitous thing, since our pastor was ill, and my friend, Tami, and I ended up cobbling together a service based on the "salt and light" passage.)

Super Bowl weekend provides plenty of possibilities for salty snacks. One of the Sunday School lessons suggested buying a bag of low-salt chips and another bag of the salt-laden variety and seeing which tastes the best.

Salt makes things taste good (if you don't have to worry about things like blood pressure and such). Back in the pioneer days, salt was used as a preservative. It played an important role in sustaining the people.

And light? You know I'm a big fan of sunrises and sunsets. So maybe my attraction to the Matthew 5 lesson was natural. I did have several sunrise and sunset photos that I hadn't yet shared on the blog or Facebook. But I hope it was more than that.

I continue to be troubled by my Facebook feed. I suppose I should just quit signing in. But then I'd have to also ignore the evening news and newspapers. Being a hermit doesn't sound like a bad plan, I suppose. But, on the other hand, it's hard to be "salt and light" to the world if you're hiding under your fleece blanket at home.

It's so hard to know what to do: Do I keep my fingers idle instead of furiously pounding my keyboard with a heated response? Do I keep my mouth shut in a group where there are differing opinions - even my own Sunday School room?

For Christmas, Jill and Eric gave me a book of prayers written by the pastor of their Omaha church, Craig Finnestad. After my Bible readings in the morning, I've been using some of the prayers found in Prayers from The Water's Edge.

I also decided to follow his blog. Finnestad shared these observations this week: (Click on this link for the entire list and the blog post.)

• We look most like Jesus when we serve, give, and forgive. Doing these is a blessing to others and ourselves. Do these things.
• The world is made up of imperfect people so I am not going to expect perfection from anybody anymore. Excellence, yes. Perfection, no.
• We can’t change other people. I’m doing my best to change my reaction to people. Less judging and arguing. More loving and listening.
• I have so much to learn, and I need God.

There's a lot of ugliness in the world, but I don't want to contribute to it. Maybe those lessons can help me be "salt and light" this week. That's the plan anyway.

I'd also encourage you to check out his chart called The Effects of Political Posting on Social Media and Friendship. He has that particular blog post marked as "humor." But it's the truth.