Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reading I – Isaiah 58:7-10 (73A)
Reading II – 1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Gospel – Matthew 5:13-16
"To thine own self be true," Polonius advises his son in act 1 of Hamlet. How difficult this is for us sometimes! We are so often caught up in social, peer, and religious pressures that it is easy to lose sight of our identity and what we are about. Yet the bard said in his own words over half a millennium ago what Jesus taught over two millennia ago: To thine own self be true!
In the gospel this Sunday, Jesus uses the examples of salt and light to help us understand how vital it is for us to be faithful to who we are. We are salt-we enhance others; we are light-we shine for others. Yet, eaten by itself, salt is bitter; it is meant to be in relation to something else; for example, to meat as a preservative, to food as a flavor enhancer. A lighthouse beacon shines, but it fulfills its purpose most clearly when it is seen by crew members of a ship and guides them safely home. The underlying message of these metaphors is that who we are as disciples always finds its deepest meaning in who we are in relationship to God and others. Just as salt and light are no good in and of themselves, so the good that disciples do is measured in their relationship to others. Discipleship is for the sake of others.
We can be faithful instruments-salt and light-when, as the disciples in the gospel did, we listen to Jesus and allow him to guide us. The first relationship we foster is with Jesus. This relationship ensures that we are not just any salt or any light but that of Christ. Disciples do not act alone but are always instruments in God's hand who, through God's power acting in them, do good for others. Disciples glorify God simply by opening themselves to God's working in and through them.
Isn't it interesting that in this gospel Jesus uses inanimate things-salt, light-to describe who disciples are? Disciples, however, are to be anything but inanimate. Through God's power, disciples are to bring out the good latent in the world (salt) and are to show forth by their good deeds the splendor of God's presence (light). Our discipleship is not to go unnoticed. Who we are and our relationship to God and others are at stake. Discipleship is being salt and shining forth in relation to others. It is being true to ourselves. © 2010 by Order of St. Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota.
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