You Are The Salt Of The Earth, Whether You Believe It Or Not.

This sermon was delivered to Holy Trinity in Ayr, South Ayrshire, Scotland on the 5th February 2023; a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries.

Today’s readings: Isaiah 58:1-9a, 1 Corinthians 2:1-12.

Main Reading: Matthew 5:13-20, Titus 2:9-10

Prayer: My I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, Amen,

A lesson from salt, an introduction.

Good morning.

I remember many years ago listening to a preacher who took every reading literally for his sermons. If the scripture mentioned the word tent, he would tell you how to erect a tent, and in a very condescending manner, if I may add. If the reading mentioned a building, he would proceed to tell you how it was built, as if he was a builder himself, and in one reading, one Sunday, Jesus said, “I am the bread of life”, and I remember thinking, “Oh God, he is going to tell us how to make bread” … and he did.

And I also remember saying to myself, I will never do that. Well in today’s reading, we have in Matthew 5 verse 13, Jesus saying, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?”

Well, there you go, how do I get out of that one? Salt, eh? … I suppose I could go onto verse 14 which says, “Ye are the light of the world”, however to really gain a real understanding of “being the light of the world”, I believe we really need to understand the concept of being the salt first … because Jesus carefully, made that analogy, … and this may surprise you.

An analogy of my behaviour when I was much younger.

Now to begin, or to set the context, I must tell you that when I was young, (and it may not surprise you), that my behaviour wasn’t exactly good, in fact, it was bad, very bad.

I remember, my father giving me a good dressing down one day, saying “you have good teachers wanting you to do well, you are taught good manners at home, but where do you get your education … from your pals in the playground; your pals who belong in the gutter”. … And do you know something, he was right.

You see, I wasn’t afraid of authority, in fact I loved to challenge and defy authority, because even back then, (in the sixties), I was seeing gaps in the system, where the “more difficult” you became, the more attention you received, (although we didn’t use those terms). Yet looking back, I am ashamed of my behaviour, and I have spent most of my life trying to make amends, and yes, I know some of you will be saying, “keep up the good work Gordon”, meaning, “you are still a work in progress”.

Ok, but in all fairness, I may have had an excuse, you see, in my mind, I was more afraid of my playground friends than I was with those in authority. It was those friends I sat beside at school, it was those friends I ran about with in the evenings and at weekends, and it was those friends I confided in; and they with me. And yes, we were a bad crowd, and it is little wonder we survived.

Was that my fault then, or my friends’ fault? Who exactly was leading who, I don’t know, however, it was more probably “one bad apple leading the other”, but I can say in all honesty as the school teacher I became, (from someone in authority), that the peer pressure cycle is almost impossible to break, without drastic action. It is that powerful.

Now, we also have to ask the question, if those so-called friends of mine back then, were a better influence on me, would I not have gotten into so much trouble. I am not looking for excuses, I am just saying, it is important who we run about with, because whoever we run about with, will influence our decisions, our reactions and our lives.

Therefore, for us Christians, it vital that we become that healthy influence on others; others whom we run with, others with whom we meet, others with whom we live with because our values will rub off on them, remembering of course, their values will rub off on us too. So, it is up to us, and this is important, to set the bar high, and maintain the standards of integrity, fidelity and strength.

Returning to scripture.

Now we will return to scripture to see how this pans out, using the analogy of peer pressure, salt and light to show us how our Christian characters are displayed to the world around us.