On being salt and light in ordinary thyme* (sermon)

*with thanks to my friend, Tanya, for the play on words

This is my sermon from Sunday 5 February (aka, the first Sunday of Ordinary Time). My main readings were: 1 Corinthians 2.1-12 and Matthew 5.13-20, and the other lectionary readings which I reference are Isaiah 58.1-9a and Psalm 112.1-9

‘There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, kids. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and says, “What the hell is water?”’[1]

This little story isn’t original: I first came across it in a graduation address given by the American novelist David Foster Wallace in the mid-noughties.But today’s readings reminded me of it, and of Wallace’s argument that it reminds us how hard it is to really recognise and know our reality. The air we breathe, the culture we live in—the wisdom of the rulers of the age, as Paul describes it to the Corinthians. The world that we live in is so often so obvious to us, makes so much sense, that it’s easy to assume that it is normal—and that it’s all there is. It is our water.  

And when we’re in it, it can be hard to see where this water is good—sustaining life; and where it is not. To recognise what makes it so. “How’s the water?” is a question today’s readings invite us to ask, attending to the world around us in a deeper way.

Now that Christmas is well and truly over, the feasting and the festivals are past, and the church is dressed again in the green of Ordinary Time, I wonder how we’d answer this question? Even in the best of times, the shift from Christmas and Epiphany; from December through the length of January to February can feel like a let down—and we’re not really in the best of times. I wonder how much of your ordinary, daily life—getting up, going about your business, running your errands, paying your bills…—currently features feelings of joy, or a sense of the goodness of God’s world?   

And yet, if we really pay attention to the ‘water’: is this all we see? Every time I meet my Spiritual Director, she asks the question, “Where are you noticing God right now?” Sometimes I have to look hard for an answer—but I usually (eventually) notice that God has been somewhere, reminding me that he is part of reality.  The first few snowdrops spotted on a walk, reminding me of the existence of the creator and the beauty of creation; the conversation that gently nudges or recalibrates my view of things; the opening notes of a piece of much-loved music bringing a spark of joy to my work day—making me do a little dance at my desk…

But you and I, we’re being trained to look to see God in ‘the water’. Every Sunday in the liturgies of the word and the Eucharist we are drawn into the Kingdom: we’re taught, we’re fed, we learn to recognise that world as we initially see it isn’t all there is, and to play a part in making that known to others. This last part is not necessarily easy—that’s a part of point of the fish story: the young fish haven’t noticed they’re in water, let alone thought about what it’s like.

What if we read Jesus’ call to be salt and light in the world in this Ordinary Time as an invitation to ask those around us, ‘How’s the water?’ and to help them notice God in it. Think about what salt and light do. We’re not always crazy about salt, but used well, it can add and bring out flavours in our food. It stops it being bland. Light illuminates things that we might otherwise miss. Ordinary Time gives us the space to be attentive to our everyday existence as creatures, sustained by God.[2] It’s a time to notice how God’s presence in the world is working in the details, steadily, to transform the texture of daily life.  

Salt and light are a lovely metaphor for our participation in God’s work in his world, with its mundane everydayness that can be so easy to get stuck in. You don’t need much salt; a lamp isn’t large—but they both make a difference for those who encounter them. Might we think about how we’re bringing out or adding in the flavour of the kingdom, as salt, or how we’re illuminating what’s already there and where God is—helping those around us to notice the kingdom of God in the ordinary?

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians shares this idea that the church has something different to offer as he talks about God’s wisdom. This is a wisdom that is different to that of the first century Mediterranean world and its rulers. It is one that is revealed in Christ in the way his death and resurrection frustrate these rulers with their claims to power and their inattention to justice and to care. It is a wisdom to which we have access through the gift of the Spirit of God, who helps us to notice where God is in the world and to know that there is more to ‘the water.’

Paul isn’t setting up the church against the world. He’s drawing a picture of God’s wisdom at work in the world, God’s kingdom as present in the world, but not always fully visible. You might think of the way that rays of light can be seen in water, illuminating all the creatures that live in it, or the way that light streams through church windows, highlighting aspects in the art and architecture and illuminating all the little bits of dust in the air.

This wisdom reveals details, things we hadn’t noticed before. These might be small revelations about our world, and the things that we’ve learned to think of as normal, but that don’t share in the glory and beauty and love and justice of the kingdom of God.  They might be revelations about what the kingdom like. Our Psalm and Old Testament reading draw some of these out for us, emphasising the importance of justice and generosity, describing these as the natural outflow of worship, the fulfilment of God’s commandments.  Sharing these with others, opening up the possibility for them to see these things too, this is the daily work of being the salt and light of the world.

The Sermon on the Mount, as a whole, offers a big picture vision of the Kingdom of God, the world we hope for, and we draw on it as we look to be salt and light. But if any of you have spent time in organisations that are trying to change their culture or strategy, you might have noticed that they don’t just cast an exciting ‘vision’ and leave things there. Change comes through the longer, slower, process of people who care attending to details, highlighting and building on the good that’s there, adding in new things that are need, day in day out.  

We can start by asking ‘How ‘s the water?’ with those around us. We might notice water feels—where the kingdom feels far away and where it feels near, perhaps, and consider how to make it more visible. This might involve practical ‘doings’—the good works Matthew, Isaiah and the Psalmist describe, making present God’s love, justice, and generosity. Think of the activities and projects that we are engaged in as a church—but we might also think of our own habits and actions, our choices in our daily lives. Our willingness just to sit with people.

It involves our ordinary conversations, too. We are salt and light as we affirm people’s sense that the world is not as it should be, offer the words we have in our faith to describe this dissatisfaction and the desire for something different. As we talk about how we see the world with people, do we describe our recognition of God in the ordinary as well as extraordinary ways? Why does that song make you want to dance, even when your day has been rubbish—what joy does it remind you of? How does the way the sun comes through the trees reveal to you that there is more to the world around us? How did that film, that book, that conversation prompt you to think differently about the world and what God is doing in it? Do you have the confidence to share these revelations with those around you?

We’ll all do this differently, in our various different relationships, speaking out of our own encounters with Christ, our experiences of God in our lives, the ways we have glimpsed the kingdom breaking into the world. But as we draw our recognition of God in the world into our conversations with others, we start to encourage them to wonder what the water is really like.

These conversations and these actions might feel mundane—small-scale in comparison to the letters of Paul or prophecies of Isaiah, the poetry of the Psalms, or the vision of the Sermon on the Mount. But they change the flavour of daily life, its texture, it’s rhythms. They change what people are open to seeing, can illuminate God’s presence in the ‘water’ that is our world.

[1] Wallace, David Foster. This is water: Some thoughts, delivered on a significant occasion, about living a compassionate life. Hachette UK, 2009.

[2] Pauw, Amy Plantinga. Church in ordinary time: A wisdom ecclesiology. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2017.