Fifth Sunday BeforE Lent

‘Let your light shine before others so that they may your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven’.

The film star Michael Caine, star of hundreds of films, says that he never ever reads what the critics write about his performance in the newspapers. He says if the reviews are good it may fill you full of pride and you can become addicted. If the reviews are bad it may fill you full of despair. It’s better not to know.

What would people write or say about us as individual Christians and as church community - rave reviews or box office flops? What kind of impact do you think we have on those around us? To put it another way if members of the community of Stafford the people who pass by this church every day, the people of the wider community were asked about their impressions of us what would they say? If our friends and neighbours were asked about their impressions of us as Christians what would they say? As someone once asked rather pointedly. ‘If Christianity were made illegal tomorrow would there be enough evidence to convict us?

But if people were asked to give their impressions of us and the impact we made on our community what images do you think they would use to describe us? Perhaps some would describe the church as a quaint but antiquated ornament. Good to look at and bring out occasionally to grace special occasions but of very little value to everyday life and largely irrelevant to most of life. Could that be true of us? Could that describe our life together here at St Mary’s and the impact that we make on those around us? Perhaps others would see us a private club, where they would feel unwelcome, difficult to be part of and to belong if you are not a member already.

Lisa Knight our children’s and families enabler told me the other day  about a mum and her children who were wavering and hovering outside the door wondering whether they dare come in or not to Praise and Play. Of course she persuaded them that it was fine and they came in and had a good time and they’ve been coming ever since. But I wonder sometimes if those of us who come here week by week and have done for years on end realise how difficult it is for people to join us. Even to cross the threshold can be a major challenge. It's unfamiliar, people may have all sorts of ideas about what we are like and what goes on here. I would have just the same problem at the door of a Night Club – plus a number of other ones no doubt!!

Perhaps some people would see us as a critical eye watching over them. Perhaps they see the church representing a stern moralism or a holier than thou approach to life and to people. – don’t do this, don’t do that don’t do the other.

Maybe folk look at us and conclude that the church is only for a particular type of person or class of people.

I heard the other day of particular Christian denomination a sect even which holds its services very very early on a Sunday morning. They do that so that their holy members won’t have to meet or even to look at unholy outsiders as they make their way to worship the Holy God. Well praise the Lord we are not that holy!!

But there are other ways of being seen as some kind of exclusive club – we need to avoid that. It seems to me that if the Gospel isn’t for everybody then it isn’t for anybody. There is another more hopeful image. That of a place of welcome with doors opens wide for all to come who seek the Lord in all the circumstances of their lives. A place to celebrate a place to find healing and rest and peace. Let us pray that people will have that image in their minds as they think of us.

In today’s Gospel St Matthew has Jesus using two domestic images to describe his disciples and their impact and their effect upon those around them

They are ‘salt of the earth and light for the world’.

Both salt and light were vital life-giving commodities. Both salt and light were expected to be seen to have positive results. In the ancient world salt was essential to preserve food and to stop it going bad. Jesus is saying that is a society that is subject to decay and rottenness of all kinds his disciples must preserve what is good and life-giving. But this will only happen if saltiness is itself preserved. There is something here about distinctiveness. Salt which has lost its saltiness has itself become corrupted and is therefore useless.

What is distinctive about our lives as Christian Disciples which the world needs at this time and in our place? What impact for good can we have? People around us are rightly concerned about their future well-being and livelihood. Could we demonstrate a way of life that is simpler and yet more wholesome, able therefore to be less perturbed and concerned about material well-being. Later on in the sermon on the mount Jesus will talk about the concerns that wealth and money bring with them – and exhorting his followers to a simpler more trusting way of life. Trust in God more.  Trust in possessions ad money less. Is there something for us there as we try to be salt to the earth in our time?

Jesus said: ‘You are light for the world’.

The world needs light just as it needs salt. We live in times of moral confusion. The old absolutes have gone and nothing has replaced them. Jesus points us us to the absolute value of self-giving, scarified love as the basis of life in families and in society. His is the light that guides us through the darkness of perplexity.

I don’t know what the ‘Big Society’ means. But without self emptying love towards other people: Without sacrifice of something of one’s own: And without the surrender of self-will yes and sometimes the surrender of that which may be rightly ours or mine there cannot be any society or community of any sort. That way of life is a distinctive offering to the world around us

You hear this said sometimes: 'Ah, if everyone lived according to the Sermon on the Mount then the world would be a better place’. That is usually said by people who have never read the Sermon on the Mount themselves or they would be so foolhardy as to say such a thing. But in a world of moral confusion Jesus calls us to be light for the world by showing the way to live our lives.

‘Let your light so shine before others that they will see your good works....’

Those of you who know that text well will know that it doesn’t finish there. Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works ... but give the glory to your father in heaven.’

There is nothing worse than a piety which says look at me all the time. No that is definitely not what we are called to. Any light that may shine through us is not our light it comes to us from God. Any goodness or love is from him. The work of his holy spirit. The good life to which we are called is the life that comes from God and is shared with us by his spirit in worship and prayer and sacrament and scripture and Christian fellowship. We are those cracked and imperfect earthenware vessels about which St Paul wrote. The light shines through the cracks. If they were prefect with their own perfection the light wouldn’t shine through.

Jesus calls us to be burning with his love and alight with his goodness. To flavour the world with the savour that comes from him. To live and to love so that people will see him in us. Notice he doesn’t say you will be salt, or you will be light. No he says: You are salt and you are light if you are joined to me.

‘Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works, but give the glory to your father in heaven.’