5th Sunday Ordinary Time
Is 58:7-10
I Cor 2:1-5
Mt 5:13-16
Matthew places today’s passage right after the beatitudes we read last week. How does going down those blessed pathways make us like salt and light?
What’s So Great About Light and Salt?
“Nothing is more useful than salt and sunshine,” wrote Pliny, according to NJBC (42:25). Light allows us to see where we are going as we follow The Way, an early name for Christianity. Light does not force us to go in any specific direction, but it is necessary for us to follow our chosen path. By being a light for others is certainly one way we can be useful.
Modern people may have forgotten, but salt is a preservative as well as a spice. Before refrigeration salt’s power to conserve food was essential. A good teacher will take care to preserve the health, spiritual and material, of her students. She will also season them with insights that transcend the bland, everyday status quo. Salt has both traits and I believe there can be a tension between these two dimensions of serving, of teaching.
Salt “imparts resistance to corruption to the meats on which it is sprinkled,” Hillary of Poitiers (ACCS, p.92) points out. Salt also is very apt to add the sensation of “hidden flavor,” he adds. That is a wonderful goal for any teacher! It reminds me of the Socratic “midwife” image, his hope that he could assist the student in giving birth to what is already inside.
Jesus called his disciples the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Chrysostom observes the shift here from proclaiming the Good News only to Israel to a universal mission that includes everyone on the planet.
Matthew’s Jesus then tells them to “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Does not this contradict the following message:
Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Mt 6:1-4
Obviously the two messages do seem to give us two contradictory pieces of advice; yet each point to a different, partial truth. Taken together they can illuminate how to navigate between the Scylla of pride and the Charybdis of a false and useless humility. I would go further.
The apparent contradiction between these two sayings of Jesus actually point to a deeper spiritual-moral truth.
St. Thomas tells us that we can determine the goodness of an action in three ways: our intention or our purpose in doing the action, the immediate object of the act, and the circumstances. Let’s say I steal money from the collection plate at church to feed my starving children. My intention is a good one, and the circumstances support it, but the object of the action is bad because I am stealing from the church. Aquinas also asserts that for an action to be good simply, it must be good in all three ways (Summa, I-II, Q18, a4). If any one of these three dimensions goes awry, the action is defective at least to some degree.
For example, if I am a poor woman and I make a large donation into the collection plate in order to impress everyone with my generosity, the object of the act is good and since I am poor the circumstances make it still better. But the goodness of the action is spoilt because I am doing a right thing for the wrong reason.
This example, by the way, illustrates why it is important to love both God and neighbor. For this good woman loves her neighbors (or loves their admiration) too much, and God not enough. Conversely, if I hide all my good works so no one but God ever finds out about them, it could be said I love God too much and my neighbor not enough.
Jesus tells us in today’s readings that good works can lead people to give glory to God. For the work to be truly good, as St. Thomas tells us, it must not only be good in itself, it must be done for the right reason and in appropriate circumstances. If I do something good to curry favor with you or to feel better about myself, it is no longer simply a good act, you may well see right through it, and give no glory to God or to me.
If you are tempted to feel spiritual pride because of the good works you are doing (and who doesn’t at times?!) you might benefit from reading Gal 2:20
“I have been crucified with Christ: it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
This passage sheds light on the one we read today from St. Paul, I Cor 2:1-5, as here Paul also wants to minimize his own importance in order to emphasize God’s power.
I think I have had an experience akin to St. Paul’s, and I bet most believers have as well. When I find myself doing a “good work” that is relatively easy, it feels natural, effortless; a kind of self-forgetfulness is at play. It’s not me doing it, but Christ’s Holy Spirit.
When the work is more sacrificial, the natural effortless feeling is absent; but then I have the sense that Jesus’ Holy Spirit is telling me to do it, and so I am just “following orders.” In these cases, I would really rather not do the act required of me; it is taking me out of my ‘comfort zone,’ but after prayer I become convinced that I need to.
You can see that in neither case does it make a lot of sense for me to feel proud of my “good works.” And by the way, my experience is that when the Holy Spirit gets me out of my comfort zone, I later experience a powerful, transcendent reward. When Jesus speaks in 6:4 of your “reward” it may well refer to a reward in this life, not only the next.
What are “good works”? The fact that today’s reading comes right after the beatitudes in Matthew’s gospel gives us some idea of how Saint Matthew would answer the question. The Church weighs in as well with our first reading from Isaiah, which is mainly about serving the poor. The seven corporal works of mercy, based on Mt 25:34-36, are further examples. I would add that serving the spiritual needs of our neighbor “counts” just as much as serving her material needs.
Will those seeing our good works give glory to God? It is maybe one of the most powerful ways we can evangelize. We need to do these things. But we need also not to be shy about confessing WHY we do them. I have sinned in this regard. When someone praises me for doing something, I sometimes fail to say, “Give God the glory, I’m only following orders.” Whenever you have a natural opportunity to witness to unbelievers, you should do so. Not to force it either, though. It is tricky. Good to do with believers as well. We all need to support one another in the walk of faith. At times it is not easy to remain faithful.
