A reading from the holy gospel according to Matthew. Jesus said to his disciples, you are the salt of the earth. But what if salt goes flat? How can you restore its flavor? Then it is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Men do not light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket. They set it on a stand where it gives light to the entire house. In the same way, your light must shine before men so that they may see goodness in your acts and give praise to your heavenly father.
And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. This first reading from the book of kings it continues, of course, the reading of yesterday, and we'll continue until we finish with the book of kings And the great thrust of it, and we don't miss it, is trust in almighty god. Now this is so easily said, and we do say it.
And when we say it, we believe it. And we try sometimes to make ourselves believe it. But do our daily lives so incorporate this conviction that it is apparent in our deeds. Now this ties in with our blessed lord's words here about being the salt of the earth. Notice that last line which is so significant.
Our lord says, Christ is speaking in the same way he says, your light must shine before men. They have to see you. You have to be apparent. You have to be obvious. You have to be there.
And then our lord continues, so that that's a purpose cause. Why are you doing this? Because that little question is all important. Why? You can do it for many reasons.
So to go back, Christ says, your light must shine before men in order that they may see goodness in your acts, your physical acts. They certainly can't see what's going on in your mind. And now notice this phrase, and give praise to your heavenly father, not to you. Did you notice that? So put these two things together.
After our blessed lord more than once said, without me, you can do nothing. The old testament is full of this idea that we dangle from a thin thread from the hand of god, if you'll pardon my being terribly anthropomorphic. But we are in the hands of almighty God, totally, completely, entirely, without any exceptions. This is just a plain plain truth. I'm not adorning it at all.
The very act of the will, which says I love God, has to be in some way connected with God helping me to make that act of the will, if you follow me. Now I know there are plenty of problems here with free will. I know all about that, but but there are no theologian. There is no theologian or there are no theologians who deny either side of this problem of my freedom and at the same time my responsibility and my complete dependence upon almighty god. And our blessed lord uses all kinds of figures.
It isn't that he just said without me, you can do nothing. But he did he not only gave us the lord's prayer, which is the the great summary of the whole business, but notice those magnificent parables that he gave. He compares us to hairs of that to hair of one's head. And he says not one falls without god's omnipotent god, the all knowing, all benevolent, all loving, all just god. Not one hair of your head falls without his consent.
And then Christ talks about the birds of the air. Sparrows were pretty popular in there in his day. We don't see them anymore, but I can remember when times the road would be covered with sparrows. In other words, it was the most trifling kind of bird you could appeal to. And Christ says, not one falls from the sky.
Not one in the whole world. And then he talked about the grass of the field. And then he said, aren't you worth much more than all of that stuff? Do we believe in this? Now I with this story from the Old Testament, I don't know what convinced this good lady to to act the way she did.
Notice she doesn't argue. She doesn't debate. She just does what the prophet tells her to do. That's all. Well, she certainly was convinced.
Believe me, if between you and starvation there was just one cup of flour, you would think twice before you gave it away. You would be giving your life away. And who says you have to give your life away for anybody else? Oh, you can do it and be noble, but we don't have to always be noble. All we have to be is good.
So there must have been some kind of a background here. There's got to be something here that it would convince this woman. Remember, you're not dealing with a bunch of dummies. You know, sometimes we think that these people we read about, you know, were just so primitive that they didn't know anything and that we know so much. Well, believe me, that's a mistake.
People who are close to living, that is to the things you need to live, to the earth, to birth, to death, to tragedy, who live on a very tight margin between sustenance and starvation. People who live like that, they know a thing or two, believe me. And the difference in the point of view of a first century man and a twentieth century woman isn't too great. So let's realize that if this good lady acted the way she did, there was something very much and very strong impelling her. Whatever it was, she had faith in god almighty, not in the man, but in god almighty.
And our blessed lord, that's what he says. He says, our father who art in heaven. And so let's put these two things together today and not forget that last sentence that our our our lord is speaking. When he says, let your light shine before all men so that they may see the goodness of your acts. Notice, he's talking about physical acts.
These things which in the sixth sixteenth century, before and after the sixteenth century, many people said have no goodness in themselves. The Catholic church has always said there is a moral goodness to man's conduct. There is an objective morality to deeds, physical deeds. That's not the whole story. We all know that.
We all know that. That is not the physical that is the grace of god, and it is not the physical which brings salvation. We know that if you put the word only in there because that does make it very wrong. So our blessed lord is saying, let your good deeds shine. Let the goodness of your deeds come out.
Now what what kind of goodness? There is nothing so impressive as to be in contact with another human being that you know by the way they act they are close to god, that they have a realization of his presence, that they have an idea and a conviction and a deep persuasion that they are in his hands. It isn't that they don't work as hard as anyone else. They probably work harder. It isn't that they don't play any less than other people.
They may enjoy their play more than other people. Serving god isn't to be a dishrag or to have on a sour puss. That is no part of serving god almighty. How can it be if you truly believe that your life, your daily life, that whatever happens to you, no matter how it happens, whether it's your fault or somebody else, that all of it is in some way or other, all of it, without the slightest exception, that all of it is in the hands of God. Do you believe it?
War and peace, the whole theme of that great novel, the whole theme of it is this particular point. How do I live my life and how does God run my life? This is the question. All Christ you see, Christ never debated these these. He didn't go into philosophy of things.
Never. Never. Never. Christ did nothing like that. He said what he said today.
Let your light shine before men that they may see the goodness of your deeds and praise the lord, the lord for it. In other words, god must come shining through your deeds. May it be so. At least try. In the name of the father and the son and holy spirit.
Amen.