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Connections&
February 10, 2002--Fifth Sunday of the Year
"You are the salt of the earth; but if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?" Matthew 5:13-16
Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James and John, and his face shone like the sun and his clothes became dazzling white& A bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said: "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!"
Common Lectionary: Matthew 17:1-9
A wedding toast
A guest was asked to give a toast at a friend's wedding. At the reception, as the glasses were raised, the guest presented the couple with a beautifully decorated gift box. Inside the box was salt--common table salt. The guest then offered this toast to the couple:
"It's hard to keep a house without salt. It adds flavor and taste to just about every dish."
"But if you run out of toothpaste, you can brush with a mixture of soda and salt because of salt's cleansing qualities."
"If you develop a sore throat, you can gargle with salt because of its healing properties."
"If you're hungry, you can cure a ham or other meat with salt because of its preserving qualities."
"You can use salt to melt the ice that builds up in the winter cold; salt can also be used to put out fires that flare up."
So, if you'll bring to the marriage the qualities found in salt--the cleansing quality, the healing quality, the preserving quality--
If you use it to enhance the flavor of your life together; to melt the ice that will build up and put out the fires that will occasionally flare up between you; and, of course, if you take everything with a grain of it, you will have a long and happy life together."
CONNECTION: In calling us to become "salt" for the earth, Jesus asks us to bring these same qualities of salt into our homes, workplaces, schools and communities. Jesus asks us to be the salt of forgiveness that cleans and transforms estrangement into community, despair into hope; he asks us to be the salt of healing that restores and renews life engulfed in sadness and bitterness, illness and brokenness; he asks us to be the salt that preserves and restores all that is good and right and just. In whatever circumstances, in whatever ways we can, may we realize our vocations to be "salt" for the earth--to make God's presence and grace realities in our own time and place.u
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