The salt of hope

 “If salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?” –Matthew 5:13-16

 I remember once when my youngest daughter was a little girl (maybe 6 or 7), she called me at work one day very excited.  She had just received a new book full of knock knock jokes and she wanted me to know!  In fact, she was so excited, without saying hello, she just started in with the jokes.  I answer the phone, and hear a familiar voice say: Knock Knock! And so, what else could I do but say: Whose there?  And for perhaps the next 10 minutes she was laughing and reading jokes to me, one right after the other. Barely a pause. Maybe 2 or 3 pages of them.  And yes, it was inane.  But, I have to say, by the time she was reading me the fifth or sixth joke it was no longer the joke that mattered. I couldn’t stop laughing. Not at the jokes, but at her joy and excitement and delight in reading them to me.  And the fact that a someone had called me at work to tell me knock knock jokes; AND they wouldn’t stop!

 By the time she finished, I was exhausted from laughing, and my cheeks hurt. But, what a glorious feeling.  I don’t remember if I was having a hard day, or if anything was going wrong,  I just remember hanging up that phone and feel a strange and wonderful lightness.  A sense that there was something good in the world. A feeling of hope.  Nothing had really changed. But for me, the world seemed like a better place because a six-year-old called me up and read me 20 (or more) knock knock jokes. If she had stopped after one or two, it would have been cute.  But, forgettable.  But her persistence, made it something more.

“You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus tells His disciples. And then challenges them to be that salt, reminding them that if salt loses its taste, what is it good for, but to be “thrown out and trampled underfoot.” (cf 5:13b) But how are we to be salt for the world?  How do we add flavor to this life?

My daughter wasn’t doing anything “special.” She was just being herself. She had received a gift and she wanted to share it with someone.  That’s all.  Nothing special. Nothing fancy. Just a phone call and a few very silly jokes.  But think about salt.  What is salt? Nothing fancy. Nothing too special (unless you buy one of those strange sea-salt things with the crystals that you have to grind or a flavored salt to go with your popcorn or garlic salt! Eegads… I’m so glad Jesus didn’t say we were supposed to be celery salt).

What I’m trying to say is this:  We are called to be salt of the earth. Salt is common and simple and often goes unnoticed, except in its absence.  It may not be essential, but it adds flavor and without many foods seem flavorless.  I wonder if part of what Jesus was telling his disciples was this: wherever you go, add flavor. Be a source of joy. Be a source of renewal.

 It doesn’t take much.  Another example I often think of is this: A few years ago, I had back surgery.  When I woke in the recovery room I was shivering and confused and felt lost. The nurse was telling me something and I remember a doctor (or someone) asking me a question, but most of all I remember shivering. I guess it is how I react to the anesthesia. It was a coldness inside me that I couldn’t escape. They put those warm blankets over me and I just sat there waiting for my teeth to stop chattering. And suddenly, my wife was standing next to me with a cup of hot black tea in a white Styrofoam cup. And I remember taking that cup and looking at it –not sure if I could drink it. But she encouraged me to take a sip and I did and oh, how good it felt going down.  As I finished it, I remember looking up and she was already standing there with another cup. It was nothing fancy. Nothing amazing. No cream. No sugar. Just plain old Lipton tea and a cup of hot water. I don’t remember a word she said or the doctors. But, I remember how she kept bringing me those cups of tea. And how good it felt just to hold them; to sip on them.  And I remember I felt loved. I felt like I mattered to someone; that in this world so full of pain and cold and confusion, someone cared.  That’s the key to being salt. You don’t have to save the world. You don’t have to fix anything.  You just have to care.  Just show up. Again and again.  That’s what it means to be salt of the earth.  Small and humble; it may not get noticed, but it makes all the difference.

So, what does this mean? I will call this the knock knock theory.  The first step is to knock.  Make time, seek someone out; let them know that they matter.  Maybe your first “knock” is to get on your knees and say a prayer.  Ask God to show you who needs salt.  Is someone you know feeling down, running on empty, truly losing hope?  You may not be able to fix anything for them, possibly you shouldn’t even try, but you can let them know they matter.  Ask them to talk; ask them about their life, their experiences, their dreams, or their favorite book. Maybe offer them a hot cup of tea (and a ginger snap). If you can’t think of anything else to say, ask them who was their favorite teacher in middle school.  You may be surprised by their answer… and delighted by what they remember.  If nothing else, just sit with them, in silence. Drink your tea, eat your cookie and don’t say a word.  That’s okay, too.

The first time will feel odd.   It will be awkward.  The second time, too.  Possibly, even the third. But keep it up.  The key is consistency.  And that takes time. With time and consistency, that person will begin to know that you care. They will know that they matter.  And that is the key to hope. And I guess that’s the second “knock.” It can’t be a one-time thing. You have to knock again. And again. And again.  And I think there’s a parable about that, too (cf. Luke 11:5-8 & 18:1-8).

 And don’t worry that you don’t have anything to say or anything to offer. Remember, Jesus doesn’t ask you to be the pot roast or the scrambled eggs or even the tofurkey.  Those come and go.  We aren’t called to come and go. We are called to be there, on the table, every day, every night, every meal.  We are called not to be the roast goose Bernoise, but the salt that gives it flavor.  The friend who gives hope. You may not change the world, but you just might change someone’s life.  And you know what, that may be even better. 

A House Divided –Community in Christ

(some thoughts on the Mass readings from last Sunday 10 June 2018)

“If a kingdom is divided against itself,
that kingdom cannot stand.
And if a house is divided against itself,
that house will not be able to stand.” –Mark 3:20-35

 In today’s first reading, from Genesis 3, we get the story of what happens after Adam and Eve have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  We have that terribly true vision of how sin divides a kingdom, a house, a family.  The first division we see is of God searching for His beloved creation. God calls out to them, “Where are you?” (cf. Genesis 3:9-15) That plaintive cry is the first sign of division.  Before this, they walked together in the garden, but now Adam and Eve hide from their creator. Next, we see the crumbling of the House of Adam as he blames Eve (and God) for his actions: “The woman whom you put here with me –she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.” (3:12) And last we see the entire animal kingdom begin to break down into “enmity” as Eve blames the serpent. And we are left with a vision of the cost of sin: division, enmity, seemingly endless struggle: “He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.” (3:15)

Division truly is the cost of sin. It divides us externally: socially, inter-personally, through corruption, crime, broken societies, war and greed, etc and it divides us internally; driving us into hypocrisies and double standards. We begin to not only hide the truth, but hide from the truth, until we may not even know who or what we really are. As Paul says in Romans: “I do not understand what I do. What I want to do, I do not do; but what I hate, I do.” (cf. 7: 15-20)

Think of the priest with a sterling reputation, who secretly engages in corrupt or abusive behavior or the honored Bishop who covers it up.  The award winning movie mogul who seduces young women, promising them career opportunities, then threatens them if they speak up. The socially conscious politician who takes advantage of a young intern and tries to cover it up.  We don’t do what we want to do, and we do what we hate… Though in the moment it may not seem that way.

In my own life I can see this quite plainly when I sit down to write (hoping to finish that unfinished novel) but find myself 40 minutes later eating chips and queso and watching a Youtube video of W.C. Fieldsplaying pool.  (Sloth?  gluttony?)  And when I realize, my first instinct is to hide what I’ve been doing. Not to accept it and be happy that I had some fun, but to hide it. To close the browser and open my document and spend 15 minutes beating myself up over wasting my writing time.  Or pretend I was doing research for a character who loves old movies!

Sin divides us. Satan knows that. And we should, too. Because sin is like a fault line that division runs straight through the heart of each one of us. 

The answer to this division is stated in very simple terms at the end of this gospel passage.  There is that wonderful and perplexing image of Jesus being told that His mother and brothers are at the door asking for Him, to which He says:

“Who are my mother and my brothers?... Whoever does the will of my

Father in Heaven is my mother and my brother and my sister.” (Mk 12: 48-50)

The answer to the division of sin, is very simple. It’s unity. Inclusion. It is love. We must remember that we are all part of the body of Christ –every single one of us. 

The readings from last week’s mass began with God asking, Where are you? Not because God doesn't know or can't find them, but because Adam and Eve don't know.  They are lost (and very divided). And the readings ended with that beautiful reconciling (and inclusive) answer from Mark's gospel. Jesus opens a door to all of us and assures us:  

We aren't lost. We don't have to be divided.
In fact, we are invited to be part of the family. 

Don’t hide from that.

Sin begets sin: A meditation on 2 Samuel 11

“Do not take the matter to heart;

the sword devours now one and now

another. Attack the town in greater

force and destroy it.” –2 Samuel 11:25

It is interesting to me, how David’s sin hardens his heart.  The town he speaks of destroying in the verse above is to be destroyed after it has done exactly what David wanted done. The archers of the town have killed Uriah, who David wanted killed; he has even ordered his general to arrange it. And of course, that leads us to ask: why does David want Uriah dead? Because Uriah might discover and reveal David’s sin; that David has slept with and impregnated Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.

The story of David and Bathsheba and Uriah is an astonishingly complex story. And the whole thing is related in one short yet very profound chapter (2 Samuel 11).  It begins by telling us that it was the time of year when kings should be off leading their armies in battle, but David stayed home resting and strolling around the palace. One day while strolling on the roof he spies a beautiful young woman bathing, and instead of averting his gaze, he sends for her and soon she is pregnant.  To cover up what he has done, David sends for her husband who is off fighting the king’s battle (which is where King David should be).  And to cover up his own sin, he tries to get Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba, but his loyal subject won’t do that. While his fellow soldiers are sleeping on the ground, he refuses to accept the comforts of home and wife until the battle is over.   He is behaving as David should, with purity of action and intent. Commitment. Whereas David is strolling and relaxing and seducing other men’s wives while his army and the Ark of God are out in the open, risking themselves, revealing themselves. Of course, on some level, that is exactly what David does here (though unintentionally).  The more he tries to hide his sin, the more he reveals his sinfulness.

It starts with sloth, David unwilling to do his kingly duty, but grows into lust, then adultery, then the attempted cover-up (false-witness), and finally murder; all because David stayed home when he should have gone to work and grew restless with too much time on his hands and… well, in the end, because he doesn’t want anyone to know that he did wrong.

In the end, he wants Uriah killed because Uriah can reveal his sin; but the desire is only intensified when Uriah acts righteously.  For David this is a kind of prophetic witness against him.   He sees in Uriah an example of the man he should be: selfless and humble, and he cannot bear it. It only hardens his heart.  How many times have I felt the sting of my own hypocrisy intensified by witnessing the simple kindness or selflessness of another?  When we are in sin, we don’t want to see good in the world. It sickens us, in a sense, because it challenges us to rise up and be better. It bears witness against our excuses and justifications. When I am fallen into sin and I see someone else do good, not only does it bother me, but it makes me a little jealous.  And what do we often do when we are jealous of another? We try to tear them down.  And so, David tears down Uriah. He plots his murder, and plots it in such a way that it will seem that he was merely a casualty of war.

And it is in this context that this familiar story suddenly caught my attention anew. When the messenger comes bearing news of Uriah’s death, David at first “flies into a rage” over what sounds to him like a terrible military blunder: “Why did you go near the ramparts?” (11:22)  He is ready to go all Harry Truman on Joab (his personal MacArthur) when the messenger adds that there were some casualties, including “your servant, Uriah the Hittite.” (11:24)

And suddenly David is all soothing words and encouragement. He tells the messenger:

“Say this to Joab: Do not take the matter to heart…

Attack the town in greater force and destroy it.”

David’s words to the messenger sound, on the surface as encouragement to Joab to proceed with the original plan of attack.  But taken in the context of this chapter (this story) we may hear in them a kind of bitterness. Just as David has destroyed Uriah, he now will destroy the inhabitants of this town –who, quite literally, have served him quite well. One might imagine that they deserve at least a little mercy, for having rid David of his guilty conscience. Yet, no. Now he wants them eradicated, too. Sin begets sin, as the old saying goes (cf James 1:12-16), and David’s lust has lead to adultery to false-witness (trying to trick Uriah), to plotting a murder and now to wishing the destruction of a whole town.  Sin begets sin. And it grows and grows.

Often we hear in the news, that --with politicians-- it isn’t usually the crime that gets them, it’s the cover-up.  Well, that seems to be exactly what we are seeing here with David. The original sin is bad, but the cover-up is horrifying.  But why is that?

And that is how I feel about my own sins.  What I do (gossip, lust, selfishness, gluttony, cruelty)  may be terrible, but what I do to keep others from knowing about it is always worse. Because covering up our sin, trying to hide it, requires us to harden our hearts to the truth of it.  Often, it’s in the cover-up that we begin the process of justification and rationalization.  I had to do this, because…  and people won’t understand, so I should hide the truth from them…

In this one brief chapter we get this wonderful fearful story; this powerful and horrifying vision of the power of sin. We read of a good man making bad choices and how private sin that begins in human desire, and personal choice comes to completion in public horrors (murder and destruction). 

So, the next time someone tells you something is only a small sin (a white lie, so to speak), remember this story of David and his seemingly small sin: sloth… he just didn’t want to do his job. It all began with a king feeling a little restless, lazy… slothful.  Even the smallest of sins, can open a door that leads to destruction.  And as this chapter ends we get that final frightful line that tells us the real import of all David’s actions; not that he has done evil or destroyed lives, but that he had damaged his relationship with God:

“What David had done displeased the Lord…”  (11:27b)

David, Israel’s hope, God’s beloved, has turned away from the Lord.  And though that may seem just another matter of personal choice, a matter of personal beliefs, a matter that may have some personal repercussions, but what this little chapter teaches us is that no matter how personal or private our sin seems, it always ends up with very public repercussions, not because people might find out or might hold us accountable, but, because:

Sin begets sin and the fruit of sin is destruction. --James 1:15