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Matthew 5:13-16
“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has
lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for
anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a
hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket,
but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before
others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in
heaven.
To
be what we are
For nearly
20 years I was privileged to write for and edit a magazine that covered the
church and its work around the world. My proudest and most fulfilling memories
of those days involved reporting from places of acute human struggle and
suffering.
I told stories
of people our readers had no other way of knowing or caring about. And how they
cared! Their generosity moved me again and again. I say with no sense of pride
that there are people who lived, who received food and shelter from war, terror
and starvation, because my colleagues and I told their stories and captured their
struggles in photos that shook people from apathy into action.
The faces I
met in those days have been appearing more often in my mind’s eye, as I fear
our nation … and our churches … could become much less empathetic, generous and
welcoming.
I see them:
refugee mothers nursing children on cold mountainsides in Macedonia, war-orphaned
children in make-shift orphanages in Africa, parents bearing everything they
can carry on their backs fleeing those bent on killing and maiming them in the
name of some deplorable political, racial or religious ideology.
And I see shallow
graves where people hastily buried their beloved along the road … then hurried
on to avoid the same fate.
The faces speak
to me as did the photos I once took for magazine pages.
I also
hear Jesus words: Be what you are. Be the soul I have made you to be. You are
salt and light, so shine and season this world with the light of the love I
have lit within you.
Theologian
Walter Brueggemann has often prodded the church to an alternative way marked by
practices such as hospitality to those unlike us, generosity to those in need
and forgiveness to break cycles of resentment and vengeance. Our world, our
nation and our communities have seldom needed them more.
The choice
is always ours. Today, the faces of the suffering, the hungry and the refugee …
like Jesus … are calling us to be ourselves … and to know the joy of Christ’s
love pouring through us.
Pr. David L.
Miller
