Sermon 2026 02 08 Quinquegesima

Saint Margaret’s

Anglican Church

Budapest, Hungary

Isaiah 58:1-9a, (9b-12); 1

Corinthians 2:1-12, (13-16);

Matthew 5:13-20

Psalm 112:1-9, (10)

"You are the salt of the

earth… You are the light of

the world.”

One of the distinguishing features of the Gospel of Matthew is its division into five rather

long discourses or sermons of our Lord. Arguably, the most famous of the five discourses

in Matthew is the very first one, popularly known as the Sermon on the Mount, from

which our Gospel narrative this morning is taken.

Our Lord, apparently speaking directly to his disciples, calls them, the disciples, salt and

light, two seemingly disparate elements or metaphors for the life and work of any disciple

of Christ; yes, ourselves included. As you can imagine, salt, plain old sodium chloride, sea

salt in reality, was a big deal in the ancient world and an important industry and

commodity, just as is arguably the procurement of rare-earth minerals and salts today for

our mobile phone and electronic chip industries. I am told it can even lead to trade wars

and worse.

But back to ancient times for a moment… As you probably know, people were sometimes

paid back then with salt allotments, giving us our contemporary Latinate word, salary,

from the Latin sal. If you make a salary today, you are in other words earning your salt.

You may wish to remind your Human Resources representative of this fact tomorrow

morning. And presumably you are making a difference for the good, large or small, in your

company or organisation.

Making a difference seems to be what our Lord is also implying about the disciples and

discipleship. Following our Lord is to be no bland or boring exercise. There has to be some

zing about it, some sizzle, some taste of the divine. Being the salt in our Lord’s metaphor

ultimately means making a difference in our world and in the lives of others; value added,

as it is called in the business world. In a way, it also implies earning our Christian keep,

earning our spiritual salary.

Which in a sense brings us to light… For our Lord to suggest that his disciples might be

“the light of the world” must surely have seemed a stretch at the time, more hope and

hype than reality, perhaps especially to the disciples themselves. After all, they had little

going for them by the lights of this world. Put bluntly, there was more of Jesus’ bushel-

basket about them than lampstand. Yet “let your light shine before others,” is exactly

what our Lord exhorts.

Be the light. Become “the city on the hill,” the mount of the Sermon on the Mount.

Become, in other words, what you are already but which you, for your own spiritual

blindness, have not yet seen within yourselves. But paradoxically perhaps, it is neverabout our own light. The light within each of us comes not from within each of us but

from without, precisely from outside who we are or ever could be. The light within each

of us is but a reflection of the divine light in whose image we are created, and a reflection

of the divine wisdom or enlightenment, if you will, which leads us to the Gospel in the first

place.

Light is a powerful force, as any physicist could tell us, and yet at the same time it is

ephemeral and passing. Nowhere near as solid as salt. Nothing we know of exceeds it in

speed. Concentrated into lasers and other exotic beams, it can cut through steel and, well,

salt; yet put your hand over your eyes, and the light disappears. Artists too have become

famous for their ability to capture light in their paintings. Rembrandt for instance or

Caravaggio, both artists obsessed with light and darkness. They would have well

understood, it seems to me, our Lord’s metaphor or simile of bushel-basket and

lampstand. For them, light is life itself. And indeed, light is the first of God’s creations

without which the others would hardly matter.

Sadly, in many ways our world remains as dark a place as it has ever been, perhaps in

some instances even darker still. Just a week or so ago, we commemorated, as we do

every year, those who lost their lives in the Holocaust, arguably the darkest of all times;

yet also a time within the life span of some in this parish, no doubt. Given the current

political and social climate around the globe and right here at home, some might even say

the world is again approaching the darkness of earlier times. So, it is always tempting to

shield our light, much as we might protect a candle flame from a breeze, perhaps even

placing it under a bushel-basket, something which I and the fire-marshal do not

recommend.

Salt and light. Earth and heaven. The matter-of-fact and the stuff of dreams. The now

and the yet to be. Each of us is surely of this earth, a veritable chemical factory of

molecules, amino acids, peptides, and yes, salts. But we also share in the light, that

mysterious force not even physicists grasp entirely; the light which enlightens the world

and suffuses it with life and the divine. Discipleship, rooted firmly upon terra firma, is yet

also the power of the divine within each of us.

Earlier this week, we celebrated in Church life the festival day of Candlemas, cross-quarter

day, the mid-point of winter, the darkest of seasons, a big deal here in Central Europe. We

blessed candles in many quarters and lit them and held them high. And we remembered

that we are here today not to curse the darkness of this earth we inhabit but to light the

candle that can guide us to the divine, to the Father. So, “let your light shine before

others,” my Friends, “so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father

in heaven.”

Amen.

The Revd Canon Dr Frank Hegedűs