Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) and World Day for Consecrated Life

If you pay attention to the best-seller table at our local Barnes and Nobles, you might have noticed over the last several years, a trend toward what historians call microhistory.  That is to say, there’s been a popularization of histories that “search for answers to large questions,” like the stories of empires and revolutions, “in small places,” like in the story of a fish.

You think I’m joking.  Mark Kurlansky was a writer for the New York Times until he stormed onto the microhistory scene with his 1998 book entitled, Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World.

In 2007, Kurlansky followed up with a book that proved to be even more popular, simply yet ambitiously called Salt: A World History.  Kurlansky argues that because “salt is so common, and easy to obtain, and inexpensive that we’ve forgotten that from the beginning of civilization until about 100 years ago, salt was one of the most sought-after commodities in human history,” like crude oil is today.

In fact, salt was one of “the first international commodities of trade. Trade routes that have remained major thoroughfares were established, alliances built, empires secured, and revolutions provoked” all because of the salt trade.

Kurlansky explains that, “salt represented wealth.” The Romans, the French, the Hapsburgs all taxed salt to raise money.  Indeed, salt itself was used as money – that’s the etymology of the word “salary.”

Salt was one of the elements – pun intended – that led to the downfall of the French monarchy: farming peasants resented a salt tax that burdened them more than the aristocracy.  And in India, the British regulation of salt resulted in Mahatma Ghandi’s "march to the sea" to collect salt which galvanized resistance to British rule.

Kurlansky goes back in history to explain why salt was such an important commodity.  He notes that, “Homer called salt a divine substance,” and that in the ancient world salt was associated with fertility – in part because fish in salt water have more offspring than animals on land.  He reminds us that salt prevents decay, and protects from harm – and so it has always been understood that “evil spirits detest salt.”

More scientifically, Kurlansky explains that salt preserves – and in the many centuries before modern refrigeration, “salt provided the principal way to preserve food.”  Salt also helps clean and purify – that’s why we buy Dead Sea cosmetics and gargle with salt water when we have a sore throat.

Even more fundamentally, “blood, tears, sweat - almost every part of the human body contains salt, which is necessary for the functioning of cells. Without both water and salt cells cannot get the nourishment they need, and they die of dehydration.”

In summary, the point of Kurlansky’s microhistory is that “salt is essential to our existence . . . and because our need for salt is so fundamental, its history encompasses that of humanity.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus refers to His disciples as the salt of the earth.  Unfortunately, we’ve heard this a hundred times, so we gloss over it as a cute simile.  But Jesus is not merely saying that disciples are the “spice of life,” or that we add a nice flavor to a world that would otherwise be too bland. 

Jesus is saying that discipleship helps preserve the good in the world, and helps to purify society; that disciples protect the world from evil, and that therefore evil spirits detest us.  He is saying that disciples must be present in every cell of society and that without us the world cannot have life or function the way it is meant to function!  He is saying that, like salt, being a follower of Jesus is essential, and fundamental, and that discipleship encompasses the whole of human history and experience!

Many people in the world today take salt for granted and don’t pay it much attention.  In fact, many people devote themselves to pointing out salt’s detriments, and try to limit their intake or to eradicate salt from their diets entirely.

So too, Christian discipleship is easily taken for granted on the one hand, or completely ignored on the other.  Many people desire only to point out the flaws of those who strive to be disciples, and try to expel discipleship from the public square entirely.

If this is in fact the case, then perhaps it’s because we disciples have become like salt that has lost its taste.  Perhaps we ourselves have forgotten how fundamental and essential discipleship is to our own existence, and to the life of the world.  Perhaps we have failed to be present, as disciples, in every cell of society, assuring the nourishment of the public body, preserving the good, purifying that which is sickly, and repelling that which is evil.

Perhaps we have ourselves taken our discipleship for granted, and settled for an hour a week on Sunday, instead of allowing the entirety of our lives to be ordered toward discipleship with Jesus.

All of us need to regularly examine our lives, and to evaluate the authenticity and the vitality of our discipleship.  We need to find means of support for our life of discipleship, especially in prayer and the Sacraments, in the Scriptures, and in the fellowship of a community of disciples. Being with other disciples helps hold us accountable, but it also provides us with proven patterns of growth in discipleship and good examples to emulate in following the Lord.

Today the Church in the United States celebrates just such communities of discipleship as it observes World Day for Consecrated Life.  It is a day to recognize and thank men and women religious – sisters, brothers, and priests – for the role they have played in the life of the Church and to pray that many more young men and women will answer the call to religious life.

Soon to be Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote that, like salt for the body, or discipleship for the world, consecrated life is “essential for the life of the Church” – and that therefore, despite whatever challenges particular orders may currently face, “the evangelical vitality of consecrated life will always be present and active in the Church.”

If we think back over the history of the Church in this country – which I spend so much of my time studying – one cannot help but be amazed at the parishes, soup kitchens, orphanages, and especially schools and hospitals that have been built in this country by numerous religious orders.  Brothers and priests, but especially religious sisters, have built educational and health care systems here in the U.S. that are the envy of the entire world.

And yet, that’s still not why consecrated life, and men and women religious are essential to the life of the Church.  Consecrated life is essential to the life of the Church not because of what religious men and women do, but because of who they are. 

Men and women religious live, pray, and work together in community and are bound to each other and to Christ by their profession of the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.  These are things that the world’s wisdom doesn’t understand, or worse, detests, because by their very lives religious call into question our human fascination with wealth, pleasure, and power, and they point beyond this life to the kingdom that is to come. 

By their vowed life religious make present in the world “the characteristic features of Jesus, the chaste, poor, and obedient one;” they provide for all disciples a reminder of Gospel virtues, and they do so, as St. Paul says in today’s second reading, relying not “on human wisdom but on the power of God.” 

I would invite the young men and women of our parish and school to discern if God might not be calling you to make Christ present in the world through your life as a consecrated religious – as a religious priest, brother, or sister.  Like any life worth living, it is challenging – but it is also deeply rewarding to follow the Lord in a community of disciples.

Brothers and sisters, let us all pray as families and as individuals in thanksgiving for God’s gift to the Church of consecrated men and women.  Inspired by their vows, faithfully lived, may we all live our own commitments with greater fidelity and become evermore the salt of the earth and the light of the world.