What’s the Right Thing to Do? 做甚麼纔對？

Fifth Ordinary Sunday, Year A
Theme: What’s the Right Thing to Do? 做甚麼纔對？

Nowadays, the table salts we make use of daily are chemically produced and thus are very homogeneous. Not so in ancient times when salts were extracted by drying up sea water or were dug up in rocky caves. Since they were impure and it was possible for the “salt” to appear to lose its taste (Matthew 5:13b). Technically, those salts were admixtures of different chlorides which might not be as salty as sodium chloride NaCl, the salt we’re familiar with. Thus, salts did not lose taste as such. Of course, since they were admixtures and the distribution of “salty taste” might be uneven. In times, some portions might seem to have lost their taste when most of the sodium chloride had been consumed and became no good for anything.

The gospel passage today is part of the Sermon on the Mount which is not a theological treatise but a Magna Carter, a moral constitution which each Christian should observe. It answers the question: for Christians, what’s the right thing to do? Matthew portrays Jesus Christ as the Supreme Teacher who is greater than even Moses and parables are employed to communicate the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven in simple and easily remembered terms. After outlining the Beatitudes, Jesus starts by using light and salt to teach the crowd what the right thing to do is. “You are the salt of the earth … You are the light of the world” (5:13-14) Later, we read that “Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father” (5:16). For Christians, the criterion of doing the right thing is to make people know and glorify the Father. It is simple as such!

The simile of salt points to the core of morality. Like salt which was impure in ancient times, our actions are an admixture of good and bad deeds. It is impossible for a person to be 100% evil or 100% saintly from cradle to grave. In other words, we have to acknowledge that saints have a past and sinners a future. Though humanity was damaged by the Original Sin, we are still redeemable. From this admixture imagery, we may arrive at the following conclusions:
First of all, Christians should not be discouraged by the faults and wrong choices they have ever made and will be making in the future. Jesus Christ loves us as a whole, embracing all our rights and wrongs. In His divine gaze, we are salts with different degrees of impurities. But in His gospel, Jesus Christ does not require us to be 100% pure in order to be saved. His requirement is simple: “whoever endures to the end will be saved” (10:22; 24:13). In other words, keep doing the right thing to the end and we’re promised to be saved. And when we fail and know our faults, we should “repent and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15). This means that as long as our hearts haven’t been so hardened by sins that we refuse to repent, we still have a second chance; a third chance … and a seventy-times-seventh chance (Matthew 18:22)!

Secondly, I would like to comment on perseverance before going further. Let’s assume that we know what the right thing to do to help a brother and we should forgive his failings seventy-times seven. But in real life, when a person shows no sign of improvement/progress, how long should we persist before we stop? That person can be as insatiable as a black hole, sucking up all our time, emotion and money etc. Lord! How am I able to endure to the end? Have I chosen the wrong person to love at the very beginning? Does the Lord in fact want me to be a channel of His love for another brother instead of this black-hole? Many saintly people speak of loving until it hurts. Perhaps, it is more productive for us to exercise some prudence when we do the right thing.

Thirdly, what are the impurities?
Since the Enlightenment, people attempted to establish moral principles independent of God. There are different schools of ethics to advocate various objective principles of moral actions. For example, utilitarianism defines an action to be moral if it produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. It is not something new. The High Priest Caiaphas demonstrated it when he “had counselled the Jews that it was better that one man should die rather than the people” (John 18:14). But one crucial point is missing in cost-benefit-analysis, viz. the motive. If an anonymous donor gives 100 million to feed starving children in Africa while another business man does the same in front of TV cameras for 10 seconds, whose action is moral? We must take motive into account! For Christians, since God is love and love is never self-seeking. Therefore, whatever actions whose motives are not for the good of the others cannot be right. Alas! Not only our actions are an admixture, but the motives of an action are also mixed! Human beings are too smart. We enjoy killing two birds with one stone. Therefore, an action can be motivated by several motives to achieve several goals at the same time! The motive of the anonymous donor is simply to save children while the business man obviously wants fame on top of charity. In real life situations, there are even ulterior motives only the agents know … Perhaps we should take a break and enjoy the following video clip to reflect on the complexity of moral discussions. (Remember to read the Description on YouTube.)

Before we go, I would like to draw your attention to a more profound layer of moral discussion. In real life situation, an agent and his action appear to be inseparable. Without an agent, there can be no action, right? But we are taught to separate the agent from the actions when we discuss sins and sinners. That is to say, we separate sinners from their sins. Sinners we should forgive and show mercy but sins we abhor. That makes sense. Sins and sinners are not identical.
Now, Jesus did not say, “Your good deeds/salt is the salt of the earth”. Instead He says, “You are the salt of the earth”! Similarly, He did not say, “Your good deeds/light is the light of the world”. Instead He says, “You are the light of the world”! Jesus seems to be making good deeds our identity, the Christian identity. No wonder Pope Francis calls the Beatitudes the identity card of Christians (Gaudate et Exsultate #63). By the time we and our good deeds become identical, perhaps we don’t have to worry about black-holes.

Brethren! Indeed we should. Let us be exemplars of virtues and start with, not glamorous ones, but humble ones like salt! I’m sure we won’t be able to attain virtues overnight. We need to persevere but start with humble ones first! Amen.
God bless!
2020 Reflection