Salt & Light, Car Adverts & Helen (Matthew 5.13-20, 1 Corinthians 2.1-12, Isaiah 58.1-9)

Well, well, well. What can I tell you about Helen? I’ve thought a lot about this sermon, and I’ve decided to be merciful, and try not to embarrass her, well not too much.

When I was trawling through the filing cabinets of my memory, I actually couldn’t think of any embarrassing tales to tell. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that Helen probably has more dirt on me, than I on her. So perhaps me staying in her good books is a good thing.

Salt and Light, goodness and showing it. That’s my title for today. But what do I mean?

I first met Helen when we were at Cuddesdon together. All good priests come from Cuddesdon, isn’t that right Simon?

Before Helen arrived I was the sole ambassador for the Diocese of Norwich. I took this very seriously, trying to persuade all my colleagues to come here. In fact Helen told me when she started and said she was from Norfolk, people at college said ‘Ooh, Grahamland!’ Perhaps I’d been banging the drum too much. Perhaps I’d gone a bit puppet man, mis reading the tempo. 

Perhaps the salt had lost its saltiness. Through me banging the drum. Being salt isn’t about banging on and on about Jesus, neither is being light. It’s about goodness and showing it.

Helen and I have an annual tradition called nap day. Like all great traditions, we’ve done it twice, so it’s now what we’ve always done and set in stone.

Helen and I both have Friday as our rest day. ‘Nap Day’ is the last Friday before Christmas. Two years ago I came over to Helen’s to chill out and watch a film, and both of us, so knackered were we, as the film was playing, fell asleep. I snored and dribbled Helen probably did to.

That’s when you know you’re truly comfortable with someone, is when you can 

nap in their house, with them.

Part of being a priest is knowing when to rest. If salt loses its saltiness, it’s no longer good for anything. A priest must rest and offer rest to others.

Your job as a priest is not to endlessly work your fingers to the bone, it’s to love and support the people of Yarmouth. You know this, but we all forget it sometimes. Lost in the pressures that ministry puts on us.

People of Yarmouth, your job is to love and support your priests, not to hound them, or constantly give them jobs to do. You also know this, but forget it sometimes.

It’s not just priests who need to be salt and light, but you too. Trampling on each other just grinds us all into useless dust.

Priests are not defined by what they do, but who they are. Helen has been a priest as long as I’ve known her. Sure she’s only been ordained a priest a week, for me that’s just rubber stamping something that’s already there. My friend, you’ve always been a priest to me.

Back at Theological College I went through a period of terrible anxiety. I was struggling to function. Having panic attacks, and was in the midst of a full scale, apocalyptic, nail biting, hand flailing breakdown.

What did Helen do? She opened her home to me. Gave me a space to sit, to be. To escape. She was just there. When I needed to talk, we talked. When I needed to laugh, we laughed. She offered a light to me, to see my way out of the pit I was in. She helped in a way she probably didn’t even realise, it was that natural to her. The love she shows those around her, it just happens in a uniquely pragmatic way.

She was my priest.

“Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

In Helen, I’ve never seen a light shine so bright. That’s exactly what she did for me, and continues to do, as a herald and steward of God’s kingdom.

She didn’t bang on about Jesus, or quote scripture at me. She was with me. She was what we in fancy theological speak like to call ‘Christologically present’ with me. Through compassion and care, she helped me see Christ. She was a herald of him.

Spending time with Helen It’s clear to me that she is, and always has been a priest. I find it utterly baffling after training alongside such amazing and gifted women, that anyone can think women shouldn’t or can’t be priests. When the fruits of what they do, their sense of calling, and the Holy Spirit dwelling in, and with and through women is self-evident when you’ve spent five minutes in their company.

“A city built on a hill cannot be hidden.” Did you know, you can’t actually see light, just what it bounces off? Light exudes from a point and bounces off everything it touches. Light comes into contact with everything around it.

So does your light, and your light, and Helen’s light.

You can’t hide, and for you Helen there’s no more hiding. We wear collars as an outward sign of who we are, not what we do.

It’s the duty of every Christian to make sure that our light bounces and touches all the people around us.

We can all be with people. We can all come alongside others. We can all be joyful, and salt and light.

“I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom.”

Helen presents God through who she is, and what she expresses. In a way that people understand. She has a wonderful ability to connect God to the everyday and our lives.

When people need us, and need God, the last thing they want is a theological treatise on the nature of suffering. What they want is someone who will go okay, this is where we are, you’re not abandoned. God is here.

God is with us. God loves you, and wants you, and cares for you in this darkness. I’m here, I care for you.

As it says in Isaiah 6; “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’”

Helen is sent, as we all are to be with people, to be salt and light.

For all of us, it’s just as much a part of who we are, not just what we do.

What we do comes out of who we are. But who are we? Do we always have to operate out of a place of strength? Do we have to put a brave face on?

No. As St Paul, one of the greatest evangelists of all time said in Corinthians “I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.”

The role of a priest is to be weak. To be vulnerable and a fool for Christ. I certainly fulfil that last one well. At times we all must be vulnerable, to admit our failures, none of us are perfect. Apart from me of course.

There’s an expectation that in order to be an attractive community we have to be super human, shiny, a glittering jewel that people will aspire to be. Can you imagine what the Church of England would be like as a car advert?

Fade in, it’s all in black and white, as they always are. A tea cup and saucer, and a stale nice biscuit fade onto the screen. A committee room, a go pack table, then a cross, in a series of wildly confusing images flash on and off the screen. A shadow in a cassock comes into view, they’re wearing a collar, they stare intensely into the lens then, turn away. A voice over erupts; The Church of England; A Christian Presence in Every Community.

People don’t want a car advert of a church. Something fake and shiny, they want something real, honest. Something that reflects the mess of life, that welcomes them the way they are. They want a church that does something, and says something.

None of us do any of these things in our own strength. In this communion we are once again united with the one that saves us, the one that is the source of salt and light. That inspires us to nap and rest. To be all we can be.

To shine through kindness and generosity. Who gives us the power to be truly ourselves.

Helen, love your people, continue to be salt and light. Remember that you’re not alone, you don’t do this in your own strength, and that all of us here are in it with you.

People, love Helen back.

Because goodness and showing it is a partnership between us, each other and God.