Salt and Light in Cairo

The texts today in the Roman Catholic Lectionary point to a core action of believing Christians to be in the world what they are, the Body of Christ. The central celebration of Christianity is Eucharistic Liturgy. The bread which is broken and the wine which is poured out are the lives which followers of Jesus aspire to live in response to the Will of the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit in resonance with the indwelling Spirit of the believer. Today in Cairo, Coptic Christians have followed Muslim believers in public prayer in ”liberation square” for those killed in the uprising in Eqypt. The Gospel of Matthew today calls for disciples of Christ to be “salt of the earth” and  “ light of the world”. Where does the power to put yourself out there as salt and light come from? Paul writes to the Corinthians that he is preaching and acting through the life in Christ crucified. The Kingdom which is based on taking on the suffering of others and activists who are prepared to be “bread broken” and “wine poured out” are living out of the place of which Paul speaks. The fast described by the prophet Isaiah is not a pious public proclamation of how good a person is by self denial. It is to act to break the yoke of oppression and to avoid the finger pointing. In the days which are to come the fingers will be raised in the Middle East. They will point to this group of “bad people” and that group of whom we should be afraid. We need to look at the images from Cairo and see people, Muslim and Christian, who are responding with the their lives to be “salt and light”. The psalmist, which is known to both Faiths, proclaims that the fear of God, the knowledge of the great power of the Divine in relationship with humanity, is the only fear that need concern us.