Isaiah 58:7-10 / 1 Cor 2:1-5 / Matthew 5:13-16
There are the 12 Days of Christmas. That’s already quite a long time to keep celebrating Christmas.
But that’s not as long as the 15 days of the Lunar (Chinese) New Year, and we are just slightly over the halfway mark.
Whatever the customs and traditions there are for these 15 days of the Lunar New Year, for most of us, it is more or less like going around visiting with two mandarin oranges and collecting ang pows.
And usually the same things are being said. The elders will ask those who still single: When are you going to get married?
And the elders will also ask those who are married but with no children yet: When are you going to have baby?
But for the sake of getting a bigger ang pow and maintaining cordial relationships, it would be better not to reply and just try to smile it away.
Then it will go on to the next thing and that will be eating and eating and more eating.
The things that come to mind, or that will go into the mouth, are pineapple tarts, bak kua, love-letters, cashew nuts, cakes and a whole range of so-called “goodies” that will leave us bloated with over-eating.
That is how we spend the Chinese New Year, and we wish each other “Happy New Year”.
But are we really happy doing all that? Do all that visiting and eating make us really happy? Are all that a good start to the New Year?
Certainly it is good to meet up with relatives and friends especially if it is a once-a-year affair.
And we would like these moments to be enriching and enlightening moments such that these moments will be remembered and cherished.
In other words, we want to share good news with others, and we also want to be good news to others.
In the gospel, Jesus tells us that He wants us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
The salt that we are called to be means that we are to give a taste of God’s presence in our conversations with others.
Too much salt would turn people off as it would become overdosed with religion and we are seen to be overly zealous.
But often in our conversations, God is missing and it becomes like tasteless food. And it is here that Jesus is prompting us to be that “pinch of salt” that would leave in others a taste of God.
Especially when our conversations digress into complaining and gossiping. That is when we have to be the salt that would purify and preserve the decency of the topics of our conversation.
If we, as the salt of the earth, give others a taste of God, then as the light of the world, we are called to be light-signs that show others the way to God and the ways of God.
It is often said that God works in mysterious ways and we ourselves must be able to see it before we can tell others how to look for it.
There is a story of a pretty and well-dressed lady who went to see a lawyer to file for divorce.
Her husband used to be a successful businessman, and he was able to support her expensive and lavish life-style.
But when his business failed, his wife couldn’t take it and decided to file for divorce and leave him.
When the lawyer heard her story, he told her that he would like someone to speak to her, and he called in a middle-aged office cleaner.
The lawyer asked the cleaner to tell the lady how she found meaning and direction in her life.
The cleaner’s story went like this – My husband died of cancer in his late 30s, and then barely half a year later, my only son was killed in a road accident.
I had nobody left and nothing to live for. I was in grief and in shock and in a daze. I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t eat.
I couldn’t smile. I was angry with God and resented those people who seemed so happy in life. I even thought of ending my life.
One day when I came back from work, there was a scrawny kitten at the corridor, meowing away, and it followed me to the door.
I felt sorry for the kitten, and I decided to let it in and I gave it some milk. It purred and rubbed against my leg.
For the first time in months, I smiled. Then I stopped to think. If helping and feeding a little kitten can make me smile, then maybe helping somebody in need can make me happy.
So the next day, I cooked some food and brought it to a neighbour who was elderly and sick, and it made her happy.
So every day, I would try to do something nice for someone else and it made me happy to see them happy.
I realized that a person cannot be happy unless he is thinking of how much he can help others, instead of thinking about how much he can get from others.
Now I eat well, and I sleep well, and I am happy.
And then the cleaner said to the lady: I hope that you can be happy too, by helping others to be happy.
Whether the lady went on to file for divorce or not, the story left it to us to think about it.
But the point of the story is that the poor cleaner found happiness by helping others to be happy.
In doing that, she also found her purpose and meaning in life. She found God in her life, and she is helping others to do so.
We are Christians. A Christian is a person in whose life Christ lives again.
Just as salt gives taste and light gives sight, let us give others a taste of God’s presence and to help them see the mysterious ways of God.
Then when we wish others “Happy New Year” we are also wishing them the love of God and all His blessings.