In his great Sermon on the Mount, Jesus uses two metaphors to describe his Church: salt and light (Mt 5:13–16).
“You are the salt of the earth,” he insists. “[B]ut if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?”
“You are the light of the world,” he adds. “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
These two metaphors suggest that God’s people must be present in the world in a certain way. They suggest that the Church’s presence in the world must bring something that is absent—it must supply what the world lacks.
More specifically, “salt” and “light” suggest that the Church’s presence in the world should be enriching, nourishing, and illuminating—in a word, life-giving. Put differently, the Church’s being in the world must be truly sacramental: it must be the means by which the love, mercy and grace of God is made manifest and real.
The Church can only be present in the way that radiates the divine grace and love when it intentionally and sacrificially serves the community. The Church is indeed called to such a service when she is tasked to proclaim the gospel not just with her words, but also with her works.
In fulfilling this task, the Church is merely imitating her Lord (imitatio Christi), who in the incarnation, “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Phil 2:7). In her “incarnational” presence in the community, the Church seeks to follow the example of Christ who “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mt 20:28).
To truly serve the community, the Church cannot stand aloof from the complex confluence of aspirations and challenges that characterise its common life. She must be energetically invested and engaged in the community of which she is a part even as she carefully discerns the needs of its members and the forces that are at work.
In a world marked by divisiveness and toxic rivalry, the Church can be a catalyst for enhancing solidarity and constructive collaboration, which build relationships of trust and invigorate civil society. To this end, the Church must work collaboratively with other actors (religious as well as secular) in the service of the common good.
In order for the Church to serve the community, she must always be mindful of its weak and vulnerable members and stand in solidarity with them. Such solidarity with and service to the needy was modelled powerfully by the early Christians who refused to abandon the sick and the dying during times of epidemics, but stayed and cared for them.
Not only must the Church stand in solidarity with the weak and those in need, she must also empower them. She does this by eradicating those obstacles that prevent the weak and vulnerable from participating more fully in society, and by creating opportunities for participation.
The Church also serves the community by exposing the dehumanising stratifications in society that breed discrimination and exclusion. She does this firstly by removing social segregations within her own communal life and by embodying the truth that in Christ, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female” (Gal 3:28).
In her service to the community, the Church must address the injustices perpetrated by the rich and powerful against the weak and the marginalised. The Church must also speak out against the oppressive structures that are responsible for the violation of the dignity and rights of the vulnerable and voiceless members of society.
The Church does this not because it seeks to take the place of the State, or to be engaged in party politics, or because she is anxious to establish her status in society. The Church has no interest in such things. She challenges injustice and oppression because she wishes to restore the dignity of victims who are made in God’s image and valued by their Creator.
In her service to the community, the Church seeks only to obey the command that she received from her Lord to “love your neighbour” (Mk 12:30–31). She knows that this unconditional love that she is commanded by God to show to the neighbour—which includes even the enemy (Mt 5:43–45)—is the true evidence of her love for God (1 Jn 4:20).
Finally, the Church’s service to the community is not motivated by the misplaced ambition to create an earthly utopia. Rather, it is prompted and energised by true Christian hope. It is her trusting response to God’s invitation to his promised future in which his justice, love and shalom will prevail, and God will be all in all (1 Cor 15:28).