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Towards COP26: Jesus Calls us to be Salt and Light

person Margot Hodson
1 min

As we ask what Christians can do in the run-up to the COP26 climate summit, we should remember that Jesus calls us to be salt (Matthew 5:13-16). This means that all those qualities of preserving, flavouring, holding things together, making communities brighter and more enduring, and especially bringing healing, all make up our calling as we approach this. 

Jesus also calls us to be light. There is tremendous anxiety among those concerned for the environment, and the term ‘climate grief’ is being used to describe the feelings of many who mourn the damage that humans have already done to the natural world and fear that the very worst will happen with runaway climate change. 

As Christians, we have hope that one day creation will be renewed and restored. Being light means that something of that future hope can be made visible in the present – not in a way that denies the challenges of the present, where hope may be fading, nor ‘other-worldly’, simply looking to the future, and not engaging with the present. Being light means that our future hope gives us resilience to live now – whatever happens and however tough it gets. As things get darker, so even the smallest light becomes more visible and can bring hope.

So, in our local and online communities, work environments, networks and organisations, let us be salt and light to an increasingly hurting world. 

Republished with kind permission from the John Ray Initiative and written by Margot Hodson, Director of Theology and Education at the John Ray Initiative.

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