“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
(Matthew 5:13-16)
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Salt is always salty. It's one of the most amazing things about salt. It's always salty. It’s actually impossible for salt not to be salty. You see, salt isn't a food. Foods can change over the course of time. They can lose some of their flavour; they can go bad and start to taste awful. But salt is always salty. Time doesn't make it less salty; neither does time make it go bad. Salt is simply always salty. The reason is pretty simple. Salt isn't food. Salt is a mineral. We use it as a sort of food – usually as a spice; a flavour enhancer of sorts – but it isn't a food. It's a mineral. And one of the properties of the mineral called “salt” is that it tastes salty. In the same way, light always shines. Now, some people might say “wait a second. What about black light – or light that you can't see?” And, yes, they do exist – but they still shine. The purpose of light is to illuminate things; to reveal things that we might not otherwise know are there. Think about it: black light shows would be pretty boring without the black lights, and something like ultraviolet light can reveal a lot of things, even though we can't see the light itself. And, of course, regular sunlight we all know about. Light reveals things. It's simply what light does. Light that doesn't shine and reveal things is pointless; an oxymoron. It's not really light if it reveals nothing. So, in a way, Jesus is himself using an oxymoron in this little passage from the Sermon on the Mount. “If the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?” Well, it can't be made salty again because it doesn't have to be made salty again, because if it's salt it has to be salty! “Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.” Well, light that doesn't give light just isn't light. For it to be light, it has to have the potential to reveal something.
I take it for granted that Jesus was neither a chemist nor a physicist. He wasn't speaking about salt and light in a scientific manner. He was considering the effect of salt and light, and then he was applying it to our lives of faith. Basically, he said that the things that salt and light do are like the things that we should do as his followers. Let's think of ourselves first as salt.
Jesus told his followers that they were to be the “salt of the earth” and he noted that if salt isn't salty then it's of no use. That's a reference to the flavour of salt; to the taste. Salt takes what might be a bland meal and turns it into something more zesty. Maybe what Jesus was saying was that both the church and the world need salty Christians who haven't lost their zest for their faith. Sometimes we're not salty enough. We come across as bland or uninteresting to people. Sometimes we act as though our faith means little to us, so others wonder why it should matter to them. Sometimes we seem to be more of a religious debating society – a spiritual cub – than a church of passionate believers. Sometimes it seems as if we try to stand for everything and nothing all at the same time out of fear that we might offend someone – and the end result is that no one knows what we stand for, and so we end up with no voice. We're not being salt when we do that. We're adding nothing of value to the world around us. The opposite problem is also true – sometimes we can be too salty and the excess of salt becomes a preservative. If you rub a lot of salt into meat, it helps prevent the meat from rotting. I learned a lot about that when I lived in Newfoundland, because a big part of the diet of some Newfoundlanders is salted meat of various kinds – salt beef, salt pork, salt cod. We don't really need to use salt in this way anymore, because we have something that Jesus didn't – we have refrigerators and freezers – but some people do still use salt for this purpose. I once heard someone say that there are Christians who spread on the salt with all the delicacy of a salt truck! If we become too salty – too fixated on laws and literalism; on rules and rituals and traditions – then we also die, because we become irrelevant; trapped by the past with no relevance to the present. John Calvin – one of the great figures in Presbyterianism, and therefore a part of our own faith tradition – used to wear a hat when he preached at his church in Geneva. For a long time after, Presbyterian ministers wore hats when they preached, to honour the great tradition and practice of John Calvin. No one knew why Calvin wore a hat when he preached – they just knew he did, and so it must have been important for the preacher to wear a hat. Eventually someone discovered that right above the pulpit in Geneva where Calvin preached there were rafters where a large number of pigeons nested. I'll let you reflect on why Calvin wore a hat when he preached! Meaningless traditions or rituals or doctrines lead to too much salt, and that salt becomes a preservative, preserving these things that are of no real importance and preventing us from using salt to flavour the world. In both cases – if we lose our saltiness or if we become too salty – we’ve stopped being the salt of the earth. We’re adding nothing to the world and we’re trapping ourselves into irrelevance to the rest of the world.
It’s the same way with being light. Jesus told his followers that they were “the light of the world” and then went on to speak about how pointless it is to have a light and then hide it so that others can’t see it. There are those who try to water down what Jesus said a little bit. They argue that what Jesus really meant when he said that was that the followers of Jesus are supposed to reflect the light of God so that the world can see God. So by that argument we’re a little bit like the moon. The moon itself doesn’t shine. We can only see the moon because it reflects the light of the sun, and that’s how some people interpret Jesus’ words. We’re just called to reflect the light of Jesus so that others can see God. But that isn’t what Jesus said. He said that we are the light of the world, and that’s a very different thing. To simply be a reflection of light is a very passive thing that doesn’t really require anything of us. But when Jesus called us the light of the world he’s asking us to do more than just passively reflect – he’s asking us to actively shine! He’s saying that we have to be active participants in the mission of God. The moon doesn’t do anything to shine. It’s just hangs there in space and lets the sun’s rays bounce off it. We aren’t like the moon. We don’t just sit back and wait for people to look at us. We go out into the world. We look for those who need light. We find those who need God. We reach out to those who need Jesus. We shine for the world to see so that others will not just know God, but so that they will feel and experience the love of God. Brene Brown is a professor of social work at the University of Houston. She once wrote that “Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” The power of the light that shines from us is that it reveals not us but God. Jesus said “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” When he said that he wasn’t telling his followers to show off all the good things that they do, he was saying that his followers should by their very presence bring others into an experience of God.
There’s a story from ancient history about a Roman general who, having been defeated in battle, went to Caesar and asked for permission to commit suicide because he was so humiliated. Caesar looked at the pathetic, beaten down figure before him and asked, “Man – were you ever really alive?” Sometimes I think that story and that question sums up the church. The church today often seems to spend its time in a state of fear or uncertainty. Will we have enough money? Will we attract enough young people? Will our programs be successful? Important questions, perhaps, but they miss the whole point of the gospel we’re supposed to proclaim. They cause us to be inward looking rather than outward reaching, and the real threat to the church today is the temptation to simply huddle together for protection against the big, bad world around us and hang on for as long as we can until we can ask for permission to die. Friends – that’s not good enough. Not by a long shot. If you’re convinced that the church is going to die then you don’t belong in the church. Those in the church have to be those committed to living and loving, to joining together their gifts and resources and time and energy in order to make a difference in the lives of those around us. David Kinnaman – who is the president of the Barna group that does research for churches and other non-profit organizations - wrote that “being salt and light demands two things: that we practice purity in the midst of a fallen world and yet we live in proximity to this fallen world. If you don't hold up both truths in tension, you invariably become useless and separated from the world God loves.”
We are called to be salt and light. Salt isn’t useful if it isn’t salty and light isn’t useful if it can’t be seen. In the same way, Christians aren’t useful if we don’t act and live like Christians, and if we don’t do it in a way that shows the world the love and grace of God.
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