Salty and Shiny

We are salt. We are light. This is an outcome of being disciples of Jesus: we save because he saves, we are reflections of His light in the darkness. We can abandon our calling and responsibility in two ways: blending with the world (adulterating our salt) or hiding from the world (covering our light). We must be intentionally, actively, presently in the world: salty and shiny.

Dual Citizenship

This is my Jamaican cousin, Eric Mackintosh. You can probably tell, right?

I don’t know how true this story is… but here’s how I heard it.

My Aunt and Uncle, Jane and Doug, were missionaries in Jamaica. Doug was a principal getting a new school there started… and Eric was born while they lived there. So being born in Jamaica he was a Jamaican citizen, and being born to US citizens, he was an American citizen.

Until he turned 18. This is the part I’m not sure about. The way it was told to me, in order to retain his Jamaican citizenship, he would have to serve mandatory military service… because you know the famous mandatory military service in the Jamaican Defense Force. So he had to renounce his Jamaican citizenship because he could not carry out the responsibilities they required.

Good News: yours is the Kingdom of God.

Now, the immediate question to folks who are citizens of a new kingdom. Where do we go now? How do we live now? What are the rights and responsibilities of a citizen of the Kingdom?

And… Rome still thinks we are part of their Kingdom. How do we live as citizens of the Kingdom, aliens in the world.

Salt

Matthew 5:13 ESV

13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

Now we use “salt of the earth” to mean humble.

We don’t know exactly what it cost in Jesus’ day, but we have a “Diocletian edict” for the maximum price of salt in 301 AD. 6250 Denarii for 1 ton of salt. 6250 was pretty equivalent to a farmers full salary for a year… but who needs a ton of salts. Tens of pounds, yes, thousands, no. So salt was a necessary and valuable commodity, but one that most folks could afford and would use regularly.

And in a world without refrigeration, salt was tremendously necessary. There is effectively no other way to preserve meat. You either eat it fresh, or you salt and store it. That’s it.

It draws the water out and inhibits the growth of foodborne pathogens.

So when Jesus says “you are the salt of the earth” this would be the immediate association. They may not say “foodborne pathogens” but they have known for forever that salt preserves meat. One of the earliest writings in China records 40 uses for salt.

So when Jesus says, “you are the salt of the earth,” he says “you preserve the world.”

You preserve the world.

There is also the implication that the world is rotting meat. And that makes sense too.

By virtue of your presence in the world, disciple of Jesus, somehow you slow the decay of the world, you prevent rot.

You preserve the world.

… unless you don’t. Unless you are unsalty salt. What’s that about?

Unsalty Salt.

Salt is Sodium Chloride. Salt does not lose it’s flavor. It is either salt, or it is not.

But Jesus is not referring to the chemical component, but the stuff mined up out of the ground, refined, and then sold as salt in the marketplace. And what happens when people are selling something valuable?

If you can get away with it? Cut it, with something less valuable. But even with best intentions, they aren’t refining pure salt.

Nowadays people pay extra for “Dead Sea Salt...” this would have been a primary source for salt in Jesus’ time. Huge salt cliffs in that area.

One that looks like a fleeing woman… ;)

They pay extra, and they’re paying for all the “extra” stuff. It’s the other minerals in there that make it different, sometimes giving it color,

The word “tasteless” is actually “moraino” from which we get our word “moron.” “Made foolish.” The salt has been adulterated, made foolish, mixed or muddled with something else… and now it is no longer useful for its intended purpose.

You mix up salt with “other stuff” and now your salt is at risk. The more other stuff in there, the less salt, the less use.

Put on the meat… but the meat is still going to rot. It has lost it’s preservative function.

And how does the disciple of Jesus become “adulterated” or “moraino” (morono) so as to no longer preserve the world?

You mix it with the things of this world.

So, easy solution. Don’t mix the salt. You get the salt from the source, from the best source, and then keep it pure.

Keep the salt in its own container, in its own place, maybe a salt cellar. Maybe keep the salt in a Christian home, except to travel to a Christian school, and make weekly field trips to a Christian church...

And with this Christian yellow pages, you can even make sure that your other errands stay in the Christian bubble. And you keep your salt salty.

Boom solved.

So on to the light.

Light

Matthew 5:14–16 ESV

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 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.

I remember driving all night to get to California, and the goal was Vegas: breakfast in Vegas. I was cycling sun flower seeds for 15 minutes, drink a five hour energy wait 15 minutes, lemon drops for 15 minutes, drink some coffee for 15 minutes. Get gas quietly every couple hours so everyone can sleep. Tired and exhausted I see this glow in the West. Not sunrise, the city lights up the night sky and you can see it 100 miles out.

Vegas actually has regulations on this, attempts to limit the “light pollution.” Trying to cover up the light. It’s… not working.

And in Jesus’ metaphor, they don’t want it to work. People are stumbling around in the darkness, artificial light is not a thing, candles are expensive, wood and fire in a place with limited tree growth is to be used with caution.

Most people are going to bed when it’s dark and waking up when the sun comes back. That’s true for most of history. Rooms full of candles, not unless you were royalty. One candle, when necessary, if necessary.

They make olive oil, so they could have lamps from that, or fish oil. You thought your Dad would yell at you for leaving the lights on? They really are burning money… so wasting it would be insane.

So if someone’s house is all lit up, if a city is all lit up, you are paying attention. Something special and noteworthy is happening, something glorious.

And what corresponds to the light?

Your Good Works

That’s what they see. They see your actual actions, and they can’t help but recognize them as good.

And what Jesus shares in the coming examples is going to unpack this. Radical righteousness, acts of love, of selflessness, carried out in actual everyday life.

The kind of “good works” that even sinners recognize as worthy, as wholesome, as valuable, as “good.”

The human soul, made in the image of God, recognizes “right-side up life.”

And, to some extent, recognizes it as something beyond humanly possible because… who gets the glory?

They “give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

So God gets the glory. And that makes sense, because it is ultimately the righteousness of Jesus expressed in your life. Through you, in you.

Jesus is the Light

Wait, you may say, Jesus is the Light.

John 8:12 ESV

12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

That could seem confusing.

That’s how light works, though. The moon shines as a “light” in the sky, though it has no light of it’s own. The face of the moon sees the sun when we don’t, and we see the reflected glory of the sun.

In the same way, you see Jesus, you know Jesus, you are filled with the Spirit of Christ, you experience the love of the Father, the Triune God is before you… and the world can’t see God… but they can see you.

You are light. In one way, you can’t help it. But you can do your best to cover it up.

Jesus says “don’t do that.” Stay shiny!

Stay Salty. Stay Shiny.

How do we do both?

So in summary:

Be pure salt. Don’t let anything “adulterate” your saltiness. Stay away from the world. Stay salty.

And: be pure light, shining in the darkness, let all the world see your glorious glow. Stay in the world. Stay shiny.

Which is it?

How do we do both?

Jesus isn’t really saying two different things here. He is, as he does often, as we saw in poetic structure last week, he is again saying the same thing twice.

As His disciples, you are salt, you are light, you are preserving the world, you are a light in the darkness… and it is your good deeds shining before all that reveal that...

But it is your discipleship to Jesus, your new lives in the Kingdom of God, that’s why you are salt and light.

So you MUST be in the world. That’s true of light, on a stand, on a hill, visible before all, driving out darkness wherever you go. And it only takes a “little” light to drive out a “lot” of darkness. One lamp, on a stand, light to all in the house.

That’s true of salt too. Salt has to be in the meat. All rubbed up. If the salt isn’t in contact with where the corruption is… it isn’t going to stop the meat from rotting at all. It’s useless.

Christians who stay away from “sinners” their whole lives, who never meet someone who needs Jesus? Useless. God has you here for a reason.

Christians who never see darkness, or people in need of light? Useless. Not serving the great purpose God has for you, exactly you, exactly where He has called and placed you, and where He is calling you next.

Purposefully, actively, connecting with the world. That means rubbing shoulders with “corruption.” Rotting meat. That means walking towards darkness.

That means purposefully rejecting the Christian bubble. Restructuring your life, intentionally, to build real and ongoing interactions and relationships with non-Christians. You have to be in the world.

This is a struggle for me at times. I work from home, I now work for a “Bible software” company and my immediate coworkers are believers. I’m a pastor, it’s actually the easiest thing in the world for me to go week after week without being salt. Without being light. That’s the default.

I have to be intentional to carve out time to get out of my bubble, out of my comfort zone. Thursday lunch in the park, that’s a great opportunity. Conversations at football games, in the grocery store, in the Uber drive.

You are light, and I believe God has given you a story, a testimony, to share with words and deeds… and we are all to practiced at hiding our light. Be bold, be shiny.

And you must ensure that you are preserving the world and not being adulterated by it, influencing and not being influenced.

Fill up your life with everything the world is doing until someone who studied your calendar and your checkbook couldn’t tell the difference if they tried. They aren’t “glorifying God at your good deeds...” and you aren’t slowing the corruption of the world around you. You’ve lost your “tang.”

Jesus knew this was going to be a challenge. So he prayed for us in his high priestly prayer. Literally for these same disciples, and I think, for all the disciples that would follow. That’s you and me.

John 17:14–17 ESV

14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

In the world, not of the world.

Stay Salty. Stay Shiny.

How do we do both?

We have more to learn here, and thankfully, Jesus’ sermon isn’t done. Mine almost is… but his isn’t. He is going to unpack what “good deeds” look like. What righteousness really truly is. And it’s glorious.

But hear his words at the end. His prayer for you and me. That God would sanctify us in truth. In His Word. He gave it to us.

In fact, He is the Word, the Logos of God, the self-revelation of God himself.

This is why we study His Word together. What did Jesus say again, what did he teach again? And we are the community of Jesus together, to encourage and equip one another, teaching and modeling what love really looks like, loving God together, loving one another, and then going out and showing that love.

This requires regular disciplines of staying in, abiding in the Word of God, the Spirit of God, the Presence of God, staying in prayer.

This means regular rhythms of fellowship with God’s people. How you doing this week? Staying salty?

Folks say you can be Christian without going to church weekly… that can be true. But how are you staying salty? God seemed to think we needed at least a weekly rhythm of worship and sacrifice and devotion to God.

This is what we do here together.

So at the risk of oversimplifying, I’ll put it this way. Here, in this place, we get salty. We salt up. Fresh from the salt mines, filled up with righteousness, we are refined and purified. In worship, in prayer, in the study of His Word, in fellowship together, in all the ways. You salty? I’m salty.

And then we go out… and we shine. We look for darkness, God sends us into darkness, and we shine. God sets us on fire.

This is who you are. Salt of the earth. Light of the world.

How are you staying “salty?” Free from the corruption of the world, and thus slowing the corruption of the world.

How are you staying “shiny?” Living lives of radical righteousness that are radically visible to a watching world?