Salt and Light

In last week’s gospel reading, Christ began his Sermon on the Mount with the beatitudes, a series of statement beginning “blessed are...” Now, he pivotes to two statements of “you are...”

Statements which both speak of the role of Christ’s followers, and offer a warning to them against failing in that role.

And notice that Christ is not saying “become these things” - he says “you are these things”. They aren’t aspirations but rather statements of identity. If you are in Christ then you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

“You are the salt of the earth"

I imagine most of us have used salt in our cooking at one time or another. And it’s almost guaranteed that when we buy ready made meals at Walmart, or we get our fast food from McDonalds or Wawa, or we sit down in a restaurant, that we can expect there to be salt added. Some of us will even make a habbit of adding more.

And that’s what it was used for in ancient times, too. And it was also used as a common preservative, preventing meat from decaying in a hot environment long before the invention of freezers or fridges.

And so to be the salt of the earth would be understood in two ways: salt transforms, by changing the flavour of food, and it also preserves.

And just as salt transforms and preserves food, so are we called as followers of Christ to transform the world by bringing the gospel to all and we’re called to sustain and preserve Christ’s kingdom until His return by living lives that are good and pleasing to him.

“But if salt loses it’s taste then how can its saltiness be restored?”

Salt losing its taste might seem an odd concept. But to the Galileans the meaning would be obvious: because pure salt was expensive due to the costs of importing it from distance places, many would instead purchase the cheap and abundant salt taken from the rocks near the Dead Sea. Although this salt was easy to obtain, it was also mixed with various impurities and as a result when it was exposed to moisture or to humid air it would lose those properties that made it so valuable.

It became useless and was thrown out.

Because what made it so distinctive was gone.

And in the original Greek there’s actually some word play here: because the word that we translate as “loses its flavour” can also be translated “is made foolish.”

Because when we lose the distinctiveness that makes us stand out as different to the world, and when we cease to represent Christ’s transformative and preserving power, and when we become indistiguishable from those around us, we become compromised and so we are made foolish. Because is there anything more foolish than to be called to bring God’s kingdom into the world and instead to become attached to worldly kingdoms and nations and values?

“You are the light of the world. Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

Right there we see the distintiveness that the salt of the earth carries: A light which illuminates good works and brings glory to God.

Now look at what God says to the people of Israel through the prophet Isaiah.

He sends a warning to a people who put on displays of religious piety. Who fast with sackcloth and ashes and who make a big performance of following the laws that are required of them.

But whilst following the letter of the law, they oppress their workers and they quarrel and they fight. They perform their religion to try and draw God’s attention, but they don’t have hearts which display God’s love.

And so God says to them that the correct fast is not a public display of religious practice but rather one of love and compassion and justice.

It’s a freeing of the opressed

A feeding of the hungfry

A covering of the naked

And if that sounds familiar it’s because it was echoed in Christ’s parable of the sheep and the goats, when he declares that when we do those things we do them for him, and when we neglect to do them then we also neglect to do them for him.

And when you do those things, says the Lord through Isaiah, your light shall break forth like the dawn.

And when it does, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your works in loosing the bonds of injustice and breaking every yoke, and so give glory to God who has commanded these things be done.

Christ then goes on to say “do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”

The law and the prophets: two of the three divisions of the Tanakh, the Hebrew scriptures we refer to as the Old Testament.

And Christ makes it clear in these words that those writings point to and are fulfilled in His ministry. That the teachings he now gives are not a replacment for but rather final continuation of those earlier teachings.

And that includes these teachings we see in Isaiah. When Christ talks of the need for a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the pharisees, we should be calling to mind those earlier people who saught God “as if they were a nation that practiced rightteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God.”

This is a warning against hypocrisy. We’re being told that not only must we recognise and obey God’s commandments but that we should recognise the need to avoid hypocrisy: that the spirit of those laws is not in carrying out specific ritualised actions or “practicing religion” for the sake of displaying our piety and righteousness but rather that it is in justice and compassion and mercy.

That if we fall into hypocisy, then we lose our our saltiness.

That if we fail to follow the true fast then our light fails to shine, as though it were hidden beneath a bushel.

And so our challenge is this: on reflection, are we distinct?

Do you practice the true fast that God calls you to?

Are we as a church shining a light in the world that reveals God’s love?

Over the past few weeks we’ve looked at the light that Christ brings into the world, how he calls us into that light and sends us to bring it to others.

Jesus calls us not to perform religion but to live it — to flavor the world with grace and to light it with compassion.

Are we doing that?

Is there more that can be done?

Do we practice the transformative, preserving works that bring glory to God?

Or have we lost are saltiness, and allowed the light of Christ to be discarded and trampled underfoot by those who desperately need it?

If we cry to the Lord for help, will he answer “here I am?”