The Sermon on the Mount (Part 2)

Go Make Jerky (Part 2)

English Standard Version Chapter 5

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.

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.

You may remember from last month that we began looking at Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and hopefully you remember that Jesus began the sermon by describing the characterisitics he desires in his followers when he went through his list of blessings.

You may remember from last month that we began looking at Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and hopefully you remember that Jesus began the sermon by describing the characteristics he desires in his followers when he went through his list of blessings.

He continues to describe his follower’s characteristics in the verses we will look at today, but He specifically describes what the Christian’s relationship is to the world.

Outside of the Sermon on the Mount, in Jesus said “I have given them (those who belong to Jesus) your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.”

I have given them your word, and dthe world has hated them ebecause they are not of the world, fjust as I am not of the world.

d See ch. 15:19

e ver. 16

f ch. 8:23

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

As I am often reminded, we are in Japan, but I am not Japanese, nor am I a Japanese citizen. That is one way to say that I am in Japan, but I am not of Japan. It’s a bit of a simple comparison and doesn’t capture the meaning completely, but the comparison is good enough for my purpose this morning.

Just like I am still in Japan, or at least I think I am, we are still in the world. And since we are in the world we are to be something to the world. We have a job to do; we are to be Christ’s ambassadors, that is our main purpose while we are here.

One way of saying that we are Christ’s ambassadors is to say that we are salt and light.

These two images show us how well, or even how badly we are doing as ambassadors.

SALT AND SALTINESS

What Jesus says about salt is in just one verse, and the other three verses are dedicated to the analogy of light.

So His statement about salt, as it pertains to our relationship to the world, is very short.

He simply says, “You are the salt of the earth” and then immediately starts to talk about the uselessness of salt that has lost the properties that once made it useful.

But if you have read any Bible commentaries on the Sermon on the Mount, the writers often go into exhausting detail about how until recent times there was no refrigeration, so people would preserve meats by rubbing them with salt and they talk about the custom of showing courtesy to guests in giving them salt to flavor their food and that is how a one verse comment turns into 2 or 3 pages about the properties of salt, most of which has nothing to do with what Jesus is actually talking about.

I don’t want to take anything away from commentaries, but I’m pretty sure that no one here needs me to explain to them what salt is. It was and has always been the most common seasoning and everyone knows it’s taste.

Instead, I’d rather tell you about what He means and why he is the negative “if salt loses it’s saltiness”, rather than telling us all the positive things salt does.

So again He says, “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.”

Notice he mentions its taste, some translations say “savor” or similar. Talking about the ability to preserve meat misses the point entirely.

But, He isn’t saying that we are the salt of the earth because we add flavor to it, no He is specifically using that as a means to speak of it’s value.

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.

So no need to go on and on about what salt is good for and how that correlates to characteristics Christians should have.

Instead, if we understand what Jesus is saying, it all becomes much more clear.

Salt was important in his time, and because of its importance, it was valuable. Roman soldiers were given an allowance to purchase salt. This allowance of money was called a “salarium” Latin and is were we get the word “salary” in English.

That might explain why why salary men are so salty.

But notice how that all revolves around value. It’s the value of the salt that is important here, yes it is valuable because of its properties, but there is more to it than that.

Jesus asks kind of a strange question though, doesn’t he? If salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? For those familiar with chemistry, that doesn’t even make any sense.

. Even the word “salary” comes from this practice. that if salt loses it’s saltiness it is no longer us good for anything, and likewise if we lose the properties of a citizen of heaven, that is if we lose the properties of being a follower of Christ, which he just finished listing in the blessings, then likewise we are no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled down as well.

Salt is primarily, if not entirely, made of sodium chloride which is a stable compound which is what gives salt its taste. It being a stable compound means that sodium chloride remains sodium chloride. Salt can’t lose its saltiness.

Well that isn’t entirely true. There is one way for salt to lose its saltiness and that actually will explain what Jesus means even more than telling you all about making beef jerky.

To understand Jesus, you have to understand the context, his audience, and the culture around him.

The context is easy enough, we already introduced that, his audience is his disciples but the culture issue really opens this verse.

Israel had a lot of uses for salt, as did the Romans. But Israel only had two major sources of salt. One was the salt-pans around the shores of the Dead Sea and the other, a much larger source, was Mount Sodom.

Mount Sodom is 8 km long, 3 km wide and 226 meters tall and composed by 80% salt rock.

In Jesus’ day, this giant mountain of salt was literally known as “the salt of the earth” and knowing this, it should come as no surprise that this is what Jesus is referring to when He says to His disciples “you are the salt of the earth.”

Basically, Jesus is giving them a compliment regarding their usefulness, but more importantly, their value.

But that isn’t all. Remember that question that made no sense, because salt can’t lose its saltiness, that is important information regarding Mount Sodom.

As I said, there is only one way for rock salt to lose its saltiness and that is by being dissolved and diluted into water. As you can imagine, the outer layer of Mount Sodom were open to the elements. Rain water would run down its outer layer washing the sodium chloride away, leaving the “salt” tasteless and worthless.

And, guess where the salt went; that’s right, it ran off into the Dead Sea which is inhospitable to life.

As a quick aside, two years ago cave explorers found a giant cave beneath Mount Sodom which is now recognized as the largest salt cave in the world.

But like the outside of Mount Sodom, if the salt loses its saltiness, or the Christian loses His Christian characteristics, they are no longer salt and they are no longer Christian. A faithful follower of Christ has immense value to Christ, they are useful and He is glorified by them.

But a Christian who loses those characteristics, those things we went through just last month, has no value as an ambassador to Christ and as Christ uses many allegories to explain, they will be thrown out, they will be thrown into the fire, He will say He never knew them.

that if salt loses it’s saltiness it is no longer us good for anything, and likewise if we lose the properties of a citizen of heaven, that is if we lose the properties of being a follower of Christ, which he just finished listing in the blessings, then likewise we are no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled down as well.

As far as this verse is concerned, it really doesn’t matter what the qualities of salt are or what it is used for. The analogy here is about the loss of good qualities which makes us useless as ambassadors for Christ.

Now I said I wasn’t going to go into a long description of what salt does, but I am going to tell you what it doesn’t do.

Skip.

Remember I told you how commentators say that salt preserves meat? They often forget to tell you that its only temporary. Salt doesn’t preserve meat forever. You can put as much salt on a strip of bacon as you want but eventually it’s going to rott.

Similarly, even if Christians do preserve the good properties of this world, it too is only temporary, because the world is in bondage to decay. Not only physically, but spiritually.

If you watch the news you’ll note that society is always tending toward becoming more and more putrid until a civilization collapses. On the surface, things may look like they are improving, but it’s rotting on the inside. All civilizations fall eventually due to their own corruption.

It begins with

That is, even those people in society who have the characteristics of preserving goodness in the world can not stop it from going bad. In fact, the people who have preserving characteristics lose them, just as salt loses its saltiness, as the things around them become rotten.

See, I am in Japan but not of Japan. I am a citizen of another place.

Their saltiness is swept away from them by the world and it runs off into a society where life is no longer valued. Where an estimated 40-50 million babies are aborted every year around the world and ending a human’s life becomes the primary form of birth control.

That is simply one of countless signs that the world has lost its way.

You’ll hear on the news how worried so many people are about global warming, the loss of the rainforest, the oil spills and even the possibility of a meteor strike.

What you won’t hear on the news is what we should really be worried about. We should be worried that the salt has lost its saltiness and that shameful behavior is more and more celebrated with every passing year, where sinfulness is not only normalized and accepted, but outright encouraged, even among people calling themselves Christ followers.

We don’t want to hear the real problem anymore so that we can fix it, we want to hear the things that make us feel good. Bible preaching churches around the world have 5 or 6 old women sitting in the pew while stadiums full show up to hear how to live get the most out of life right now.

Salt may well slow down the purification of meat, but it doesn’t do it by being near by in a salt shaker, it does it by being rubbed into the meat. Similarly, it’s good that you are here in church this morning, but now that you are, this week go rub yourself into society.

That starts a new point about what Jesus says about being the light of the world, which we will pick up next month.

Please pray with me.