Who do we expect to be salt and light? Last week we started our new series exploring The Good Life. What kind of life will lead us to thrive as human beings--to be the people God wants us to be? What priorities and goals will point us in the right direction? How do we make choices and pray and deal with others? These are some of the questions we ll explore. Remember that the Sermon on the Mount stands in Matthew as the opening--the starting point of Jesus teaching. Up until this point in Matthew we have Jesus birth, baptism, temptation, and initial ministry of healing and hope. So in chapter 5, with this large crowd of disciples and the broken and needy, Jesus sat down and shocked them all with the beatitudes. Blessed are the... Happy are the... And Jesus shattered all the expectations of their day with who is blessed or who gets ahead. Jesus perhaps was describing the crowd all around him: blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the ones who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted. Its not the expected list for who prospers in life--either in their day or ours. But Jesus is announcing something important about the kingdom and this good life he s describing. Well today, we re going to be looking at 2 metaphors in the next verses. And you have to be careful with the metaphors in scripture. Because they are poetic language there is a depth of meaning beyond a literal statement. When Jesus said, I am the vine that opens up a lot of possibilities. So don t rush over them! Let them simmer and settle and sink in. So we ll have plenty to explore with what Jesus says. But at the same time, every metaphor breaks down eventually. You can t press it too far and in too many directions. Now if you don t remember high school english, a metaphor is a A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. 1 That s the current definition. The old classic I remember is: A comparison without using like or as. A few years ago there was a list floating around of bad metaphors that were actually in High School english papers. Here are a few: His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free. 1 Meriam Webster Dictionary.
Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter." She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up. The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium. Every minute without you feels like 60 seconds. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. I was visiting with a friend the other day who teaches writing at a community college. He actually had a college paper turned in, and the works cited page had the following: I got my information from the web. And that was it! Well let s look at these metaphors in Matthew 5. You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. -Matthew 5:13 16 Jesus uses two images here, salt and light, and I think both of these are about influence. About influence. What is the influence or the impact of our lives as Christians on the world around us? That s been a big question through the centuries for the church. How do we influence the world around us? About 100 miles from where Jesus was teaching; not far from the Dead Sea--one of the saltiest bodies of water on earth, there was a group of Jewish reformers who had withdrawn to the wilderness. We know them from their collection of scrolls--the Dead Sea Scrolls. But these Essenes couldn t impact their world--they had completely withdrawn. They weren t really interested in influence--they just wanted to be pure, themselves. So they withdrew. And Christians through the centuries have tried this path. They ve seen the world as too corrupting, and so the answer is to withdraw. Others have tried to influence through power. The crusaders were trying to influence non-christians--with the power of the sword. And then, as now, the results tend to be
very, very far from what we desire. Or others have tried to influence from the top down-- control the government, use the power of the state, surely that s the way to go. Baptists have historically been on the forefront of rejecting this approach. The path of influence from above has been tried, and tried, and tried. Most of the nations of Europe have official state churches--christianity as the official religion in many--but in far too many the churches are empty. When the government ends up imposing faith, people either make superficial commitments to be on the good side of the authorities--or they rebel. And one of the reasons many young people give today for being turned off by faith or by church is that they see the church as just interested in politics...in power--in influence through the state. So what is Jesus saying with these metaphors about how we can influence the world around us? What should we learn from these images of salt and light? 1)! Both of these are indispensable items. Every household, no matter how poor, had salt, and had an oil lamp--light. The ancient writer, Pliny, wrote: Nothing is more useful than sale et sole (salt and light) 2)! A second thing that is clear right off the bat is that the followers of Christ and the world are distinct. Salt is clearly distinct from that which is salted. Light is obviously distinct from darkness. Paul talks about the sphere of the spirit and the sphere of the flesh. The kingdom of God is distinct from the kingdom of this world. And this seems so basic, yet it is something we all too often forget. Often Christians seem to expect the world to be following Christ. Whether its government or companies or celebrities or media personalities. We sometimes seem surprised that they aren t following the ways of God s Word! But we shouldn t be surprised at that--at the world acting like the world-- following the world s picture of the good life and doing whatever it takes to get ahead or chase desires. We don t need to spend our time judging the world.that s not the role of salt and light. 3)! I think a third thing these metaphors say is that we have a role here on earth. Jesus says we are the salt of the EARTH and the light of the WORLD. Its great to reflect on the joys of heaven, but we have a task as God s people right now. An important task here. So what does Jesus mean with these metaphors You are the salt of the earth. We tend to think of salt as a condiment. As something used for flavor. But in their culture the primary function of salt was as a preservative. Before refrigeration, meat was patted down with salt and could be kept that way for a very long time. That s why it was so essential. So it s a powerful image of a world in decay, being preserved by God s people. The great preacher and theologian John Stott made the comment, The world also manifests a constant tendency to deteriorate. The notion is not that the world is tasteless and that Christians can make it less insipid ( the thought of making the world
palatable to God is quite impossible ), but that it is putrefying. It cannot stop itself from going bad. Only salt introduced from outside can do this. 2 I think this is what Paul was talking about in Romans 1. I mentioned this the other day in a sermon, but in that passage he s talking about an idolatrous world that had turned their backs on God, and as a result there was decay; God gave them over to their desires. It creates a downward spiral. So we are to be in the world, exerting our highest influence to arrest this process of decay. And we shouldn t blame the world when society seems to be going down the tube. John Stott again said, One can hardly blame unsalted meat for going bad. It cannot do anything else. The real question to ask is: where is the salt? 3 We know of one case in the Bible where a few righteous people --a few followers of God s way would have literally preserved a place. Sodom and Gomorroh. Do you remember in Genesis that strange negotiation Abraham had with God when he learned of God s intent to destroy those cities that had sunk into such abuse and decadence and depravity? Abraham started haggling with God, Will you destroy the place if there are only 50 righteous people there. And God says, No, I won t destroy it. And then Abraham steps down to 45. Well what if there are 40 righteous? 30? 20? 10? All the way down to 10. If there were just 10 followers of God s way then he ll preserve the whole city as wicked as it is. Well I think its no accident that these verses follow right on the heels of the beatitude on persecution. Jesus set a clear pattern in his teaching, reinforced by his life: the world will dish out hatred and lies, and our response is to be truth and love. If we are the salt of the earth, we are serving the earth including those who persecute us. Now salt has a bit of a bite, doesn t it? Jesus doesn t say, You are the honey-pot of the world. Some try to present a Christianity that is so in tune with culture and with the values of the world that there is no bite--no corrective and no challenge. Its just blended in. And I think that s why we find the warning in verse 13. READ 13b but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. Now chemically speaking, salt, sodium chloride, is a very stable compound it doesn t cease being salt. It can become mixed with other substances--but salt doesn t stop being salt. So what s going on here? Some have suggested that what was used as salt in Jesus day was a white powder most likely taken from around the dead sea. And this powder included salt, but many other substances as well there were no refineries then. Of this white powder, the 2 Stott, Matthew 59. 3 Stott, 65.
sodium chloride part would most easily dissolve so it may be that the salt could have washed out, leaving a worthless white powder. And this could be what Jesus was talking about. Any way we look at it, the warning is strong for us. None of us wants to be tossed aside as worthless. An immediate question that we tend to ask is, How does this relate to salvation. Is Jesus saying we can lose our salvation? I don t think salvation is the issue here. Jesus is talking about our task in the world. And it should suffice us to understand that we as Christians can become worthless for our task as salt. We can become so impure ourselves, so much like the world that we re not serving any function at all. We can become so much like the world that there is no real distinction. And we fail in our task of service. Some people in reading the sermon on the mount get to the beatitudes, Blessed are the meek and they think, Is Jesus telling us to be doormats-- just to be walked all over by others? No. When we re unfaithful--that s when we re trampled on. Well lets look at the second image. You are the light of the world. This is another place where we need to remind ourselves of the setting with this crowd. I wonder if there weren t some chuckles through the crowd, looking at this rag-tag, this crowd of the broken and hurting and suffering. These are people who have been stepped on or ignored for their whole lives. And they are the light of the world? This might seem laughable! Is this a joke? They weren t the luminaries of their day. But Jesus is serious is calling them--in calling his followers, the light of the world. Remember that Jesus says in the gospel of John: I am the light of the world. We are inheriting one of the vocations from Jesus here. And I think as we set these two statments together. Jesus: I am the light of the world. and Jesus words to us, You are the light of the world. I think we might imagine that like the sun and the moon. The sun is the source of the light. Massive. Powerful. And the moon reflects that light. We are to reflect Jesus light to others. As Jesus explains this light idea, he focuses on the visibility side of it. You don t light a lamp, just to hide it. A city on a hill this would bring to mind Jerusalem it can t be hidden. You don t light a lamp and then cover it. In the Christian life, maybe we could see this as conformity--its when we claim Christ and then live just like everyone else. We blend in. It makes no difference. A light that is covered is as good as no light as all. So again, we have the difference between the people of God and the world. One man said: A community of Jesus that seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow him.
And Jesus narrows this in verse 16. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. This has to do with our works. Martin Luther was so afraid of the whole idea of good works that he said this was just the preaching of God s word. Now, that may be a part of it. But Jesus I think is being pretty clear. Our works in living are the the works Jesus did: being humble, being peacemakers, being merciful to others, loving others, serving others. These serve as a beacon to the world. I love the story from church history of the emperor Julian. He was later called Julian the apostate. He came along after Christianity was well established in the empire. He held Christianity with bitter hatred. He attributed all the problems of the Roman empire to the fact that Constantine had abandoned the pagan Gods and followed Christ. And so he set about a very severe persecution. But there are two comments attached to Julian that I think are interesting. One is this: a chief advisor wrote a letter to Julian, and he was talking about the Christian problem, and he made the comment: My how these Christians love one another. At another time, Julian was trying to organize support for the poor by his pagan priests. And he said this: No Jew is ever seen begging, and the impious Galileans (Christians) support not merely their own poor but ours as well (Chadwick, 157) The good works of the Christians of that day were a beacon of light that not even their most bitter enemies could ignore. Jesus is calling us to stand out. Jesus is calling us to incorporate his ways into the places where we work, into our relationships, into how we manage our time, into how we serve. We are the salt of the earth. We are the light of the world. We have a task to do. Both images, salt and light are phrased in a particular way. It doesn t say you have the salt you have the light. Its not something we possess. Its not the Holy Spirit in us. Its not the message of the gospel. But its our whole lives. And he doesn t say, Work really hard at being salt and light. He doesnt say, You should be salt...you should be light. But he says you are. You are. It is a present reality of the kingdom of God that when we follow Jesus we are the salt and we are the light. And you may say, Now wait a minute. I don t feel like that. I don t feel like I m preserving anything. Or shining on anybody. I m just getting through the day. But there is something that grace does and the gospel does in our lives. With the gospel its not something you earn--to use an image from our vbs theme, you don t get crowned, Knight...Sir Jeff after years of illustrious deeds of bravery. But you re the given the title up front. You are the salt, you are the light. You are a Christian, a little Christ. You re given the title on the very first day by an act of God s grace. And then the challenge and the effort comes in living up to that. Now go do it. Sometimes we say that when someone steps into a role that they have large shoes
to fill. Its the same idea. The precedent is set. The title is yours. No go do it! Live it. Shine!