Matthew 5:13-20
“Positively Salt and Light”
February 9, 2020
We are salt and we are light. Jesus is declaring our identities and he’s including each of us. Sometimes we’re more salt. After Friday night’s snow storm, the dedicated Town of Arlington plow crew were out in the darkness of early Saturday morning making the roads passable and safe by pushing aside and piling up the snow that had blown through and then also winding their way with the sand and salt trucks.
Rather than resenting the early morning noise on our otherwise quiet road, a prayer of gratitude crept over me as I heard the sound of a path being cleared and surfaces being treated not for the truck’s sake but rather for the sake of neighbors and strangers alike.
Vermont, like our neighbor states, does not have a “bare roads” policy which would require a lot more money, people and materials to maintain each winter. Instead, on cold days, like we’ve experienced this weekend, road crews use Liquid Salt. Liquid salt is simply plain old sodium chloride, the same as what we sprinkle from our dinner table salt shaker, dissolved in water.
This liquid salt is sprayed on the dry road salt as it leaves the truck. When the temperature gets colder than 15 degrees they will mix that water and salt with another salt known as magnesium chloride as well as a corrosion inhibitor so this cold temperature cocktail saves money, does less of a number on rusting our cars and makes less of an environmental impact. Finding just how much of our unique flavor, in conjunction with other salt bearers is what this proclamation of Jesus’ is all about. He is not saying go and try to be salt. He is saying we are salt.
Jesus is talking here to an ordinary group of people on this Sermon on the Mount. In addition to his disciples, this crowd is made up of common folks. Some are bound to be scared, disappointed, hurting, disrespected and possibly even desperate. They’re worried about their health, their marriages, their crops, food to be prepared and their children’s future.
When he lifts up salt and light as identity he is showcasing their purpose in the world. Salt and light serve as “protectors of the ordinary.” (Kayla McClurg, Passage by Passage: A Gospel Journey)
When we think about salt, so many images might come to mind. Maybe it’s that mouthful of seawater you swallowed as a kid or the popcorn you munched on in a darkened theater or the French fries at a summer carnival or maybe even the stuff we tracked into our houses on snowy boots. The light we envision could be in the form of candles on a birthday cake (remember when you wished for more of those?), the lantern that was brought to our homebound friends in Advent to remind them that they are still a part of us from wherever they are and the steeple above our heads that will be brightened as it points upward when the sun goes down, illuminating our unending reach toward God.
We still find ourselves now in the Epiphany season – a time that beckons us to carry the light of Christ out into the world. Light has the power to illuminate as well as attract – think that porch light in the summer and all those bugs which hover around it.
The salt we bring to the world is our individual gift, our twist on how we are to love and serve God while the light is what we shine on what it means to not just speak like a Christian but to follow Jesus’ example through our actions. We are meant to bring hope and promise to the world.
As church we are to be out in the world, constantly responding to its ever-changing needs. What piece of God’s world that is hurting are you drawn to lift up? Where is the place or people we should be showering with the light of God’s love?
The Gospel message is not intended to be hoarded and kept quiet. It is meant to be shared. Archbishop William Temple famously said, “The church is the only organization on earth that exists for those who are not its members.” What group of people out there needs our help right now? Just like the fact that we can see a single candle from 1.4 miles away, imagine how much light we can create joining our respective flames together.
In Jesus’ time and continued through to today in some communities of modern-day Israel, a common oven would serve an entire community which was often a large extended family. The fuel that was used in these ovens was something that they had a lot of – camel and donkey dung. The dung would be gathered and salt would be mixed into it and then these dung patties would be laid out in the sunlight to dry. When they were ready to be burned, the dung patties would be put onto a slab of salt in the bottom of the oven. Salt has special properties that help to burn the dung. Once the saltiness of the slab was gone it would be thrown on the muddy roads to provide better footing for all those walking along them. The word for earth is the same as the one for these ovens in both Aramaic and Hebrew and so we disciples are the salt of the earth. These ancient practices point to the power of salt and light working together.
In her Netflix series and book of the same name, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, chef and food writer Samin Nosrat points to the fact that salt “makes food taste more like itself.” Salt is what brings out the best of what is in food and it is one of the very few elements that unites all of the cuisines of the world. There are literally thousands of different types of salts to be found around the globe. The human body can’t live without salt. It’s needed to send nerve impulses and our muscles rely on it to contract and relax including our heart. We are salt and light seekers as well as providers.
Jesus isn’t asking us to become something we aren’t. He’s instead reinforcing what he knows to be true of each of us. We are salt and light. We are the sign that God keeps God’s promises. We are not righteous because of our own opinions but because we exude and shine with God’s love and light. In a world that is at war with itself, each glimpse of God’s love might give hope to one discouraged soul at a time through us.
More and more we hear of those, especially younger adults, turning away from organized religion and the increase in the numbers of the “Nones” is clear. For some, it is the inconsistencies, the perceived judgmental and even hypocritical nature of the church with which we are lumped together. Instead of being a beacon, showering others with the love of God, we can be perceived as blocking the light. What will it take to get that bushel basket off of us? “Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly,” said Isaiah. What will we do individually and as church to uncover the light? Perhaps we start with recognizing the light and salt within every other one, beginning with ourselves.
Let us take these words from the poet Mary Oliver with us as we go to live into our God-given identity as salt and light for the world:
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.’”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
(“May You God East, To Filled With Light, And To Shine”)