Righteous Salt and Light - Matthew 5:13-20

Jesus has gone off a little ways from the crowds. He has gathered his disciples around him and he is teaching them. But as he has been teaching, the crowd has gathered around. They have come into the circle wishing to hear what it is the teacher is teaching. They want to know, they want to learn. Let us join the crowd that gathered around Jesus that day, as we listen to the lessons our Savior is teaching, in what has come to be known as “The Sermon on the Mount.”

Jesus is speaking about salt, light and being more righteous than the strictest adherents to the Law. Phrases like “Salt of the earth,” and “Light of the world,” I have had heard explanations of these exhortations, Sunday school lessons, sermons, Bible study talks, as well as cute little Children’s songs, as long as I can remember.  “This little light of mine . . .” This is a passage that is not unfamiliar to those of us who have grown up in the Church. But that does not mean that it is not a passage does not still have something to teach us.

Salt is an amazing thing. We cannot live without salt, our bodies need salt to survive, but too much salt will kill you. (I am sure more than one of have hear that from our doctors)  Salt is a fairly simple compound. NACL, Sodium Chloride. It is made up of two elements, which on their own can kill you. Chlorine is a poisonous gas which if combined with water is explosive, and considering we are comprised of, something in the neighborhood of, 65% water, that is not a good thing. Chlorine on its own, it is not something I would advise ingesting. Sodium is a metal and is not particularly good for you and is somewhat toxic. But salt, the perfect combination of poisonous, explosive gas and toxic metal, is something you cannot live without, and in the just the right amount makes almost everything taste better.

Salt; salt is . . . well salty. It is used to bring out the flavor of food; to make food taste good. Salt is one of the three main ingredients that make bread, bread and bread was one of the main stays of the ancient diet. It is also used to keep meat and fish from spoiling. It was one of the single most useful things used by ancient societies.

It was valuable. Everyone used it and everyone needed it. It was even a form of currency. It was used to pay Roman soldiers. The “salary package” of every Roman soldiers included a certain measure of salt. In fact the English word we use, when we are talking about how much we pay a person, Salary, is rooted in the word Salt.  Ever heard someone who is a hard worker referred to as being “worth their salt?” This references that idea that a person who works that hard is worth the salt given to them in pay. Salt was an important and valuable commodity in the ancient world.

The thing about salt is that if it is misused it becomes worthless. If you use too much salt, it ruins the taste of the food (and we all know, too much salt is just plain bad for you), if you don’t use enough salt, it doesn’t do its job, it is as if you have not used it at all.  Too much, too little, either will render it useless, might as well have not used it at all. Might as well have just thrown the salt out on the street to be trampled by all those who passed by. Which I know is something we do, around here, throughout the winter, on purpose. Salt’s limited ability to de-ice a road was not one its many properties which ancient people had discovered. Doing such a thing with something so valuable would have been unheard of. Using too much, or too little, thus robbing salt of its intended purpose, to make food taste good, was robbing if its saltiness, and to do so, was as bad as throwing it in the street. If salt was not salty then it might as well be nothing more than dirt beneath your feet, trampled on, ignored, useless.

Light was also just as important but in a very different way. Light as such was not a commodity to be bought or sold. The elements needed to make light were very valuable. In fact the miracle, which the Jews celebrate at Hanukah is a miracle of the continued replenishment of the oil needed to keep the Temple lamps lit at a time when they were unable to purchase the needed to oil needed to keep the lamps lit. Light was very important and as such had a certain value.

Darkness was nearly a tangible force, which consumed and oppressed everyone with the Sun’s setting. Predators hunted at night. Those who wished to do you ill could hid in the dark and much more easily surprise you and over take you, beat you, rob you, do all sorts of harm to you and then run off into the night, without ever truly being seen. In order to see at night when the moon was hidden behind clouds, in the woods where the light of the heavens does not easily penetrate, if it is gone as it is for several days each month, or at the dimmer points of its cycle, it could be impossible to see your way at night. A light is needed to see in the dark. This is why we have headlights on our cars, street lights lining our streets. This is why electric lights were invented, because the dark is dangerous.

Dark is, well, DARK. But even at night a city can always be seen. At the time Jesus spoke these words, much like today, but to a lesser degree, the cumulative effect of a city worth candles, and lamps, created a light that could be seen in the distance. A City worth of light can be seen, even on the darkest night. A city, on a hill, at night, could not be hidden from the surrounding countryside. It is because of the cumulative effect of small lights, that during the Second World War, when the Germans often performed air raids during the night, the residents of London, had blackout curtains and were instructed to turn off all their lights when they knew the German planes were coming.

Light allows you to see what cannot otherwise be seen. In the dark very little can be seen, vague outlines nothing more. Light a candle and once your eyes adjust, you would be amazed at how much you can see with even just one small light. The more light, the more that can be seen. So Jesus is speaking very logically when he says that no one lights a lamp and then covers it up. (hide it under a bushel – No!) It makes no sense. It is a waste of light, it is a waste of oil and wick. It is a waste. You simply do not do it.

Jesus tells us that we are the salt and light of the world. We make things taste good. We preserve that which would otherwise spoil and rot. We allow things to be seen clearly. We illuminate what was otherwise engulfed in the frightening, oppressive force of darkness. In short, Jesus says that his followers are two of the most useful and most valuable things used in the ancient world. If we do not enhance flavor, if we do not glow brightly in the dark, if we are salty-less salt or covered lights, we are useless, we are ridiculous, we become worthless.

And then he tells us that we must be more righteous than the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a group that was formed after the exile. Their intentions were good, at first. They saw what had happened when the people of God had not lived by the statutes and ordinances laid out by God. They saw that the consequences of disobeying God’s law were bad, very bad indeed.

So they wanted to be sure that nothing like the Exile would ever happen again. So they sat upon a quest to follow the law in all things. They even worked to bring clarity to the unclear places of the law, but defining every detail, accounting for every possible scenario and explaining how and what to do in every circumstance. And they worked to follow ever detail laid out, to never deviate from the strictest applications of the law. And they worked to hold all of their fellow Jews to these standards as well. They did not want their people to be sent into exile by God again. They wanted God to be pleased with them at every turn.

I think it comes as no surprise that people who were so focused  on the minute details of following the all in all things, they lost their way as some point. They became so obsessed with this strict adherence to the law, they somehow forgot the God who had given the law; the God who really just wanted to be their God and for them to be God’s people.

They had forgotten the heart of the covenant, even as they recited it morning, noon and night, (literally what the law told them to do), they had forgotten that the core teaching of the law: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.” The law was a description of what it meant to be a community of people who lived this all-encompassing love for their God and for the world around them.

Even as they were working to be the people God wanted them to be by, living out all the minute details of the law, they were failing at being the people the God of the law was calling them to be. They were un-salty salt, they were light-less lights. Jesus told those who were listening, you must be more righteous than this. Your righteousness must be salt that is actually making food taste good, you must be salt that keeps things from rotting and spoiling, you must be light that can be seen throughout the house, you must be a city on a hill that cannot help but be seen by all those around you. You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all you might, and (as Jesus says elsewhere) your neighbor as yourself.

We are salt and light and to be such, is to be righteous. To be righteous is to be salt, making a world which tastes, bitter, and bland taste good. We are that which makes the lives of those around us good. We take away the bitterness, as well as the blandness. We are goodness, we are kindness, we are grace and peace in the lives of people around us.

The thing about salt is when it is doing its’ job, you don’t necessarily know it is there. Things are just good. They taste right. But when it is not boy do you notice. Be salt. Make things good, set things right. Be kind, be gracious, be helpful and just. To be righteous is to be salt in a bland and bitter world

To be righteous salt is to be an influence that counteracts the natural decay in the world; inhibiting the rotting that is going on all around, in our society, in our country, in our world; as well as in the lives of the individuals around us; to help the hurting, to lift up the weak, to break down the barriers, which trap some within and hold others out. Work to create a world where all are valued equally and all know that they are loved, and cared for, not only by us, but by a loving God who is the driving force behind people who are working to bring God’s preservative love to every part of our world. We are to love, to be preservative salt, to keep things from decaying, preserve the world, keep it from spoiling, from going bad. To be righteous, is to work to keep work against the forces which rot our society, decay the livelihoods and spoil the lives of people in our world. We are to work to bring kindness, mercy, justice to systems, to people, to keep it all from going bad. To be righteous, is to work to keep the world around us from decaying, from rotting from going foul, being spoiled. We are righteous preservative salt.

To be righteous is to be light; to allow things to be seen clearly. Good light that allows all in the house to see. To take away the fear, the danger found in the dark. We are to be a city on a hill, something a weary traveler can see from far away, and head toward; knowing that with us there is safety and security. The light we shine illuminates all that we are doing to bring goodness, graciousness, mercy and justice to this world. Our light shows the world the love of God, in our actions and in our lives, as we work to love God and others in all things, just at the “law” calls us to.

To be righteous is to be salt and light in a world that so desperately needs both. To be righteous is to live a life of radical love in all things in the face of blandness, bitterness and all-consuming darkness.

“This little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine. . .”