Matthew 5:13-20
Ordinary Time 5A
February 5, 2017
Fondren Presbyterian
Church
The Rev. Dr. Robert
Wm Lowry
Jesus
said, “You are the salt of the earth.”
Psychological
research tells us that for every negative message elementary aged children hear
about themselves, they need to hear ten affirmations to balance the
scales. For every one step back, it
takes ten steps to get all the way back forward. I would wager to say that through out lives
that ratio never really gets any lower.
Put
another way, we often become what we are named.
Call a child (or a teenager or an adult for that matter) bad often enough and he or she will
become convinced that they are in fact bad. We live into the name we are given by the
world around us. Dale Carnegie called
this giving a person a fine reputation to live up to, or, in some cases down
to.[i]
So
it is no small thing when Jesus tells his disciples that they are “the salt of
the earth.”
Now,
to our contemporary ears this is not earth shattering complementary language. I mean when was the last time someone called
you salty and meant it as a complement?
And even beyond the implications of inappropriateness of salty language,
salt is the big bad boogey man lurking in the dark just waiting to pounce and
give you hypertension!
Like
so much of the biblical narrative, we have to leave aside our linguistic biases
and hear these ancient words with ancient ears.
Salt
in first century Palestine was as essential as the air we breathe and the water
we drink.
For
starters, we all need salt to survive.
Salt is such an elemental part of our survival that it is the only
mineral we take from the earth and consume just the way we find it. While too much salt can certainly cause us
problems, without at least some, we cannot survive.
In
addition to keeping us healthy, salt helps prevent us from getting sick. Before the aisles of Best Buy were lined with
refrigerators with not only icemakers and water dispensers but also televisions
built into them, salt was how you kept food from spoiling. Without it meat and fish would rot in the
desert sun.
Salt was how you
exsanguinated meat to make it kosher.
It was so central
to life that it was described in the Levitical texts as one of the appropriate
offerings to God.
Entire roads were
built to promote its trade and wars were fought to control its supply.
Salt was
everything.
Salt was everywhere.
Salt was essential
to the life of the world.
So when Jesus
tells the disciples that they are the salt of the earth, what he is in fact
telling them is that they are the essential element to the life of the world.
When Harry Truman
was sworn in as President he said that he felt like the moon, the stars, and
all the planets had fallen on him.
My guess is that
the disciples felt something like that when Jesus said to them, “you are the
salt of the earth.”
It is tempting
when we read this text to reduce Jesus’ words to a command- “Go out into the
world and become salt!” But what we have here is not a
commandment. It is a commendation. Jesus is describing something about the
disciples that is already true.
They
ARE the salt of the earth. There is no
merit badge to be earned or award to be won here. It is already entirely true
in them.
And what Jesus
said to and about them, he says to and about us. We who claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ
are as much the audience today in Jackson, Mississippi as they were that day in
ancient Palestine.
We are not almost
salt, we are not working toward saltiness, we are not making our way toward
some great salty tomorrow, we are, here and now, in this moment and in this
place, the salt of the earth. We ARE the
salt of the earth because like those followers who heard these words first
hand, we are fool-hearty enough to answer the call of discipleship- to bind
ourselves to the one called Christ.
We too are
the salt of the earth.
In addition to all
of the life giving and life enriching things salt is used for, when used
thoughtfully it also sharpens and refines tastes and aromas, transforms bland
flavors into something complex and wonderful, and provides what Episcopal
Priest and NYT food writer Robert Farrar Capon called the “music of cookery,
the indispensible bass line over which all tastes and smells make their
harmony.”
Of course to get
this enhancing effect for the senses, or any of the other benefits salt
provides you have to use it.
Garrison Keillor
quipped that sitting in church doesn’t make you a Christian anymore than
sitting in your garage makes you a Cadillac.
The same is true of salt in the kitchen. Simply putting a box of kosher
salt next to the stove will not flavor the soup. You have to mix it in to get the desired
effect.
Did you add any salt to this soup?
No, but I had a box next to the stove!
That’s an absurd
thought, but something like that seems to have been on Jesus’ mind because
right after he tells the disciples that they are the salt of the earth he says,
“but if salt has lost its taste, how can
its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out
and trampled under foot.”
This is one of
those places where our English translations are not much help. The Greek text translated here as “salt
losing its taste” is halas moranthe
which literally translates as “salt becoming made foolish.”[ii]
Instead of the
salt losing its taste, Jesus warns us about the salt losing its mind! Salt has a definite purpose and if you won’t
use it for that purpose then the salt becomes foolish to have around. If you aren’t going to put it in the food,
why have it in the kitchen?
Salt, this
essential element to the life of the world is only useful when it is used; when
it is mixed in with the things of the world- combined with our bodies to give
health and our food to give flavor. If
it isn’t used, what in the world good is it?
The same, Jesus
seems to say, is true about us.
What good are
disciples who just stand by and watch the world?
We exist for
mixing it up in the world. To do our
work, we have to mix ourselves into the culture, the people, the events, and
the life of the world. To be of use to
the gospel, we have to be mixed beyond these walls bringing the flavor and
complexity and depth of the gospel.
Disciples who
never let their discipleship leave the church are as useless as salt that never
leaves the box.
I did not realize
that this was the lectionary text when I worked out with the search committee
when I would start my call. It wasn’t
until after the dates were set and I started to do some worship planning that I
realized that this incredibly appropriate text was the gospel lesson for
today. It is appropriate because of all
the things I learned about this church and its history and its people; of all
the conversations I had with the PNC and the presbytery and Van; of all the threads
and themes that came out in the whole call process, the one that kept me coming
back; the one that convinced me that this was the place I was called to do
ministry was a sense that this is a church that wants to be the salt of the
earth. This is a church that has a history
of getting out of the box and into the soup; that wants to share the hope and
grace of the gospel in Jackson and beyond; to mix it up and add a little flavor
to the world.
After all, isn’t
that why we are here?
Isn’t that why we
come to this place and worship this God and pledge ourselves to be Disciples of
Christ? Don’t we do it because we see
all around us a world in need of some gospel salt?!
A world where
injustice goes unnoticed and inequity unopposed;
prejudice is
tolerated and hate is normalized;
greed is glorified
and corruption is accepted;
a world where the
poor are blamed for their poverty;
the oppressed for
their oppression;
the starving for
their hunger;
and the least
among us are given the least regard.
That is the world
Christ sees and that is the world God longs to see made right. And that is why Christ sends us out into that
world to BE salt; to be the stuff of hope and promise in this broken and
pleading world; Christ calls us from our daily living to the eternal work of
the kingdom right here and right now because we ARE the salt of the earth and
for the world.
…and that is where
the metaphor begins to break down.
When you mix actual
salt into the soup the sodium chloride stays sodium chloride. The chemical composition of the salt doesn’t
change, but the same cannot be said for our faith.
Salt doesn’t get
tired.
We do.
Salt doesn’t get
spiritually drained.
We do.
Salt doesn’t lose
heart.
But, all to often,
we do.
We’ve all heard
that voice; that insipid whisper that comes to us in those moments of
exhaustion when there are four appointments, three carpools, and a church
supper all vying for the same narrow place on the calendar. It is the whisper that says to our spirits,
“Just let it be. It isn’t that bad the
way it is. You have enough to do as it
is so quit going against the grain and just let it go. The soup is fine.”
Jesus knew that
voice of temptation; the temptation to throw up our hands and leave the whole
mess to God to sort out. I think that is
why Jesus does not leave it alone with this first metaphor, salt. After saying, “you are the salt of the
earth,” he goes on to say, “You are the light of the world.” Not only are disciples salt, we are light.
Light was a
familiar motif to Jesus’ hearers and, unlike salt, it is a metaphor that
endures today almost unchanged. Light
still holds much of the same meaning as it did in Jesus’ time; light is
revealing, it is illuminating, it is truth.
Light was and is all those things in our hearing, but it is also one
more thing when spoken of in light of the gospel; it is inexhaustible.
Remember the words
from John’s gospel, “the light was the light of the world shining in the
darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”
Even when we
become exhausted in our saltiness, our light is never overcome; it never runs
out; it, like the grace and hope of the one who sends us, is inexhaustible and
like the moon reflects the light of the sun in the darkest night, we who live
in the light of Christ bear that light into the world.
We are salt and we
are light and, friends, we live in a world that needs both. It is a world that needs both desperately and
we who would call ourselves disciples are charged with the blessing of bearing
these things beyond the safety of these walls and into that world.
We are the salt
that flavors the soup and we are the light that shines in the darkness. That is what it means to be the church of
Jesus Christ in the world.
May we all live
this and every day being all that we already are in Christ; salt, light, and
blessing in all too often bland, dark, and desperate world.
Let us pray.
God of inexhaustible grace, you have called
us to be salt and to be light. In the
midst of our busy and bustling lives, give us insight to those moments when we
may share these gifts and with them the love, grace, and hope of Christ. Make us salt and make us light just as in
this and every day, you make us yours.
Amen.
[i] This idea of becoming what
we are named was thematic in a presentation by Dr. David Lose of Lutheran
Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. I
neglected to record the date or the name of the conference in my notes. Nonetheless, the attribution for this helpful
insight belongs to him.
[ii] This insight to translation for
vs. 13 comes from Dr. Scott Hoezee at Calvin Theological Seminary.
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