5th Sunday After Epiphany

Matt 5:13-20

So last week, Jesus began his great Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes, this beautiful series of blessings that instruct us on how to stay on the right path and to follow the heart of the law as God intended.  How we are called to walk the right path of Jesus by loving God and loving our neighbor through acts of costly service.  And then this week, Jesus continues his thoughts on the subject in his great sermon with a couple of metaphors to illustrate what he means.  He calls his disciples to be Salt and Light.

Now to our modern ears telling his disciples that they are the salt of the earth might seem a little odd.  Afterall nowadays salt is generally considered to be a bad thing.  Everyone here has probably been told by a doctor at some point that they should attempt to reduce their salt intake or avoid salt.  It is associated with cheap, over processed, and all be it tasty, but generally unhealthy food.  Now granted, maybe we are little more appreciative of salt right now in our unending winter for its wonderous deicing properties, but generally, no one is putting salt on the list of their prized possessions. 

But in the ancient world the opposite was true.  Salt was a highly prized commodity considered essential to human life.  They used it as a seasoning to make food taste better just like us, but more importantly in a hot climate without refrigeration, it was used as a powerful preservative to keep food healthy and safe, as an antiseptic and also as an essential catalyst to make fires burn hotter for metal working.  It was so universally valuable that Roman soldiers were actually partially paid in salt. 

But there was a problem.  They did not live in Detroit and there was no working salt mine anywhere near Judea.  So pure salt was very hard to come by.  But fake salt, made by evaporating water from the dead sea was relatively easy to make.  Unfortunately though, the dead sea contains high levels of calcium sulfate or gypsum so salt produced there was hopelessly contaminated and while it looked like salt, and even tasted salty on the surface, it was no good as a preservative, it didn’t burn right and at high levels it could even be toxic.  And it couldn’t be purified so, there was nothing to be done with it but to throw it out.  So it is in this context that Jesus tells us we are the salt of the earth, rare and valuable people who bring joy and pleasure to others, who help keep them safe from harm and who work to create new and lasting things.  All while remaining free of the impurities that would dilute this good work and make it impossible.

But even so, in this day and age understanding our saltiness may be a bit of a stretch so let’s turn to Jesus’s second metaphor which probably makes a bit more sense to us today.  “You are the light of the world.”  We are the ones who are called to bring the light of Christ to everyone we meet.  But even this metaphor gets a bit obscured by our modern luxuries.  Because we have easy light everywhere.  Flip a switch and there is light, always as much as we want.  Most of us probably have a powerful flashlight in our pockets right now on our smart phones.  Inside, outside, day or night we have access to all the light we could ever need all at an affordable price.  But in the ancient world, artificial light was rare and expensive.  People in Jesus’s community primarily used small hand sized lamps filled with olive oil.  Picture like the genie’s lamp in Aladdin but a little smaller and made of clay.  But guess what, olive oil is expensive, it expensive now and more so then, so you didn’t have a lot to spare.  Houses were built with an open floorplan so a small lamp hung from the ceiling or placed on a tall stand could light the whole house.  And that was all you had, a little dim light for all to share. 

So salt and light what do these two things have in common?  Well they are precious, valuable, powerful and essential.  And a little goes a long way.  But also they are only effective when you spread them out.  If you dump a whole bucket of salt in a dish it’s going to taste terrible and most of it will be wasted.  And it is the same with lamps, if you cluster them all in one place, it may be bright there but everywhere else is in shadow.  But when you spread them out, the impact is huge.  And I think that is what Jesus is getting at here, that in order to be effective as Christians we have to spread out.  Jesus wants us to think more about our lives out there than in here.  It isn’t about what happens in church but about how we spread that Good News in the world.  In here, we become salt and light, but it doesn’t do any good unless we spread it around, lest we become like a lamp under a basket or salt mixed with gypsum.

In our First reading today Isaiah talks about the contrast between those who talk about God and who fast all day to show their righteousness but don’t care for others and those truly do God’s will.  And God is crystal clear about what he desires.  Saying, “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly;” This is what it means to be the light of the world, to spread the light of Christ to all who need to hear.  Not by proving your righteousness through worship attendance or right belief or perfect theology but by loving your neighbor.  Jesus tells us “let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven.” 

And this is especially important in times such as these.  Because Christians themselves are becoming more rare and those we do see on TV, in our government and in the media are more often than not professing things that are the opposite of what God lists in Isaiah.  More and more people in our lives and communities do not know the good news of Jesus or think earnestly that church is a place of hate and cruelty.  The lamps are getting further and further apart and it is getting ever more tempting for those of us with light to cluster together in our own spaces where it feels safe and secure. 

But now more than ever we are called to let our light shine, to be the salt of the earth.  To show God’s love to the world through concrete words and actions, to truly love our neighbor.  To care for the poor, to feed and clothe those in need, to speak up for the oppressed and fight injustice.  We are called be salt and light, not just in here but out there, in the world where people really need to see that light. 

So, I have a challenge for you.  Lent starts in a couple of weeks.  So I urge you to find one specific salty thing to do before the start of Lent.  Clean out closet and look for clothing items for Grace Centers of Hope or our upcoming textile drive.  Bring in food for community sharing.  Join a protest.  Make a phone call to your state or national congressional reps.  Send a valentine and some mutual aid funds to Minnesota.  Shovel your neighbor’s sidewalks.  Do something specifically kind and caring for a child in your life.  Answer hate with love.  The options are endless, but now is the time to find your thing and to go ahead and be salty in the best way and see what a difference you can make.  Amen.