Life-Giving Salt
Matthew 5:13–20
“You are the salt of the earth, 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. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
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Introduction
One of my biggest pet peeves when cooking pasta at home is when people don't put enough salt in the water. Now, I understand that too much salt is bad for some folks, and I'll accommodate that. However, more than a pinch of salt is needed for the rest of us to get the right level of flavor pasta requires. Salt is as essential to living as it is to our faith, and Jesus expands on this through metaphors throughout the Sermon on the Mount. In our meditation for today, we hear three questions: 1) What does it mean to be flavorless salt? 2) Is salt only good for flavoring? and 3) How can we be a shining city on a hill? These three things become the groundwork for a challenging conviction, which asks if we are willing to let God's commands lead us to abundant life.
Salt As Flavor
You know, salt is one of the most chemically stable compounds. Sodium Chloride (NaCl), unless altered by unnatural means, maintains its essential properties. Think about it: you go to the ocean, and you can taste the salt in the water (which we use to clean things can't even remove the taste from salt). So what does Jesus mean he talks about salt losing its saltiness? How can something atomically stable lose properties that make it what it is?
Salt might not lose its saltiness, but it might lose its flavor if diluted. While a relatively cheap commodity today, salt in the ancient world carried its weight in gold. As a result, unscrupulous merchants would tend to cut salt with other more inexpensive materials like gypsum (a mineral with visual properties that make it look like salt). Cutting salt with cheap alternatives meant merchants could sell more for less, yet this counterfeit or "fake salt" was almost worthless and would be tossed out for people to trample on. Jesus asks us today, what are we substituting in our faith to make it less than a pure substance? Who are we trying to shortchange by weakening the flavor our faith brings to our lives?
Salt As Fertilizer
Salt, while it adds flavor, also possesses a number of other benefits, including being an essential component in ancient fertilizers. A good case can be made for an alternative translation of Matthew 5:13, where it would say, "You are the salt of the soil (earth = Greek. γῆ)." Not only does salt make food taste good, but it also helps grow the food we set on our tables. You can see how if we were using salt (faith) undercut by things outside of God, our faith would not only fail to add seasoning to our lives, but it would also fail in producing the critical outward signs of a life of faith.
What good is a fertilizer that cannot encourage life to grow? I don't think Jesus would win a literary prize if he said, "You are the manure of the earth," but for us right now (setting aside the poetics), there is an opportunity to assess whether our faith is tapping into the life-giving power of God. The fruit our faith produces is influenced by what helped grow it. The taste of the fruit and its nourishment is also impacted by how we season it. There is a system, a cycle, at play that depends on our ability to take seriously a faith that calls us to more than the mundane and the average. Till the earth with rich nutrients, and you will have good fruit that bears witness to the quality of your faith.
Salt & The City on a Hill
While talking about salt, food, and fertilizer, we've inadvertently been talking about what makes up a city, civilization. Again, Jesus asks what good is a city, what good is our faith, and what good is our discipleship if it does not bear witness to the divine? A community, a city, on a hill can be a great location, but if the community does nothing and its people are silent about their treasures, it does not speak to the glory of God. As we look at this passage, what places in our lives could use reforming and purifying? Is it our hesitancy to live a life of faith that runs against the grain of our society? Or is it our disbelief that something life-altering could come from our community?
The good news is that the evaluation process and the growth of your faith and our community don't start from square one. There is a foundation already in place, the faith of our ancestors and the prophets who showed how we could live and follow in the footsteps of our living God. Sometimes we believe that if we're going to start over or start fresh, we need to wipe the slate clean, but that isn't always true. Our journey of life and faith, our pursuit of being people of light and salt, has hundreds of thousands of stories and testimonies that can inspire us and give us hope.
Conclusion
We must understand that Jesus came not to abolish the law of the prophets but to expand on it. There is no call for wholesale innovation that does away with the foundations of our faith but instead a call to see where new things are coming forth. We are salt; we are salt that adds flavor and goodness to the earth. And if we let our faith shine, it will radiate in a way where people cannot help but "taste and see the goodness of the Lord," as the psalmist writes. (Psalm 34:8) By tending to our hearts and growing deeper in our relationship with God, we will find that when we season our souls and the world, it will reflect the love and life that flows forth from God. May we strive to be an honest and persevering community of disciples that empowers the light of God to shine.