Salt and Light (Part One)

Salt and Light (Part One).  Teachers going back into their classrooms for another year, tradesmen going back to their worksites after another weekend, managers going back into their offices after another week, parents/grandparents going back to their tasks of drop-offs and pick-ups after another summer break—these and all other work-a-day applications deserve some encouragement in the mid-August ramp-up to fall. Is it worth it? Do I make a difference? Will I last another year? Yes, it is worth it! Yes, you make a difference? Yes, you can last another year!

In the genius Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), before completely shattering the status quo of cultural and ritualistic religion, Jesus gave a lot of love to the ordinary people of faith. If read straight through, the Sermon was probably less than 30 minutes long. Yet in those 30 minutes, the pompous legalists with tassels on their robes and hats on their heads who crowed about all things moral in Israel (e.g., the religious rulers, especially the Pharisees) were forever exposed as the public antagonists to Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom. To the simple folk who minded their own business, who loved God and obeyed the commandments as best as they knew how, Jesus gave unprecedented attention.

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, 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 who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:13-16).

Ordinary people of faith have an extraordinary impact upon every environment they touch. Employing two strong metaphors, salt and light, Jesus elevates the positive impact that every individual worshiper has on his or her sphere, at the expense of the professional religious elites whose impact was only negative, null, and void.

Taken together, salt and light both provide something that the natural environment needs but does not have. The earth has salt in its hills and oceans, but it takes intellect and industry to extract it and process it into useable forms. The earth has reflective and combustible properties in its minerals and ores, but it takes innovation and precision to convert it safely into lamps and slow burning oils. “Being salt and light is less about what Christians do and more about what Christians are. If we have been truly transformed by the salvation of the Lord, this transformation will bear fruit in out lives. We will season the world with the demonstrations of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, and we will shine the light of the Truth in a dark world, reflecting the glory of God (Steve Curtis, ”Serving God as Salt and Light,” Growing in Grace, Workshop Four, p. 111).