Up on the Mountain: Salt and Light

a sermon on Matthew 5:13-16, the second in a series on the Sermon on the Mount
preached at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone on January 23, 2011

As we spend these weeks up on the mountain looking again at Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from Matthew’s gospel, I’m reminded that I’m often a bit envious of Jesus’ preaching style. He always seemed to be able to tell the right story at the right time to make his point so well. He found effective ways to connect everyday experiences and even objects to the life of faith. And he was always able to speak to the crowds with grace, even offering peaceful and gentle words to those who disagreed with him. On average, I’d say I’m successful at just one of these things each week, sometimes missing them altogether but maybe hitting the trifecta of all three in a single sermon once or twice in the over 250 sermons I’ve preached over the years!

Today’s section of the Sermon on the Mount is one of these moments when I think Jesus got all three of these things right at once, and I hope and pray that I can relay a few of my own insights even half as effectively as he did! After opening this address from up on the mountain with a description of the radical nature and direction of God’s blessing, Jesus turned quickly to a some imperative statements, moving beyond descriptions of the direction of God’s blessing and the coming of God’s kingdom to invite his listeners to take concrete steps to be a part of these things taking hold in the world.

His first two instructions that we consider today were seemingly simple: be salt and light. “You are the salt of the earth,” he said. Salt tends to get a bad rap in our world these days – even though salt can dramatically enhance flavor, the high-salt diet common these days has brought a significant increase in the occurrence of high blood pressure, and we’re disconnected enough from the growing and preparation of our food that we don’t always recognize how salt can be an important fertilizer and a simple and safe preservative. He even warned them against losing their saltiness and losing the ability to enrich growth, preserve against decay, and enhance flavor, for when salt loses its saltiness, it is worthless, for it is no longer salt and best just tossed out to add to the dirt on the path.

But throughout all this, salt is basically unseen – it is mixed in to enrich the dirt when no one can see it, added in the back rooms to preserve when we aren’t looking, and ground so small that we easily miss it when we add it to our food. And most of the time it takes a while for salt to do its good work – plants aren’t magically and immediately changed by salt but only when it has worked its way into the soil over time, and other foods aren’t preserved right away but only after the salt has made its way through. It often takes a while for salt to be noticed – but when it is missing, you certainly know it!

So Jesus insisted that his listeners are the salt of the earth, deeply enriching the growth of things around us at the roots, safely preserving the things that stand at our core against decay, and enhancing the flavor of life every step of the way, even when its effects can’t be seen right away. While we weren’t in that first crowd up on the mountain, we too are called to be the salt of the earth, working our way through the soil slowly but surely to enrich life at its roots, protecting and preserving against decay and disease from the outside in, and bringing new flavor to our boring and drab world.

I invite you to think and pray for a couple minutes on how you can be the salt of the earth – and even more how we can be the salt of the earth together, then talk with a neighbor or two about your reflections (or post in the comments here).

(time for reflection and discussion, then sing chorus of “Bring Forth the Kingdom” before time for sharing)

As much as Jesus wanted his listeners to be the salt of the earth in all these ways, enriching things from the roots in unseen ways, he also told them, “You are the light of the world.” Unlike the somewhat invisible salt, light exists to be seen. Like salt, though, light has multiple purposes – it reveals everything that is hidden, spreads easily to every dark corner, lights the way in darkness, and draws attention back to its source. Just as salt can bring high blood pressure and damage things if overused, so light can shine too brightly – we need only compare the night sky here in Whitestone with what you might see in some less urban part of the world to see how too much light from the wrong source can actually keep us from seeing the beauty of the night sky! Nonetheless, light is extremely important in the right quantity and balance, for it points us to something more and shows us something new even as it invites others to see things in a new way too.

And so Jesus instructs his listeners not to hide their light and “let [it] shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to [God].” The light of the world doesn’t exist for its own glory but instead points to something more, shining in new and different ways to illumine the world.

Just as we thought and talked a bit about being the salt of the earth, I invite you to think for a minute or two about being the light of the world, both individually and especially as this community, then turn to your neighbor and talk about your ideas (or post them in the comments below). We’ll then come together again by singing before we share a bit of how we can shine light together.

(time for reflection and discussion, then sing chorus of “Bring Forth the Kingdom” before time for sharing)

As we put all these things together and seek to be both the salt of the earth and the light of the world as Jesus was able to preach so well, I couldn’t miss the incredible difference between these two things that he puts before us: we don’t really see what salt is doing, but light can’t be missed. Even amidst their differences, they are both important. Salting the soil alone will not get a plant to grow in darkness, and light alone will not convince a seed to sprout.

Too often we miss Jesus’ double imperative here, choosing to be only salt or only light by focusing only on the hidden, slow work of salting the earth or only the illuminating, bright work of shining light for the world rather than the more difficult task of doing both. We end up frustrated that our efforts to salt the earth and make God’s new way real in our community aren’t showing immediate fruit or disappointed that our light isn’t shining brightly enough to be seen in the way we would like. But the good news in this is that Jesus calls us to be both salt and light, both seen and unseen in our efforts to bring forth God’s kingdom, working and praying and hoping for a new and different way to take hold in clear and obvious ways even as we trust that God is working even when we can’t see it to make all things new.

And so may our saltiness be at its best and our light be focused and bright as we seek to be a part of the new kingdom community that Jesus envisioned and lived from up here on the mountain. Lord, come quickly! Amen.