“You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world!” (Matthew 5:13-16).
This is a little intimidating, isn’t it, if you fully take in what Jesus is saying??
He is talking to every one of us who has been baptized into the Christian faith and chooses to follow the way of Jesus in this distracting, messy world. WE are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, charged with drawing the world to God with our own lives.
Jesus chooses these images carefully. Salt was an important fertilizer and food preservative in his time, and with all the famines they had, people could easily starve to death if they weren’t able to grow and preserve enough food. Salt was also used as a seasoning and played an important role in religious sacrifices. When Jesus calls us “salt,” he’s saying we are a critical element bringing real life to the world around us in a variety of ways.
And we all know how important light is. Just let your power go out for a few hours some night and see how much you appreciate even the light from your cellphone flashlight, let alone the bright light of a big LED torch. Would you fire up such a bright light then put it in a closet?? Of course not! You would put it on a table or countertop where it did the most good.
Being the “light of the world” works the same way. When we choose to follow Jesus and receive his life in us, his light and life shine not only on us but through us back out into the world. Our “good works” of love, compassion, justice, forgiveness, healing, and prayer don’t show off our own goodness – they point to the presence of God in the world and hopefully draw others to him.
Warning: It takes energy to consistently pay attention to God’s love and presence and share that with the world, and sometimes you just run out of steam and “go flat.” There is also much in the world that resists the Good News and the Way of Jesus, that resists compassion, mercy, justice, and love. That can make you reluctant or even fearful enough to hide your light. And occasionally, you just get the mistaken idea that you’ve “done enough” and are finished as far as God is concerned. (Note: All these things can be true of congregations as well as individuals.)
The Good News is that Jesus is really, really confident in us, and chooses us every day to be his salt and light in the world – despite any of our perceived or real limitations, our doubts, fears, or previous failures, and knowing all the challenges we face. There is no expiration date on that call. At times, our strategies will have to change, but this being “salt and light” is a lifelong mission.
If we are a people of faith, deep prayer, and deep trust in our Father who loves us, we can each always be the salt and light Jesus calls us to be and which our world so desperately needs.
We invite and welcome all at Trinity every Sunday at 10am for worship and Holy Communion, where you will find a warm congregation, uplifting liturgy, and the Good News of God’s radical love shared in word and sacrament.
