Salt and Light

I had a theology professor in college who once said that a Christian’s relationship with Jesus is most certainly personal, but it is never private.  When he said that, he meant it in the context of the Body of Christ, that though Christians are individuals, nevertheless we comprise of one single, unique, collective body.  However, I think it is also true in how we approach the world around us.  Christianity is certainly a faith system, complete with doctrines to be believed.  Yet it is also something to be seen, or even experienced by those around us, whether they are Christian or not.  Jesus suggests this is the case by calling us “salt” and “light”.  

After talking about those things that should Be our Attitude, Jesus then introduces two metaphors to describe our interaction with the world.  There is something about salt and light that speaks to our identity, both from a negative side (what we help prevent) and a positive side (what we help provide) with respect to the world around us, and the neighborhoods where we live.  

By calling us the “salt of the earth,” I believe Jesus has something deeper in mind than simply taste.  Certainly it may include that, but we shouldn’t limit this metaphor to mean, “The world tastes gross, and Christians help it to taste better.”  Instead, when it comes to meat, salt actually acts as a preservative.  It helps delay decomposition.  Meat will certainly rot if it is not cooked and consumed in a reasonable amount of time, but the presence of salt will help it to rot a little slower.

Christians ought to have that effect.  If we display the Beatitudes in our personal lives as we should (having a right understanding of ourselves, of God, and of others), it should have a preserving effect on a world that so many people think is going to “hell in a hand-basket.”

Maybe the entire world is going to hell (though I think Matthew 16.18 might have something to say about that).  Even so, there are people all around us every day who are dying.  We have many friends and neighbors who are on relational, emotional, or even spiritual life-support.  As the “salt of the earth,” Jesus gives us the opportunity to delay, relational, emotional, and spiritual death.  

Additionally, by calling us the “light of the world,” we are actually given the power to change those outcomes altogether.  Things like relational, emotional, or spiritual death are not inevitable!  If the world, or even our neighborhood, is going to “hell in a hand-basket,” those who exhibit the beatitudes have the power not only to delay a seemingly unavoidable death, but to produce light, healing, and life.

The contrast between light and darkness is one of the favorite metaphors of the New Testament, perhaps because it is universally understood.  I cannot tell you how many times I have screamed stepping on a sharp toy while trying to walk in the living room late at night in the dark.  That’s when the little voice inside me says, “Turn the light on, stupid!”  Even familiar places can pose unseen threats and uncertainty when it is dark.  

On a deeper level, we often fear the dark because if a crime is going to happen, it will usually happen at night.  For a perpetrator, there is less chance of getting caught if all a witness can describe to police is “some shadowy figure because it was too dark to make out any details.”  There are exceptions, but most times, bad things happen to unsuspecting people when it is dark; things that would likely not have happened if it were light.

Deeper still, it is probably no coincidence that one of the metaphors used to describe Hell in the New Testament is darkness (Mat. 8.12, 22.13, 25.30; 2 Pt. 2.4, Jude 6, 13).  Darkness, in any context can be threatening, intimidating, uncertain, and downright terrifying.

So the metaphor Jesus paints is one that can be easily understood.  The “world” is identified as being in darkness.  The assumption is that terrible things happen in the darkness.  There is fear and uncertainty in the darkness.  Against this, Jesus has given us the right (and duty) to bring light to the darkened world.  Light brings relief to our fears, and melts away our uncertainty.  And even in some sense, light brings life.

It should be interesting to note that in John’s gospel, it is Jesus who is the “light of the world.”  He is introduced as such in John 1.4-5: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  Furthermore, Jesus makes this self-identification in John 8.12: “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”  

The connection between “light” and “life” is apparent, as is Jesus’ self-identification as the source of both.  The amazing thing is that here, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus shares that self-identification with his disciples: “You are the light of the world.”  Which means, in some way, we are meant to bring life.

These two metaphors taken together tells us something about our Christian duty.  Our lives are to be lived in such a way that we simultaneously delay decay and by contrast, provide life.  That being the case, perhaps the world doesn’t need to be going to “hell in a hand-basket.”  

Another way of saying this is that Jesus Christ has made his disciples agents of redemption.  One could say that the world “went dark” in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and suffered relational, emotional, and spiritual death.  Yet, God had done something to stop death in its tracks, ironically through the death of Christ.  Not only did God stop death, but he provided life, by raising Jesus from the dead!  That is redemption!  When Jesus calls us the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world,” he is giving us the responsibility of participating in the redemption of others.  

With the way in which we live our lives, we have the potential to stop death and provide life.  Tragically, if we lose our saltiness, or hide our light, we also have the potential to accelerate death, or to withhold life.

In a rather dated book, Charles Allen tells a story:

Once there was a young man, a Christian, who went to work a summer in a lumber camp.  Some of his friends told him that those rough lumbermen would make life miserable for him because of his religious faith.  Bravely he went and spent the summer.  When he came home, his friends asked him how he made out.  “Did they laugh at you for being a Christian?”  He said, “No, they did not laugh at me because of my being a Christian.  They never did find it out” (“The Sermon on the Mount” Westwood, NJ: Revell, 1966 p.33).

May we, who are disciples of Jesus, never lose our saltiness!  May we, who are the redeemed, never hide our lights!  Instead, may we always do the work of delaying relational, emotional, and spiritual death, and may we always shine our lights before men, so that they, too, may praise our Father in Heaven!

Now, it is very easy to say something like, “be salty” and “shine your light.”  But if you are wondering what being salt and light look like, practically, don’t worry.  Jesus tells in the rest of the sermon.