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Rev. Brian North Westminster Presbyterian Chehalis, WA April 18th, 2010
Matthew 5:13-20 The World’s Greatest Talk
Got a Light?
Today we continue in our series on the Sermon on the Mount from the gospel of Matthew. This sermon from Jesus is three chapters of some of the most important teaching he ever gave. And in today’s passage he takes two of the most important elements in our world – salt and light – and uses them as an analogy for what it means to be his follower.
Jesus began the World’s Greatest Talk with what we call the beatitudes, reminding us that God values us and blesses us with his presence at all times. But the joy and the peace that comes with God’s presence isn’t just for ourselves. So if last week’s message was, “You’re blessed,” then this week’s is, “so you can bless others.” So let’s dive into this morning’s passage…
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 underfoot (Matthew 5:13).
We have a phrase in our society that we use when we want to communicate that a certain person is good, dependable, hard-working, and unpretentious. Anyone know the phrase I’m thinking of? “Salt of the earth.” Jesus wants his followers to be “salt of the earth” kinds of people.
In Jesus’ day, salt was a valuable commodity. Roman soldiers were often paid in salt. In fact, our word “salary” comes from the word for salt. And in their day, salt had three qualities about it that made it valuable.
First, salt was associated with purity. This was because of it’s color, and also because of the process of using seawater and the sun to get salt. There’s a purity in salt that’s beautiful to behold. Perhaps you’ve never thought of salt that way, but they did. So now, when you’re pouring the salt on your food or you’re eating those yummy, salty chips or crackers that aren’t very good for you, you can consider eating your Doritos an act of spiritual purity. See the practical value you can get out of a sermon? So salt had this symbolic value associated with purity.
Secondly, salt was a preservative. In a time in which the refrigerator and the freezer, or even an insulated box, was still a long ways off in the future, and given the warm climate of Israel, the ability to preserve foods with salt was much needed. This is what gave salt it’s great worth in their day. If someone were to pay your salary in salt, you’d probably be a little frustrated. But not for them. It was a blessing. It kept food from rotting, decomposing, and generally becoming corrupt.
Thirdly, salt lends flavor to foods. Do you know why we like salty foods? It’s not so much because of the actual flavor of the salt. I mean, no one goes to the grocery store to buy bottled salt water…if you went to a drinking fountain and salt water came out, you’d spit it out. Mostly we like salty foods because the salt actually strengthens the flavor of the food the salt is put on. When you put salt in your soup or on your vegetables, it makes them taste better, by bringing out their flavors. So, it has occurred to me that we really ought to be putting salt on our chocolate ice cream, to make it taste more “chocolate-y!” So, salt strengthens the flavor of food.
So Jesus is comparing us to salt here, and these are the meanings of salt that they would have in mind, and which we can resonate with to a certain degree, as well. And out of them come three applications for us. First, Jesus is calling his followers to lives of purity. Purity in our language, purity in our relationships, purity in how we treat people, purity in our thoughts, in the literature we read, the websites we visit, the conversation we partake in, and so forth. Secondly, and related to the first, he’s calling us to be a preservative. A preservative of what? A preservative of what God values: of the aforementioned purity, of goodness, truth, love, justice, grace, mercy, holiness, and so much more. Just as salt does with food, we can stand up against decay and corruption in our world, and make it easier for people to live right lives with God, by preserving the values that God values.
Lastly, followers of Jesus Christ are called to make life fuller; to bring out the best “flavor” of life. Unfortunately, Christians have not always done so well at this. In an effort to maintain purity and to preserve Biblical values, Christians have often lived lives that are anything but full of life, full of zest, energy, and enthusiasm. Robert Louis Stevenson, after going to church one Sunday, said, “I have been to church today, and am not depressed” as if that were an unusual outcome. Church should be anything but depressing! It’s been said that the Bible is both a mirror and a window. So, yes, the Bible and the sermons that come out of it often present us with an opportunity to look honestly at ourselves, and sometime the reflection we see causes us heartache and tears. But the Bible also is a window through which we see God and can come to an understanding of his grace and mercy which are extended to us and which ultimately win out at the end of the day! That’s not depressing! That’s good news that every one of us needs in our lives! So Jesus uses this metaphor of salt to describe who he calls us to be, and with all that salt was to them in their day, these are the applications that come to mind. He then goes on to use another metaphor: light.
‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but 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 (Matthew 5:14-16).
I want to make two observations with regards to this. First is that without light it’s hard to see. I know, that’s a ground breaking observation… I find this out at home quite often. Sometimes it’s dangerous. My daughters are into gymnastics. We’ve set up a little bar in a doorway/pass through area of our house where they can practice their chin-ups and some of the moves they’re learning on the bars in class. At night, when I go to get a cup of water for one of the kids, or change Elliott’s diaper…when the lights are out, and I forget that the bar is there…it’s practically a weapon of individual destruction, as my head has run into it on a couple of occasions.
So, we need light to see where we’re going and avoid the dangers in our homes and elsewhere. Spiritually, morally, ethically, physically, and in other ways: We live in a dark world that’s filled with all kinds of dangers. This is the meaning Jesus has in mind. And: Jesus is calling his followers to be a light in this dark world. It’s not a light of our own that we shine, however. It’s the light of Christ. The gospel of John says that Jesus is the light, and that the “light shines in the darkness.” It is that light of Christ that we shine in the world. WPC has a mission statement that says we are a church that “glorifies God and reflects the love of Jesus Christ to the world.” It’s not our own love that we offer to the world…and it’s not our own light, either. We reflect the light and the love of Christ to those around us. So, without light, it’s hard to see, and Jesus is calling us to be light in the world.
If the first point is that without light it’s hard to see, the second point is this: With too much light, it’s also hard to see. How many of you have kids or grandkids of your own, or somehow else in your life? How many of those kids or grandkids have a flashlight? How many of you have had your kids or grandkids shine that flashlight in your eyes? Me too. Too much light. Hard to see. And apparently it makes it hard for my kids to hear too, because I’ve told them probably a thousand times not to shine flashlights in people’s eyes…but that’s another sermon on obedience.
Here’s the point: The world is a dark place and it needs the light of Christ shined in it. But if we shine it too brightly, or if we shine it in the wrong way – like a kid with a flashlight – it’s not very helpful to the person on the other end. Now, a word of caution here: For most Christians, the problem is not shining the light too brightly, but rather not reflecting it enough. The church doors are open, and the lights are on, but nobody outside of the church really notices. Individually, we know Christ in our hearts, we pray fervently, we read the Scriptures and do devotions regularly, we do good deeds and support worthy causes…but no one outside of the church knows we’re Christ followers.
One day a lady criticized Dwight Moody for his methods of evangelism in attempting to win people to the Lord. Moody’s reply was “I agree with you. I don’t like the way I do it either. Tell me, how do you do it?” The lady replied, “I don’t do it.” Moody retorted, “Then I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.”
I would suggest to you that we tend to be more like that lady, and that’s the larger obstacle to overcome for most Christians. Maybe you resonate some with that. But there is the problem also of shining the light right in someone’s face and causing them to react in the same way we do when a child shines a flashlight in one of our faces. What ‘s the response when a child does that? We put our hands in front of our eyes, and say, “Stop!” That’s not the response we want to illicit when we’re reflecting the light of Christ in the world. So, let’s: Be salt and light in the world, but do so with proper sensitivity. The way to be salt and light with one person in one situation – maybe sharing a Bible verse with them or inviting them to church – might not be what someone else – or even that same person – would respond favorably to who just needs a word of encouragement or a helping hand. So be salt and light – appropriate to the person, the situation they’re in, and the relationship you have with them.
Now, you may have noticed that this morning’s passage continues on. Finding a stopping place in the Sermon on the Mount isn’t always easy. So we’ll keep going on, because what Jesus says next flows out of this salt and light stuff, just as the salt and light stuff flows out of the Beatitudes stuff.
‘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 (Matthew 5:17-20).
Now, when we first read that, we say, “What does that have to do with what he just said?” And perhaps some of us are asking, “Why should I even care about this?” Let me answer both questions in the next couple minutes, because it is connected, and it’s vitally important. For the Jewish person, referring to “the Law” meant at least one of four things: It could mean the 10 commandments, it could be the first five books of the Bible, it could be the entire Old Testament, or it could mean the Scribal Law. In Jesus’ day, the most common thing that it referred to was the Scribal Law, or sometimes it was called the Oral Law because all these laws were communicated orally until the third Century A.D. when they were finally numbered and written down.
So here’s the deal. The oral law developed as a way of maintaining the law of the 10 Commandments, the first five books of the Bible, and so forth. For instance, take the command that the Sabbath day should be kept holy and that it was a day of rest. Jewish legalists asked, in an effort to know whether or not they were resting, “What is ‘work’?” How do we know if we’re not actually resting? Can I carry my lamp from one room to the next? Can I change my child’s diaper? Can I cook food? Can I check email, voice-mail, snail-mail, text messages, my twitter account, and Facebook? Seriously, these are the kinds of questions that were asked. So they came up with a whole laundry list of things that constituted work. You could lift a lamp, but only carry it so far. You couldn’t cook – meals had to be prepared the day before. You could only walk so far, and so forth. And this is just a couple of examples for one command. It was like this for all 10 commandments in particular, as well as other aspects of the Jewish faith, and there were over 600 rules that had been compiled. Can you imagine trying to live your life by over 600 rules – none of which were numbered or written down? They’ve now been written in a document – a book, called the Mishnah.
Not everyone followed this oral law, of course. But those who were particularly enamored with it were two groups of people called…The Scribes and the Pharisees. You may know that Jesus had many tussles with the Scribes and Pharisees because Jesus didn’t agree with all their rules and regulations. They had taken what was a beautiful fence set up by God, inside of which was a safe place to enjoy life and enjoy God, and they turned it into a maze through which one had to navigate in order to be right with God. They took the freedom and safety that the original law set out, and turned it into a bunch of rules and regulations that would just about drive a person insane trying to keep.
Jesus was utterly opposed to that. So when Jesus says he’s come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it and that none of it will pass away until all is accomplished…Jesus is not referring to the Law as the Scribes and Phariees outlined, but rather what it originally was. He’s referring to either the 10 Commandments, the first five books of Scripture, and Scripture as a whole, or all three. (Probably all of the O.T., as he refers to it as “the Law and the prophets,” which usually meant the whole O.T.) And when Jesus says, “I’ve come to fulfill it” he doesn’t mean it’s accomplished and now it’s irrelevant. Rather, he means that he’s restoring it to it’s proper intention. And his last statement about exceeding the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees is hyperbole. Hyberbole and sarcasm don’t come through in written communication very well, but when he spoke these words, that had to be the tone of voice he used, because he was so opposed to what the Pharisees taught. If this were an email, Matthew would have put one of those little smiley faces at the end of verse 20 to let us know that Jesus was joking around with that last sentence. The Pharisees didn’t really have righteousness. They just had a bunch of legalistic rules they tried to keep. True righteousness is found in Jesus Christ.
So, how does this tie in with salt and light and what does it mean for us today? It means there’s no one right way to be salt and light in the world. There isn’t a set of rules to follow for how to do or be salt and light. When it comes down to it, being salt and light in the world is about loving the world as Jesus did. And how can you put a bunch of rules around love? How can you make love navigate through a minefield of regulations, tip-toeing around scared to make a wrong step? It’s hard to love someone when you’re worried about screwing up, isn’t it? Jesus obliterates all the little rules and regulations that were man-made, and brings us back to the original set of boundaries that will always exist and which God gave us. And in them, there is more freedom for love to abound– both the love of God and the love of neighbor.
And when we’re living in that kind of love, we can’t help but be salt and light in the world, so that people would give glory to their Heavenly Father. I pray that we can all be salt and light in the world, seasoning it with the love of God and shining his light appropriately right here in our homes, our neighborhoods, the rest of the Twin Cities, and around the world. Let’s Pray…Amen.
