Salty And Lit: A Recipe For Transformation
Matthew 5:13-20
These verses are part of the sermon on the mount. And if it’s read as a whole, you’ll find a movement of grace and demand. Jesus expresses a balance we often miss in interpreting the Scriptures - where we are asked to be or do a particular way or thing, we get help before the ask. It's called grace.
In this passage, Jesus calls us to be both salty and lit.
There is some controversy about salt – you know the one: consume too much, you get into trouble. Don’t consume enough, you get into trouble. Then there’s also the taste
preference to contend with. Some like it sweet, some like it salt, some like it
lightly seasoned, some say not at all. (I like it seasoned 😃) It’s weird. Jesus though, was not
talking about taste buds or even the impact of salt intake on the body. Jesus
is concerned with the efficacy of salt, its durative nature, and as it relates
to the covenant that God initiated.
When Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth,” The audience would have understood that each of them was deemed a necessary element of life. And, by extension, knowing that salt was a symbolic bond of the necessary relationship between God and Israel, they would have also understood how critical it was for their wellbeing to be faithful to the covenant.
Another point of interest is how Jesus stays aligned to his declaration that he did not come to abolish but to fulfil. (It is the way he fulfils that got the religious rulers riled up.) He affirms that God’s covenant with us is a lasting one, but it is one not maintained by any single symbol, single understanding, or single anything but rather by the very lives of each one of us collectively. God invests God’s self permanently in this world, not through salt alone, but through us (we are created in God’s image.) I'm talking to beyond infinity length here.
Then, Jesus does a thing— “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 under-foot.” (5:13b). Okay! So, no matter how long you have salt for, it is still salty. Look at Jesus using sarcasm as a hermeneutical tool! He does so to communicate that God’s covenant with God’s people doesn’t allow for ANYONE to be thrown out or trampled underfoot! Did you hear that, bigots, racists, and homophibics? Everybody is valuable and nobody is fit to be thrown out.
So, yes, we are the salt of the earth. Each one of us is
indispensable to God’s covenant relationship with God’s creation. And nothing
we say or do gets in the way of that (Romans 8:31-39). In fact, it is a call for us
to keep working for a world that is void of national bias, racial hate, and
religious prejudice.
The presentation here in Jesus' message does not offer options. We are not either salt or light. We are both salt AND light. This means that our pie-in-the-sky, sweet-by-and-by holiness means nothing if it does not lead to life-giving change. To be salt and light is both righteous (Hebrew, Greek, Latin = justice) and practical. It is not about practicing personal piety, but about putting personal piety into practice.
Here are some more points to ponder:
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