Salt and Light – 2.17.8
Matthew 5:13-16 - Dennis Mullen

            A fair measure of our church’s value…is our community better off because we’re here?  We don’t have to pay property taxes or sales taxes.  Do the city and county get a win out of that?  Some churches seem to exist to give 25-30 a place to gather to bemoan the filth on television, or maybe just to see each other.  I don’t think we’re that kind of a church.  But how much good are we?  What is the benefit our community gets for having us here?

            Today as we move on in this series on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gets to that.  The previous two weeks, we looked at Kingdom values, which stand in contrast to what the world values.  Worldly values are things like wealth, fame, success, attractiveness.  Kingdom values are things like meekness, poverty of spirit, peacemaking, even being persecuted.  Today we move on to the effect that such behavior has on the world... 

    MT 5:13 "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

            Here is a nice, juicy steak...raw, of course.  Now if we left it sitting out, what would happen?  The word I like is “putrefy”.  It isn't the meat's fault, really.  It's its nature, or rather the nature of the organisms that make it happen – they gotta eat too.

            If we lived a hundred years ago or 3,000 years ago or any time in between, we couldn't refrigerate the meat, so how would we deal with its putrefying?  How about:

            Shame.  “You rotten piece of meat.  You're not a steak.  You're just a pile of hamburger.  You make me SICK!” 

            Avoidance.  Stay completely away from steak and all meat for that matter to keep oneself from being contaminated.  Some of you here today have actually done that, and I have no problem with it either.  But a thousand or two thousand years ago, it might not have been so easy to replace the protein you get from meat.  And avoidance doesn't solve the steak's problem, only yours.

            Laws.  We could elect officials to pass laws to keep steak in its place, wherever that might be, as long as it's away from our children.  Of course if you criminalize steak, then only criminals will eat steak.

            But the sensible answer in the pre-electric world was usually salt.  You could rub salt into steak and that salt would work down into the fibers of the steak and kill off those micro-organisms and in that way you could preserve meat for quite a long time.  Salt stops putrefication, or at least slows it way down.

            Now that is what Jesus had in mind when he said:  “You are the salt of the earth.”  His followers would be rubbed into (so to speak) the world around them, and as a preserving agent, they would slow down the natural tendency of civilization to rot. 

            I want to add here that I don't mean that people are rotten by nature.  We're much more complicated than that, and all of us are made in God's image and all of us are stained by sin, so all of us are capable of good and all of us are capable of evil.  What I'm thinking of here, what Jesus was thinking of is that when people group together into societies, cultures, the result is often putrefication.

            I think that this isn't a difficult point to make with people these days.  A hundred years ago, all the great thinkers and opinion-shapers of society were very optimistic about our future.  People were impressed with advances in science and medicine and politics and they thought that in just a few decades, disease would be nearly eliminated and people would stop fighting wars and technology would make everyone prosperous.  Well the 20^th century saw some wonderful advances, but it was also the most deadly in human history – to people and to the environment.  Now look at the popular visions of the future...The Terminator, The Matrix, Children of Men, Blade Runner.  The future isn't what it used to be.  It looks dark.  Well Jesus knows that society tends to putrefy and he said that Christ-followers are a natural preservative against society rotting away.

            But think about the ways we have tried to do that.  Shame, for example.  We have sometimes tried to stop the spread of drugs, for example, or pornography or any kind of immorality you can name by shaming the participants, calling them vile and filthy and unworthy of the name human.  And that might actually cause some few people to examine their ways and turn around, but in the larger number of cases, it seems to harden people against any truth we have about the danger of these sins.

            Avoidance or shunning.  We've tried that too.  We have sometimes separated ourselves from easily identifiable sinners, fearing that any contact with them would contaminate us.  Now in the OT that is how God instructed his people to behave, but Jesus showed a new way in which when he made contact with sin or disease, it was the sin or disease that had to do the changing.  But for the most part, when adult Christians decide to shun the world, the church loses its witness and the world gets worse.

            Laws.  If we can ban gay marriage or outlaw abortion or pass other laws that take a stand for righteousness, we could get the country back on track.  Laws have a place, but they work best when they reflect the values of the country and they aren't very effective at creating those values from the top down.

            Instead, what the world needs to preserve it from decay is for us to be salt – mixed in and living among the people of the world (saved and unsaved), AND...this is very important...living like Christ taught us, living like people who are being transformed by the Holy Spirit.  1 Peter 2:12 says Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. Because it certainly is possible that we might mix in with the world and NOT live like Christ teaches, Jesus said:  But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

            What would be the result of one person or a few people where you work choosing to live out Christianity – practicing honesty, integrity, refusing to gossip or demean anyone, refusing to steal or lie or cheat anyone...the more people in your workplace or neighborhood do that, the more preserving influence it has.  And the more of us who choose to work on our marriages and stay faithful, the more who pursue purity and who take every opportunity to help someone or just be kind, the more salt there is to preserve a society that otherwise might become sicker and sicker. 

            This is why your personal morality and mine matters beyond the walls of our own homes and the boundaries of our own privacy.  My morality is a witness, even with its flaws.  And I do have flaws, so part of my witness is to be honest about my flaws without using my honesty as an excuse.  Jesus doesn't mean for any of us to stay where we are.  Being authentic about our sins is important, but the next thing to do is to GROW. 

            So that's what salt does – it preserves.  Before we go on, could I ask you to think for a moment and commit in your own mind (as I do the same) to be more diligent about pursuing righteousness?  About submitting some problem area, some area of persistent temptation to Christ?  After all, we are the salt of the earth...but if the salt loses its saltiness...

    MT 5:14 "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

            Here is a picture of darkness (blank slide).  I took this picture myself.  How do you dispel darkness?  Again, you can condemn it.  Ostracize it.  Curse it.  Run away from it.  Or you can turn on a light.

            If salt is the defensive position, light is where we go on offense.  If our only duty were to hide in the background and keep things from decaying, the salt image would be the only one we'd need.  But there is more to do, so “You are the light of the world...”  John Stott in his book on the Sermon on the Mount says that salt has the negative function of halting decay, and that light has the positive function of illuminating the darkness.  As salt, we help stop the spread of evil.  As light, we promote the spread of truth, beauty, goodness.

            We sing a song of worship that says:  “Light of the world, you stepped out into darkness, opened my eyes, let me see...”  That is consistent with the first chapter of John where it says that in him was life and that life was the light of men... and John 8:12 where Jesus said of Himself:  "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." Jesus said that he was the light of the world.  BUT Jesus also said that WE are the light of the world.

            Now I think we all understand that we are the light of the world the same way the moon lights up the night.  The moon doesn't generate its own light, it reflects the light from the sun.  And there isn't anything special about us that we should light up this world, except insofar as we reflect the light of the Son of God.  The more of his light we reflect, the brighter the world.

            The question is:  How do we let that light shine?  If I were leaning on my own understanding and making up my own applications, I'd say that Jesus is talking about preaching here, proclaiming the good news in words that Jesus saves and freedom from sin is offered from God.  IOW, salt is us behaving and light is us proclaiming.  But that isn't what Jesus says.  Jesus mentions one thing:  Good deeds.  Let your light shine...that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

            I think he's talking about dong what's right in such a way that we make sure God gets the glory, not us.  Not random acts of kindness but purposeful acts of kindness.  Not good deeds that cause people say what great Christians we are but good deeds that cause people to say what a wonderful Savior we have.

            One place we try to do this aggressively on your behalf is in our benevolence ministry.  When people get food or help with an electric bill here, they also hear about Jesus, and they get the message that we help them not because we're nice people or just because we can, but because Jesus has changed our lives and he is responsible for any goodness in us, and in fact this help they receive is from Jesus through us.

            The more Jesus is teaching us our values, the more of this kind of thing will characterize us.  At one time in our history, Christians led the way in doing good deeds and improving life for everyone in the name of Christ.  Christians started great universities not just because people needed an education but also to glorify and proclaim the goodness of God.  Christians started hospitals too, not just because sick people needed care but to make our God more famous in the world.  Christians led the anti-slavery movement here and in Europe, and the did it because it needed to be done, and they did it in such a way that our Lord was seen as the reason behind it.

            And Christians still do those things, and if it isn't as obvious in America as it once was, it is obvious in other parts of the world.  We support kids in South America through World Vision, and we drill wells in Africa and build schools and medical clinics in Haiti to serve all people, and we do it not in our own name but in the name of our Lord so that people see our good deeds and praise our Father in heaven.

            I think this short passage here is a good self-evaluation tool for any church and any Christian too.  We could ask:  “Is the salt still salty?  Are we different enough from the world to be a preservative?”  And “Just how does the light shine through our good deeds?  Are there any good deeds, really?  What kind of a void would be left if our church suddenly disappeared or if I personally just stopped doing whatever it is I'm doing to make a difference in this world?  Just how much light is coming forth from me, from us, anyway?”

            Over the past 30 years, as evangelicals have increased in wealth and power in America, we have become known (not always fairly) for cursing darkness rather than for lighting candles; for trying to make darkness illegal or at least to confine it to undesirable areas rather than to shine forth the light of Jesus Christ and DEMONSTRATE a different way, rather than just talk about one.  That's why Jesus says to US:  “Let your light shine...

To sum up:

            You can’t blame meat for going bad.  That is what it does.  The question is:  “Where is the salt?  And just how pure are the people who are supposed to purify?”

            And:  You can't blame darkness for being dark.  That's who it is.  The question is:  “Where is the light?  Why isn't it shining?” 

Morrison Hill Christian Church
P.O. Box 59 - 1008 E. Race St.
Kingston, TN  37763   (865) 376-5205