Salt. Light. Law. Kingdom.

Matthew 5:13-20

February 9, 2020

            My first cookbook is one that I was given when I was probably seven, and I still have it today. It is called Kim’s Cookbook for Children, and I used it often as I began to learn how to cook. I had been helping my mom bake since I was old enough to hold a spoon, but I hadn’t really tried cooking.

My first big test came when my older brother, Brad, had been sick, and he was just starting to feel well enough to try some food. I wanted to make him scrambled eggs from the recipe in my very own cookbook. I realize that needing a recipe for something as simple and uncomplicated as scrambled eggs seems strange if not slightly ridiculous, but I was seven. So I used my cookbook.

            I followed the recipe as carefully as I knew how. I scrambled the eggs, toasted some bread, plated both. My mother helped me put them on a tray, along with a glass of juice. I carried them triumphantly up to my brother’s room on a tray. I waited with great anticipation as he took the first bit of the eggs, and then I watched as the expression on his face changed from home to horror. He took one bite of the eggs and spit them out. Too. Salty. Inedible.

I didn’t understand. I thought I had followed the recipe so carefully. I went back and looked at it again with my mom. I showed her exactly what I did, including showing her the tablespoon I used to measure the salt required; except for I wasn’t supposed to use a tablespoon. I was supposed to measure a teaspoon of salt. First lesson in cooking, there is a big difference between a tablespoon and a teaspoon; especially when you’re talking about salt.

I’ll admit it. I struggle with sodium. I do use salt when I cook – and you will all be glad to know that I do now know the difference between a tablespoon and a teaspoon – but I don’t use a lot of salt. I use it when a recipe calls for it, but I rarely salt my food after it is cooked. When we have friends staying with us, I forget that they might want to add salt to their food, so I forget to put any salt on the table. I know that we all need some salt in our bodies. But I worry about the large amount of sodium that is added to processed food. I’m trying to be aware of how much processed food I consume, but I don’t avoid it completely, and sodium levels can be off the charts. And considering the amount of heart disease running rampant in my family, why take chances with too much salt.

            But I also know that I am looking at salt with 21^st century eyes. Salt in Jesus’ context was more than just a condiment, it was a necessary and highly valued commodity. If you wanted to flavor food, you used salt. If you wanted to preserve food at a time when there were no other options for preservation, you used salt. And there’s this; Jesus said to the disciples,

“You are the salt of the earth.”

            This was not just a random statement; some offhanded, throw away metaphor on Jesus’ part. We are still in the Sermon on the Mount. This is a metaphor that Jesus uses to help those who would follow him not only understand who they are as his followers, but what they are to do. As salt you add flavor and substance to the world. You show people that following Jesus may not mean a life of wealth or acclimation, but it will be a life with zing and zest. And maybe, just as salt creates thirst, your call is to make people thirsty for the Living Water, the Good News that Jesus brings. Your call is to make people hunger and thirst for righteousness, for the kingdom. You also might be called to pour salt in the wound, to sting the powers and principalities that seek to do harm to the least of these. Maybe being salt of the earth means to put a bitter, bad taste in the mouths of those who turn blind eyes and deaf ears to injustice, to misery, to exploitation. Those in power may want to spit the salt that we are right back out, just like my brother spat out my eggs. But if we are the salt of the earth, then we can’t stop being salty. If we lose our saltiness, then we are “thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Otherwise we aren’t being disciples.

            Jesus didn’t stop there. He also told his disciples and those who would follow,

“You are the light of the world.”

Now light I understand. I mean I don’t understand the physics of light, but I understand what it means to have light. I have light at my fingertips. I have light in my home, in my car; I even have a flashlight built into my phone. To my contemporary, grew up in a city eyes, darkness is much harder to wrestle with. For those of you who live out in the country, you are probably much better at dealing with darkness than me. Because with as much artificial light as we have, you don’t have to live in downtown Nashville to not realize just how dark dark can actually be. Street lights and building lights and ambient light keep us from being in true darkness much of the time.

But the truth is that all of the artificial light in the world can’t fend off that other kind of darkness that can settle over us; the darkness of despair and hopelessness, the darkness of violence, the darkness of lostness. Talk to someone who has struggled with depression, and they will tell you about that kind of darkness.

When we read Jesus’ words about being the light of the world, about letting our light shine, not putting it under a bushel basket, but setting it out on a lampstand, we often think of our personal lights – our talents, our abilities and gifts. If God gave you a gift, then let your light shine so all the world can see it. This is not a bad or wrong interpretation, but the world that Jesus was born into was a world lost in darkness. It was the kind of darkness that all the lamps and candles and fires in the world could not fully banish. Is our world any different? Our world now may be bathed in artificial light, but just like Jesus’ time, it is a world that is drowning in the darkness of violence, war, oppression, poverty, and sickness. Maybe we are called not to think only about the individual light that our gifts may offer, but about the light of the good news that the church is called to shine.

            You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. But what about the Law? God gave the people the Law, but the world is still dark. We abide by the Law, but our world is still a world of darkness. Jesus says,

            “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”

            God gave the people the Law, but in the hands of some religious leaders, it had become a weight of guilt and a burden of sinfulness. It was punishment and divine retribution. But Jesus says that he is not there to get rid of or usurp or undermine the law. He is there to fulfill it. It seems to me that he is there to fulfill its true purpose, because perhaps God gave the law not as punishment but as gift. The law is about relationship; relationship with God and relationship with one another. Jesus says that he is the fulfillment of the law. He is about relationship. He embodies relationship with God. He spends his whole life building relationship with others. That does not mean that he doesn’t confront when confrontation is needed. That does not mean that he doesn’t hold others accountable. But he came because God created the law and creation for relationship. Jesus was not about to abolish the law; Jesus was there finally, completely, to make it real and to give it flesh.

            And why is any of this necessary? Why does any of this need not only to be said, but to be done? Because of the kingdom. With Jesus came the kingdom, right into the midst of the people. With Jesus came the kingdom, right into the heart of God’s creation. Yet the people still saw the kingdom as being far away, out there, up there, somewhere, somewhere else.

            However, it seems to me, to not only enter the kingdom of Heaven but to even recognize it, you have to be in relationship. You have to be in real and right relationship with God and with one another. You to have live in righteousness according to the law, not for the law’s sake, but for God’s.

            Those who want to follow Jesus – the chosen disciples, the crowds who heard his message and saw his truth and us – need to be about the kingdom. We need to about the kingdom of Heaven, not only for our sake, but for the sake of the world. And how do we do this? We are salt. We are light. We live according to the spirit of the law. We seek the kingdom. We hunger and we thirst for it, and we make others thirsty as well. We shine our light so others can find their way. We abide by the law, so we can keep and build our relationships with God and with all people. We point to the One who has brought the kingdom into our midst. We who follow Jesus are salt and light. We who follow Jesus live in relationship. We who follow Jesus seek the kingdom in their midst.

            Salt. Light. Law. Kingdom. Salt. Light. Law. Kingdom.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.