Salt and Light - for the World!

You are the salt of the earth A reflection on what it means to be precious, vital, and healing in the world 8 min read I've been thinking about salt lately. It's one of those things we take for granted — it's just always there, sitting on the counter, doing its quiet work. When I feel the first tickle of a sore throat, I reach for the salt container. A couple of teaspoons in warm water, gargle a few times, and it usually does the trick. Salt cleanses. Hospitals are full of it — saline solution, 0.9% salt in water. The body needs it. It's used in IV drips to rehydrate people, to clean wounds, to preserve food. I've made sauerkraut with it, rubbing salt into cabbage with spices, letting it ferment. The salt draws the water out and creates something good. I learned the importance of balancing salt when I was a kid. I liked to cook, especially cakes. One of my specialties was pavlova. You separate the egg whites and yolks, whip up the whites, add sugar and vanilla and a pinch of salt. One day we'd run out of caster sugar. I called out to Mum, who was busy with something. "What do I do?" "Just use ordinary sugar," she said. "It's fine. It's in the cupboard." So I reached into the cupboard, grabbed what I thought was the sugar, measured out a cup or so, whipped it all up. Added a pinch of salt from the container on the table. Then I tasted it before putting it in the oven. It was horrible. Bitter and awful. I'd used salt instead of sugar. I'd reached for the wrong container. It looked the same to my young eyes. Too much salt ruins everything. But just enough salt enhances the flavour. I read a story once about a woman with an Indian background whose mother taught her how to cook curry. The most important lesson, she said, was learning to taste for salt. If all the other ingredients were in the right proportions, that was great. But too little salt and the curry would remain bland. Too much and it would become bitter and horrible. The right amount of salt balanced everything, brought out the right flavours. She learned to taste for salt. The right amount of salt Up until maybe a hundred years ago, salt was a vital commodity. People traded in it. It was precious, priceless in some parts. It was used for medicinal purposes — cleaning wounds, treating skin diseases, stopping bleeding. It was used to preserve food before refrigeration. Roman soldiers were often paid in salt. That's where we get the word salary. Romans salted their vegetables. That's where we get the word salad. Salt was really important. In this week's reading from Matthew, Jesus continues what we call the Sermon on the Mount. There's this group of diverse, strange, ordinary, common people gathered around him. The people he's just described as blessed — people who are poor in spirit, people who are mourning life, their own lives, the life of the world. People who are meek and humble, bowed down by life. People who are pure in heart, who are merciful, who are making peace. People who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And those who are persecuted for living this way. He blesses them and says, "You are blessed." And then he goes on to say, "You are the salt of the earth." Which is something that often runs right past me. But what he's saying is this: you are valuable. You are vital. You are precious. Salt in his world was precious. You are precious. But if the salt loses its saltiness, it's useless. It gets trampled underfoot. Salt must be used, dispersed. It goes into food to enhance flavour. And it's interesting — too much salt will be noticed. Too little salt will be noticed. But just the right amount of salt, we don't notice it. It enhances the flavour. It's a healing thing. Too much salt in saline will draw out the water and hurt. Too little will be ineffective. But the right amount cleanses. Salt is really important. And Jesus is saying, you are the salt of the earth. When you live in these ways I've just described as blessed — being poor in spirit, recognizing your need of grace, mourning the pain of life, hungering and thirsting for justice, making peace, being merciful, being pure in heart — when you're like this, you're enhancing the life of the world. Because these qualities reach out to other people. It's about relationships. It's about being together. It's about holding one another. It's about enhancing and healing life and the world. And God is in the midst. Light on a dark road Jesus goes on to say that you are the light of the world. And again, we take light for granted. In a world of electricity, there's light twenty-four hours a day. In the cities there's ambient light the whole time — street lights, lights in homes, lights in buildings. There's light everywhere, all the time. But if you go onto a country road at night, you soon realize your need for the headlights, the high beam, because you can't see your way on a dark night. Light shows us the way. It reveals what's there in the world. It lights things up so we can see. We can see our way. We can see what's there. Too much light and we cringe back. It blinds us. We can't see. Too little light and it's too dim. We can't see what's there. We can't see our way. We stumble and fall. We don't know where we're going. Jesus says, "You are the light of the world. But you don't put a light on in the house and cover it over. You let it shine for all to see. A light on the hill is a beacon, a guide. It shows the way." You are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world. You're precious. You enhance life. You bring healing. And you reveal the way — his way, the way of God in the world. This is what we're invited to be. What it looks like In another reading this week from Isaiah, he talks about being light, the light coming. And you are to live as light. To live as light is to live justly, to live with justice and mercy and kindness and love. To act for peace and hope. To reach out to other people — those who are hungry, give them food. Those who have nowhere to stay, the homeless or the refugee or the stranger in the land, give them somewhere to live, to stay, to rest. Those who are sick, bring healing. Hold them. Those who are distressed and sad and mourning, bring comfort. This is what the Beatitudes say. This is what Isaiah says. And Jesus is inviting us to be the salt and the light. He doesn't say you should be salt, you could be salt, you will be salt if you try hard enough. He says you are. You are precious. You are loved. And when you live with that love, that kindness, that mercy, that justice in the world, the world becomes a better place. It becomes what it can be. Communities grow and people relate together and everyone has enough and shares and is generous and the earth itself is cared for. This is the vision of God that we're hearing and reading about. And we're invited into it. There are people in my life who have been light and salt to me, who have led and shown the way. One is Vladimir, a friend and colleague who just died this week. He in so many different ways showed me the way. Helped me to understand something of myself, something of faith and following Jesus. What it meant to reach out and care for people. He saw the poor and the outcasts and those who were on the edges and he reached out to them and brought them in. He saw them and cared for them and reached out and loved them. Vladimir and so many others have helped me to see the way, have enhanced my life. And this is what we're invited to be and do. Salt and light. When we are, God is with us. And the world is a better place. So let us be salt of the earth and light of the world — that which we are. Based on a sermon reflecting on Matthew 5:13-16