Salt and Light—Matthew 5:11-16

The last section of Matthew 5 that we looked at ended at verse 12. But as we turn to the "salt and light" passage of the Sermon on the Mount, I want to go back and look at verses 11-12 again, because I think that they set the tone for verses 13-16. If you don't remember what Jesus has been talking about, it's easy to miss what he really means by salt and light. In this passage, Jesus calls his disciples to be, like him, salt in a world that hates the flavor, and light in a world that loves the dark. If that sounds tough, it's because it is. But if it sounds hopeless, don't despair. Jesus says that his salt-and-light disciples not only offend the world, but also transform it. That's what he himself did. He was a light in a world that loved the darkness so much that it tried to put out the light by putting him to death. But now, risen from the dead, he is giving life to that same world.

We can summarize Jesus' message for his disciples here in three statements. First, you are blessed when you are persecuted. Second, you and the salt of the earth. And third, you are the light of the world. Let's look at each statement in turn.

Blessed When Persecuted

I'm not going to review everything I said about this last week. The main thing to understand is that following Jesus leads to persecution, but it's well worth it anyway. And this sets the stage for what Jesus is about to say about salt and light. Salt and light are definitely good things. So why does Jesus warn us not to lose our saltiness or hide our light? Because the world doesn't want us to be salt and light. It will revile us and persecute us and utter all kinds of evil against us falsely for being salt and light. And we will think, if I lose my saltiness, I won't be noticed. If I hide my light, I won't stand out. And if we give in, if we go bland and dark, we will lose our reward from our Father in heaven. But if we stay salty and bright, he will reward us, and his reward will be so great that it will completely overshadow the memory of our sufferings at the hands of the world.

Salt of the Earth

What does Jesus mean when he says, "You are the salt of the earth"? Salt has a couple of main purposes. One is to give flavor. Another is to preserve. And Jews hearing Jesus speak of salt might remember that all the meat from animal sacrifices offered to the Lord had to be salted. Salt was necessary to make meat acceptable for eating, to make it fulfill its purpose. And Jesus is making the very bold statement that his disciples are necessary to make the earth fulfill its purposes, to make the earth what God intended it to be.

You can think back to the days of Noah. In those days, the vast majority of people were so wicked that God chose to wipe them out in a flood. But one man, Noah, found favor in the eyes of God. And that meant that not only was Noah saved, but also his wife, and his sons, and his sons' wives, and all the animals that God told him to bring into the ark. Noah was the salt of the earth, the reason that God didn't end the earth project then and there. Jesus' disciples fulfill the same role. The earth, despite all its beauty, can never be what God intends it to be without the followers of Christ. We are called to be the salt of the earth.

What would you do with your salt if you found that something has happened to it and it now tastes like water? Or like eggs? Would you sprinkle egg flavor on your eggs? Would you shake salt onto your steak if it did nothing for the flavor of the steak? I don't think so. Would you keep that flavorless salt in your pantry? No. You would throw it out.

Jesus says that our temptation, in a world that hates Christians, is to taste less Christian. Our temptation is to lose our distinctly Christ-like flavor. Some of the things we do as Christians may be popular, but others won't be, and those are the ones we will be tempted to tone down. They won't always be the same things. With one group of your neighbors, for instance, you may be tempted to hide your concern for sexual purity. You may be tempted to make approving comments about fornication or unjustified divorce or homosexuality. If you do, you will blend in well, like egg-flavored salt on an egg. With another group of friends, you may be tempted to speak self-righteously about people who sin in these ways, to gossip maliciously about homosexuals or other sexually immoral people, rather than speaking with humility and compassion, remembering that we were all slaves to similar habits of sin.

Christian saltiness makes us different from the world. It isn't an arbitrary difference designed to keep outsiders out. It isn't about being different in every possible way. In fact, in many ways, we will be just like our neighbors. But we will be different where Christ calls us to be different. So we will dress in clothes like our neighbors' clothes, but modestly. We will speak the languages of our neighbors, but reverently toward God and kindly toward one another. We will work many of the same jobs as our neighbors, but not jobs that require us to lie, steal, or murder. We will use many of the same tools and machines, but not always for the same purposes.

All that we do we must do for the glory of Christ. And he says that this will be enough to make people want to hurt us. But he says we must not stop. If we do, we will lose our saltiness. We will blend in, but we will be good-for-nothing disciples.

Light of the World

Jesus also says that we are the light of the world. That sounds great. Who wouldn't want to be the light of the world? It sounds like a title for a movie star or an Olympic athlete.

But if being the light of the world means being a disciple of Christ, it means that people will revile us and persecute us for it. And the temptation, actually, will be to hide our light.

But Jesus says that this is impossible. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. And the church is to be a city of shining lights. If we are really fulfilling our calling, there will be no way to hide.

And even if there were, we shouldn’t. That's not what a light is for. This is interesting. It isn't just that following Jesus will inevitably get us noticed and draw fire from the world. There is actually a purpose in our lives being public.

There's a danger of getting off track here. You may hear that we are to let out light shine before others, and think that this means we should go out and do conspicuous acts of kindness, that we should go out of our way to make other people see how holy or compassionate we are, and do it in Jesus' name, to win people to Christ. I think that this is pushing the image of the lamp too far, and that it can backfire if people see that Christians are kinder in public than they are in private. It can also run the risk of violating Jesus' command later in the sermon, "Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven."

No, I think the point here is that we should do what pleases Jesus whether people are watching or not. In fact, it isn't so much about doing things that people will like, in order to make them like Jesus, as it is about doing good works that people will not like...and yet..."so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."

And isn't that an amazing hope? That we can do the very things that people persecute Christians for, and yet God can use those very acts of obedience to draw people to himself?

Jesus, Best Salt and Brightest Light

That is, after all, what Jesus did. He always sought to do what pleases God. Some of what he did was popular, some wasn't. Even when he did popular things, he often did them in a secretive way. He did not seek glory from people, but from his Father, God.

He was, truly, the salt of the earth, the most distinctive and unique man, the man that made the earth a good earth, and to many, the most offensive. He was the light of the world, as he himself said, but the dark world hated the light and did its best to put it out. He did what he knew would lead to his death, but he did it in hope that God would use it for the good of the dark world.

And so he did. Even shortly after Jesus breathed his last, a watching Roman centurion was struck by something about him. Some of the light got through to him. "Truly this was the Son of God!" he said.

People didn't reward Jesus for his good works, but he didn't need them to. He believed that God would reward him. And so he did. He raised him from the dead. He gave him eternal life. He gave him all authority in heaven and on earth. And he gave him his disciples, the church.

It's because Jesus was the light that we get to be light. We were darkness. As Paul says in Ephesians 5:8, "at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the world." Never forget that, light-of-the-world disciples: "At one time you were darkness." Why aren't you darkness now? It's because Jesus died to clean the darkness out of you and to make you holy, a fit dwelling place for his Spirit, who is the flame within you that makes you each a lamp, and together, a shining city on a hill.

If you aren't a disciple of Christ, you are still in darkness. But ask him to clean the darkness out and to come to you and be light within you, and he will do so.

He is the salt in a world that hates the flavor, light in a world that loves the dark. Through him, we become salt and light. Because of him, we give glory to his Father who is in heaven.

Pastor Nate Jeffries