Matthew 5:13-20
“Tasting and Seeing the Goodness of God”
By: Ken Sauer, Pastor of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanooga, TN www.eastridgeumc.com
When I was about Mary Ellen’s age, I happened along my dad, who was sitting in the kitchen, eating an apple.
My curiosity was stimulated as I watched him salt a bit of the apple, take a bite, and then repeat.
“Dad, why are you putting salt on your apple?” I asked him.
“Oh, because salt brings out the flavor in things,” he replied happily, “it makes things taste better.”
Well, light bulbs flashed on in my head, and from then on, I have been a bit of a salt-aholic.
I salt just about everything.
Food just doesn’t taste good, to me, without it.
Thankfully my blood pressure is very low.
Nevertheless, I have heard over and over again, from people who have watched me salt my food, “Ken, don’t use so much salt!”
They are right.
Too much salt is not good for you.
But the funniest thing is that I have heard this, from my dad—of all people, on hundreds of occasions.
So, when my dad says this, I tell him about why I started eating so much salt…about what he told me about it “making things taste better.”
And he will deny this…
…honestly, to be sure.
He doesn’t remember telling me this when I was 5.
Then one day, my parents were having company, and a small group of children were gathered around the kitchen table watching my father eat an apple.
“Mr. Bill, why do you put salt on your apple?” I heard a young voice inquire.
“Oh, it’s because salt brings out the flavor in things,” he replied.
“Salt makes food taste better.”
“Aha!!!” I proclaimed. “Caught ‘ya!!! That’s exactly what you told me when I was a kid.”
In our Gospel Lesson for this morning, Jesus says “You are the salt of the earth.”
This is one of the marks of being a disciple of Jesus Christ.
And what a compliment, what a privilege, what an honor indeed!!!
It’s not something to take lightly!
In Jesus’ day salt stood for sacrifice, loyalty, a shared relationship, purification, seasoning and preservation.
Eating together was called “sharing salt” and meant a binding together of relationship.
One of the awesome things about salt is that salt does not exist for itself.
It does not serve itself.
It exists to enhance the other…
…to “bring out the flavor” shall we say or to preserve and save the other.
And that is what discipleship is about.
It’s about serving others in the name and for the sake of Christ.
It’s about making a positive difference in a world which is lost, broken and hurting.
Clair was watching a cooking show the other day, and being very aware of my propensity for pouring and pouring the salt from the shaker, her ears perked up when the cook said, “You only need just a little pinch of salt to bring out the flavor. A little salt goes a long way.”
That is true.
A pinch of salt is effective far beyond the proportion of its amount.
Salt does not necessarily attract a whole lot of attention to itself.
It’s a pretty ordinary ingredient.
It mixes up well with other common things.
But if it is left out of a recipe, just the ‘pinch of it’ is missed.
The same can be said for our Christian witness.
We aren’t necessarily called to go about with sirens and guns a blazin’ as much as we are to live day-by-day as witnesses for Christ—where we are planted…
…in school, at home, at work, in the community.
We are to mix with the rest of humanity, we are to be involved in the life of other folks as caring and loving friends.
And if we live this way, we will be missed if we are not around.
Last Saturday, during our monthly servant evangelism event, one of you told me that when you went to a certain door in our surrounding neighborhood offering the free cold and flu packets one person responded with: “I was wondering when you folks would be back. I so loved the cantaloupe you all gave me in the summer. It was the best I had all year.”
It has been said that a good test of whether or not a church is living out its mission is to ask, “If we were to pack up and leave tomorrow, would we be missed by the neighborhood, the community?”
Just think of all the folks who use our food pantry.
Just think of the number of people who received free school supplies from you all this past Fall.
One thing I noticed this past Saturday was that, in knocking on doors and introducing ourselves to folks, no one asked me, “Now, where are you located?”
Everyone knew.
Yet, when we first started going around to these houses a year or so ago, I almost always had to give our address, explain which road we were on, what the building looked like, what landmarks we were near…
That, my friends, is a very good sign that you are being what Jesus says you are: “the salt of the earth in this community!”
I can’t wait to see what God has in store with our upcoming Block Party and with all the other things which will go on in the years to come!!!
We are called to bring out the positive flavor of life in a world that is so built on the negative, on war, and on violence.
Jesus goes on to say, “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.”
If we deny our mission, we stand on the precipice of being thrown out as being useless!!!
Jesus says to you and to me, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 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.
In the same way, let your light shine before [people], that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
Jesus makes it clear that the Christian life is not just personal and private!!!
We are not a secret society; we are a city on a hill whose authentic life is not to be hidden.
We are to shine the light of God into the darkness of this world, and thus, light the place up with goodness, truth, peace and love!!!
And when the world is able to see the love of Christ lived out through us, they will praise our Father in heaven!!!
On January 14th of this year, a group of United Methodist students at American University in Washington, D.C., met the darkness of hate head-on when members of the infamous group that pickets the funerals of American soldiers came to their campus.
News of the group picketing the school spread quickly across campus and soon students were calling for aggressive counter protests.
In the midst of the fury the United Methodist Student Association handed out more than 500 cups of hot chocolate with Bible verses about God’s love glued to the front.
That is a great example of what it means to be the light of the world, shining bright in the darkness, and giving hope to the hopeless, sowing peace.
The Christian life can’t be concealed.
We are called to the active mission of “letting our lights shine” to “all,” but we don’t generate the light any more than salt generates its own saltiness.
We are the recipients of a Light of which God is the Source!
And we are lit, not for our own sakes, but for the sake of the world.
And our deeds are not to point to our own glory but to the glory of God, so that others will come into the light and become salt and light themselves.
One evening at dusk, back in the old days, Robert Lewis Stevenson stood as a boy at the window of his home and watched the darkness envelop the city.
“Robert,” someone said to him, “what are you doing? You can’t see anything out there.”
But he insisted, “I can see something wonderful. There is a man coming up the street making holes in the darkness.”
It was the lamplighter.
In the truest sense, Jesus Christ is the Divine Lamplighter.
He came into this world to make holes in the darkness.
If Jesus Christ lives in you, you are to be filled with light!!!
You are to go about, punching out holes in the darkness, so that others may see that there is a God of Love, mercy and peace…
…So that others may see that they need not stay in isolated and lost despair, but can come to the Light of Life—Jesus Christ…
…So that others may see, that evil is not the only alternative, violence is not the only retaliation, and hatred and bitterness are not the only roads.
You are salt, and salt is to be salty.
You are light, and light is not to be hidden.
Light comes from the outside in, and only serves its purpose if it burns brightly from the inside out!
Physicists tell us that the diffusion of light in the world is caused by the reflection of rays of the sun off particles in the air, off the clouds, off the earth.
And because of the miracle of how light works, each particle of matter becomes a miniature sun.
Likewise, in the Christian faith and Church, the light of God’s love is dispersed and reflected off each one of us, so that we become miniature Christ’s in the world.
Salt and light do not exist for themselves, nor do we.
Jesus calls us and saves us and then commands us and enables us to turn outward to the world.
Jesus says to you and Jesus says to me, “You are salt. You are light. Be what you are.”
May it be so for the sake of a lost, frightened, broken, bland and dark world.
Amen.
