Salt & Light

INTRODUCTION: In an episode from the classic TV series from the 1960's, "The Andy Griffith Show," Andy Taylor, the sheriff of Mayberry, is out of town. His deputy, Barney Fife, is in charge, and he has deputized the local mechanic, Gomer Pyle. The two deputies are walking down the street one evening when they notice that someone is robbing the town's bank. They quickly duck behind a car. They are afraid and don't know what to do. Finally, Gomer looks at Barney and says excitedly, "Shazam! We need to call the police."

In utter exasperation, Barney shoots back: "We are the police!"

We could say the same thing about the church, the body of Christ. We look around and realize: “We’re the ones who should do something!”

[READ Matthew 5:13-16]

POINT: Our identity in Christ implies influence for Christ

Note Jesus didn’t say “you could be salt” or “what if you were light.” He said, “You ARE the salt of the earth … you ARE the light of the world.” Who is this “you” Jesus is talking to? His disciples; his followers; us. The salt and light metaphors indicate our influence for good in the world.

Yet the very notion that Christians can exert a healthy influence in the world should give us pause. As John Stott asked, "What possible influence could the people described in the beatitudes exert in this hard, tough world? What lasting good can the poor and the meek do, the mourners and the merciful, and those who try to make peace not war? Would they simply be overwhelmed by the floodwaters of evil? What can they accomplish whose only passion is an appetite for righteousness, and whose only weapon is purity of heart? Are not such people too feeble to achieve anything, especially if they are a small minority in the world?"

In light of the countercultural perspectives that Jesus enunciated in the Beatitudes, it would be easy to assume that Jesus was calling his followers to a separatistic or quasi-monastic lifestyle. But here Jesus proclaims precisely the opposite. Christians must permeate society as agents of redemption.

The world will undoubtedly persecute the church, yet it is the church’s calling to serve this persecuting world with love and truth. Incredible as it may sound, Jesus referred to that handful of Palestinian peasants as the salt of the earth and the light of the world, so far-reaching was their influence to be.

POINT: We are the salt of the earth (13)

In the ancient world, salt was used primarily as a preservative, and secondarily for flavoring. In this first metaphor Jesus likens his disciples to salt. Implicitly he is saying that apart from his disciples, the world tends to rot; but Christians delay that decay. Christians delay decay. If our lives conform to the norms of his kingdom, we cannot help but be an influence for good in society, morally and spiritually.

The purpose of salt is to fight deterioration, and therefore it must not itself deteriorate. The worse the world becomes and the more its corruption proceeds, the more it stands in need of Jesus’ disciples. “Loses its saltiness” reads more literally “is defiled.” Salt can't actually become flavorless, but if gets mixed with various impurities (e.g. sand) it becomes useless as a preservative.

I don't believe Jesus is making a statement about eternal security with the phrase, “to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Rather, he is referring to the world’s response to Christians if we do not function as we should. Believers who fail to arrest corruption become worthless as agents of change and redemption. The church may make its peace with the world and avoid persecution, but it is thereby rendered impotent to fulfill its divinely ordained role. It will thus ultimately be rejected even by those with whom it sought compromise. It doesn't matter which party--that's just how politics works.

ILLUSTRATION: Dennis Kinlaw, former Asbury Seminary professor and Asbury College president, tells a story about growing up in rural Lumberton North Carolina during the depression. It was Dennis’ job, as a young boy, to rub salt into the meat his father brought home from hunting. He would rub salt into the meat until his young muscles ached. Finally, when it was thoroughly salted, he would hang it up in the storehouse.

One day company arrived, so Dennis’ mother asked him to get some pork out of the storehouse. Dennis ran out, got a piece of pork off of a hook, and brought it into the kitchen. He laid it on his mother‘s cutting board and left the room. The boy was just about out the front door when heard his mother yell, “Dennis!”

Young Dennis knew from experience that whenever his mother screamed his name like that he was in trouble, so he slunk his way to the kitchen and stood in the doorway afraid to go in.