Matthew 5: 13, 14
Christian Faith As Salt, Light

Please think with me about these two metaphors and what they may teach us about our Christian profession and obedience.

I. THE FIRST ONE IS SALT.  HOW ARE WE SALT?

1. The Christian is like salt.  For us it is cheap and of little regard.  In Palestine, the Dead Sea provided unlimited amounts of salt for all who could carry it away.  In our society, we pay very little for it.  In ancient times -- outside of Palestine -- it was often a royal monopoly or the prize of war.  It was not only used as a garnish to make dreadful food palatable, but was about the only means for preserving meat.  Aside from wine (which was probably a minimal sterilizing agent) salt was the only sterilizing agent, that I know of, that was known to those people.  On occasions, wounds were sterilized by it's usage.  The unimaginable pain, of course, would be a more than an incidental negative factor.  (When we pray over our food we should give doxologies of thanksgiving to God that He has let us live at a time and at a place in civilization where we have such wonderful food and clean conditions and comfortable lifestyle.  The ancients would have found it impossible to believe the comfort and security of our lives.)

2. This "being like salt" speaks about our living lives to the glory of God.  Just by our being here in society, we are like salt which sterilizes and preserves, in a passive sort of a way; and even flavors by its presence.  No one sees its action and, especially in ancient times, it was like passive Christian testimony.  It speaks, but it speaks, though being silent.

3. The quality of your Christian life, being honest, kind, neighborly, helpful, does socially for your environment in society what salt does chemically in its environment.  If you lack a sophisticated sterilizing agent (which the ancients did) salt would do it, if it, indeed, could be used with the particular object or substance to be sterilized.  And especially in Near Eastern cultures of old, it was a very important commodity.

And it has a potentially amazing effect on your life because of all it will eliminate from the heavy toll that immorality takes.  Your part in society will be different than the rest.  And whether you see the change in society around you or not, your morality will have an effect because it will be like salt that changes everything it touches.

When the Wesleyan Revival took place in England, it was not just the people who received Christ as their Savior who were changed, but the whole British society was changed and some historians have said that England was spared the likes of the French Revolution or the Bolshevik Revolution because of the change that took place in society.

Your children, if you have children, will live godly lives and will be salt in society in the generation after you.  But that will probably be so, only  if you refuse to be dominated by the standards of the world around you.  Apart from the grace of God we cannot help being influenced by our generation.  There is an old proverb that says "Men are more like their generation than they are like their fathers."  But it is part of our salt-being character that we are not dominated by them.  Godly family life is perhaps one of the most conspicuous forms of salt-producing.  You who have children, and you who hope to have children should consider that the responsibility of rearing those children is one of the most  important things you will do with your life as far as salt-bearing is concerned.

And your informed, political stance, based, as it should be, on your idea of justice, mercy, and uprightness, will be salt when everybody around you is going crazy at the voting booth, voting for his own personal privilege and for insanely destructive laws.  God does not call us to make our world into a Christian society, but to be salt.  I think you are missing a chance to be salt if you are not registered to vote and if you do not follow through and cast the vote.

II. NOW THE SECOND METAPHOR THE LORD USES IS THAT WE ARE "THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD."  Presumably that means that we, individually, are lights in our part of the world.

1. The last half of v.14 suggests that the Lord was thinking of a lighted city at night.  This light wouldn't have radiated from  the windows of houses, as in modern cities, but probably bonfires and torches marked the Palestinian city he was thinking about.  And then he shifts to an illustration of a lighted lamp that would be put on some sort of high lamp stand.  This, I believe, speaks of our social and evangelistic place in society, shedding the light of truth and the gospel by our lives in that society in which we are called to live.  It is the more religious and evangelistic of the two metaphors.  The "Salt" seems to be more a representation of solid Christian character.  This one - light -- is the quality of one's religious life and belief.  I believe it is speaking about your presence in ordinary society, "Among whom you shine forth as lights in the world," as Paul says in Philippians 2: 15 -- showing forth the truth by lives dedicated to God.

2. I would interpret the "light" metaphor in this more-evangelistic way in contrast to the forgoing interpretation of salt in a life-style way; partly, because the metaphor of "light" is used in the Scriptures so many times for spreading of the truth of the Gospel.  It speaks of us, as actively defining, demonstrating, and promoting the true Gospel which we believe.  Indeed, we often do this do this passively by the quality of our lives.  "We are the light of the world," because we have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is "The Light of the world."  We are lights because the Holy Spirit, at Our Lord's direction, has lighted us.

Thirty years after Matthew wrote this report of what Jesus said, the Apostle John wrote of our faith in the Lord Jesus, saying: "This is the True Light coming into the world who lights every man who is lighted."

3. That lightedness, with which we are lighted, shines with varying quality and intensity as we live our Christian lives.  It may glow in our attempt to be a good and harmless neighbor, by God's grace -- and a silent or even a spoken witness to Jesus Christ, the true Light of the World.  You may not individually win someone to Christ by neighborliness and friendliness, but you can't tell what the Holy Spirit might do as a response to your witness and to someone else's.  Often  this will, hopefully, prove to be true when the facts are unveiled and there will be evidence of God bringing a witness to the individual through numerous people and experiences.

Those of you who serve  in such places as at a pregnancy counseling service for pregnant girls; or are volunteers at the Mercy Health Clinic or in some food distribution program, or who even help out a neighbor in need or one with a problem, are  being a societal light in our present world.  And I hope that I will not be accused of politicizing Christ's church, when I say that you may also serve as a light of the world when you take advantage of your privilege to vote in the society in which we live.  It does not affect so much, the eternal Kingdom of God,  per se, as it does the lives of those of the Lord's people who live here.  But it also indirectly affects the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior since it affects his people.

Let us ask ourselves and one another if these metaphors describe our individual lives in a realistic way: "You are the salt of the earth;" "You are the light of the world."  And in regard to the latter of the two let us each hear the words of our Savior: "Let  your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."