5th Sunday after Epiphany 2023. Matthew 5.13-20 Salt and Light
Let’s put today’s gospel reading in context.
This week we continue with The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' masterpiece. The primary theme of the sermon is righteousness or justice. Jesus' teaching opens with the beatitudes (5:3-11), which we heard last week. They point out God's favour toward humanity rather than God's demands.
They are not the expected cultural categories: people who mourn are recognized favourably. Actively being a peacemaker would have been difficult on first century Palestine under Roman rule. The sermon closes with God's demand to obey Jesus' words (7:24-29), that is, the new Torah. God grants favour (salvation), but requests the very lives of the ones who follow.
Today we come in just after the beatitudes, with Jesus’s teaching on being the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Then, from that standpoint, looking at the Old Testament law.
In the Gospel narratives, Jesus' short pithy sayings about "salt" appear in different contexts in each Gospel (cf. Matt 5:13; Mark 9:50; Luke 14:34). In each instance, salt is a common image Jesus used for painting a picture of how he hoped his followers would act and be in the world.
The link between "salt" and "earth" is not so clear. The way it’s written may refer to the "earth's salt," to be used for the earth’s good. But a better way to understand it in today’s context is that the salt that comes from God’s creation is the source of seasoning (Job 6:6), purification, and preservation.
The important point Jesus is making here is, I think, that however we want to think of the function of salt, it not an element useful to itself. Its value comes in its application to or on other things.
So, likewise the followers of Jesus are called to exist for others. Yet, Jesus warns that salt may lose it saltiness (literally “to become foolish” in the Greek); that is, losing its taste or value.
In the same way, light does not function to be useful in itself either. It functions to allow humans to see. In the contemporary Western world, it is difficult to imagine a world without light. When it was nightfall, in the ancient world, it was dark indeed. Isaiah writes that in darkness, "we grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes" (59:10).]
The way Jesus is using the word is that light is not simply to allow others to see whatever they wish but it is for others to witness the acts of love and justice that Jesus' followers perform. Beyond that, it allows these hearers of Jesus to see that the cause of these actions is our Father in heaven.
The images of "salt" and "light" evoke the imagination of Jesus' listeners and may represent more than one meaning. Jesus gives them a more specific meaning in what follows.
Just as "salt" and "light" relate to the functions of Jesus' faithful followers in the world, so Jesus' emphasis on the law is about doing good. In this sermon, Jesus explores the meaning of the law, not desiring for its abolition, but its fulfilment in himself. Not to “build up” or contribute to the law but to fulfil it.
To fulfill means to bringing something to an end or to complete something, but that does not quite fit the immediate context. Jesus, especially Matthew's Jesus, was a law-abiding Jew. But he chooses to "fulfill" the law in the sense of interpreting the Law’s meaning for everyday usage.
When Jesus says he will not abolish, he clearly does not mean he will not re-interpret. Many times Jesus reinterprets Old Testament Scripture, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount, usually beginning with something like … "You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times ... but I say to you."
One main purpose of the sermon is to point out how difficult this new obedience is. “Your righteousness should exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees" (5:20). Jesus' comparison makes no sense if the Pharisees and Scribes were fulfilling the Old Testament law. But the gospels teaches that they consistently fail to obey the essence of God’s intention in giving the law in the first place.
So Jesus purpose is for the hears of this sermon to look to him, not the Pharisees and Scribes on how they can be obedient to God. By setting such a high bar of moral behaviour in the Sermon, we are forced to conclude that it is the grace of Christ Jesus and our faith that bring about the great spiritual gifts of faith; redemption, sanctification, and salvation.
Jesus reinterpreted the Old Testament to such an extent that he managed to summarise it and say “all of the Law and the prophets” point to this; that “you should love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength. And you shall love your neighbour as yourself.”
When we do this, we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Hiding nothing and lighting everything, flavouring, preserving and allowing others the see the Kingdom of God by what we do, say, and think.
We can spend a lot of time (and fun) trying to figure out Jesus' meaning of the images of salt and light. More important is the context of those images for Jesus. Who are 'salt' of the earth? They are the humble, the ones who mourn, the meek, and those who thirst after doing what is right in the world. Who are 'light'? They are the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who receive abuse for standing up for what is right. Amen