Our Gospel lesson for today comes immediately after the beatitudes which we heard last week. Jesus had called His disciples, drawn them to Himself, He had taught them, blessed them, and given them the good news that the kingdom of heaven was reigning in the Ministry of Jesus the Son of God who had come to fulfill the Law. He then spoke to His disciples as those He would be sending out with that message of God’s salvation.
He said, “you are the salt of the earth,” and then “you are the light of the world.” Jesus makes this statement of description to all the Church, to all who have been redeemed out of the world. The world with its sin and unbelief, is a place that is impure, decaying, disease ridden, a dark and ignorant place where sin, death, and the power of the devil attempt to reign supreme. The earth has been filled with the curse of sin, therefore there is sorrow, sickness, slavery and bondage to that curse. Yet Christ came and burst through the prison doors, and has set people free by the forgiveness of sin through His perfect life giving death at the cross, a perfect sacrifice.
Having been called by His Word and regenerated through baptism, the Church and its members have been changed by the Holy Spirit. Given faith in what Jesus Christ has given them: namely redemption, life, and hope by the forgiveness of sin: reconciliation with the Father through Jesus blood and merit. Now believers in Jesus Christ are at peace with God. If you are a baptized believer in Jesus Christ, you too have been changed by the Holy Spirit who has worked repentance and faith into your hearts. You are therefore included in the words of Jesus today and made to be the salt of the earth, you are to be light even as Jesus has been salt and light for you.
Why did Jesus choose salt to describe His disciples and the Church? Because salt even as we know it and use it helps describe the work of Holy Spirit working through His Word, His sacraments, and yes working even through you, His people.
Salt makes food taste good or better. Have you ever had meat that was unsalted or a meal that had absolutely no salt added? It was probably as bland as chewing on a napkin. Christians are to be salt for this world. As they serve God through their vocations, Christians are a blessing from God to non-believers. He uses faithful Christian laborers, farmers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, mothers, fathers, children, and any other godly calling to build up society and civilization, to bring an increase in the quality of life here on earth to all people. As salt, they make this world, palatable.
Salt may seem common today and the doctors may speak of the possibility of having too much, but salt has historically been considered very precious and valuable. Did you know that the word “salary” comes from the word salt? The Romans would actually pay their soldiers not in gold but in salt. Therefore, a faithful worker was literally “worth his salt.”
Salt was valued not just for flavoring but also as a preservative. Before the invention of modern refrigeration, salt was needed in the preservation of food. Food, especially meat, will not spoil as quickly if it has been salted, because flies, bacteria, and other spoilers are slowed down or unable to penetrate the salt.
Salt is also a disinfectant. Salt has a burning quality to it. It dries things out. Yes, salt kills snails, but it also kills germs, and can prevent infections in wounds and promote faster healing. Salt can induce thirst and drive people and things to water. This is very much like the Word of God. The Law of God burns sin and draws it out of the spiritual wounds of people. Sometimes the Law hurts as it cleanses, because the impurities inside the sinner must die to sin in repentance. The Law of God causes people to hunger and thirst for the water of life for the righteousness which is found only in Jesus Christ. Therefore, the Grace of God given in the preached Gospel, in Baptism and Holy Absolution, quenches the thirst for salvation, because the eternal hellish burn which sin deserved was placed upon Jesus at the cross, buried in the tomb so that believers are purified, disinfected and raised again in newness of life in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Salt is valuable in giving life. Without salt humans and animals cannot have proper bodily function. Salt is necessary for the firing of the electrical impulses in the nervous system. Salt is necessary for the health of bodily organs, for the replacement of blood cells and other cells, to maintain blood pressure, for proper muscle activity, to equalize the balance of water and other elements in the body. Likewise, the salt which Jesus Christ gives in His instruments of Grace continues to give life to His people. He feeds you and His Church through the Holy Ministry of preaching, teaching, and administering the sacraments. In this way, He regulates and balances your physical bodies and your spiritual needs, even as He nurtures and cares for His body, the Church, and prepares it for eternity. Therefore, He uses physical and spiritual means to feed our physical and spiritual bodies in His body and blood in the bread and the wine to preserve us for eternal life. In Absolution and the Eucharist, He also regulates us as individual members of His body. We learn to daily repent of pride and learn to live together in unity of confession as one body in Jesus Christ. As the Lord says through St. Paul in Ephesians, “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
Having been fed and nourished through the Word of God and His sacraments here in His Divine Service, we are called to not lose our salt as soon as we leave these doors, but by the Holy Spirit we are called out from this place to be salt and light to the world.
You have been called out to be spiritual priests offering your lives of good works as spiritual sacrifices to the Father. Reflecting the light of Jesus Christ to others, giving flavor and life by speaking and witnessing to the truth of God’s Word in Jesus Christ is being salt and light in this world.
If we just go about our business without witnessing to Christ through word and deed, we are like lamps that had been lit but are then hid under a basket. We can never expect our families and communities to be blessed, or our congregations to grow if we do not take the light and the salt of God’s Word and Jesus Christ with us in our lives and on our lips. Salt remaining in a shaker does not flavor, disinfect, or give life. If we do not present the Law of God to salt and cast out the deeds of darkness in our own lives, the lives of loved ones, and those around us, there will be no thirst for the Gospel, there will be no need to repent. The cross of Christ will not be seen as a place of hope, a place breaking through the darkness, but will be an excuse to sin all the more. If we relax our message, if we rely on others to do it instead of ourselves, then we deserve to be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. If we lose our flavor so easily so that we ourselves are offended by the teachings of God’s Word, then we deserve to be thrown out into the streets and the dunghills and smashed and trampled as salt that has lost its saltiness.
This is part of the reason why our society grows darker. This is why the deeds of lawlessness, whether they be sexual impurity of any kind, greed, hate, covetousness, gossip, and false teaching are rampant. The people who have been called to be light and salt have lost their voices, they have instead become afraid, they have become satisfied with artificial flavoring rather than the true sin burning, spiritual curing of God’s Word in its truth and purity in Jesus Christ, and too many are impotent and ineffective and become one with the world. Without God’s Word, the darkness cannot be overcome, growth, life, and hope come only by the Holy Spirit working through His people who use the instruments of His Word and His sacraments. There in His Word is the source of salt, there is the true Light.
Let us therefore repent of sin and our selfish laziness. Look to the cross of Jesus Christ where we have been redeemed and now for Jesus sake you have been forgiven again. You have been given life, again, the joy and hope of eternal life, again by the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Again, His strong Word cleaves the darkness of your heart and replaces it with the light of His Gospel. Now you may eat and drink His blessing in Christ so that you may go and be a blessing in Christ to others. Pray for opportunities and the focus to be able to witness to Christ without fear. We know that we have deserved to be thrown out and destroyed, yet He has not.
He loves us, forgives us, and renews us in faith so that we may know that Christ has fulfilled the Law so that we may live not in fear, but in His love and forgiveness and joy. Jesus is your salt, your light, your life, forever more. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ. Amen.
Pr. Aaron Kangas