Fifth Sunday After The Epiphany / Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VIII, Cycle A
Object:
Theme For The Day
Christians are meant to be the salt of the earth.
Old Testament Lesson
Isaiah 58:1-9a (9b-12)
A Righteous Fast
Much as been said in the media about the ever-growing waistlines of Americans. We are not a people who are accustomed to fasting. So, when a passage like this one comes along, most of us lack a frame of reference for dealing with it. Fasting was, however, a time-honored practice in ancient Israel. It was usually associated with penance, either on the Day of Atonement or on special fast days that would be called from time to time as a response to events of national importance. Fasting was also associated with mourning. Following the exile, the number of annual fast days was increased to four, a practice that probably began during or just after the exile (Zechariah 8:19). This passage from Second Isaiah, therefore, belongs to the time when fasting was on the rise as a part of Jewish religious life. Verse 1 is a call to fasting, akin to the one in Joel 2:15. This is a special fast, a result of the people's rank sinfulness. The people have grown weary with fasting (v. 3). They question whether God is paying any attention. The Lord responds, condemning the people for defiling their fast with quarreling and false humility (verses 4-5). In verse 6, the prophet calls for a new type of fast, one that is truly pleasing to the Lord: a fast from injustice (verses 6-7). This sort of fast is not inner-directed, focusing on the personal piety of the one who is fasting. Rather, it is outer-directed, focusing on acts of righteousness and justice. Should Israel undertake this kind of fast, the prophet is promising, their "light shall break forth like the dawn," they shall be healed and vindicated and "the glory of the Lord shall be [their] rear guard," as in the days of the Exodus when the Lord guarded them as a pillar of fire (verses 8-9a). The optional verses 9b-12 continue this theme with the images of restoration becoming more specific. In verse 12 ("Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt"), the promise is explicitly related to the restoration of Jerusalem.
New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 2:1-12
Wisdom From God
Continuing his argument from last week's lectionary selection, Paul differentiates himself from the Greek philosophers. He "did not come proclaiming the mystery of God... in lofty words or wisdom," but rather focused on the simple message of the cross of Jesus (verses 1-5). "Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom" (v. 6). Paul -- who is no unschooled country preacher, but rather a Pharisee learned in both Greek and Hebrew wisdom texts -- is able to discourse in the terms of the philosophers when he has a "mature" audience who is able to understand such matters. His core message is "God's wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory" (v. 7). It is not a wisdom that is intelligible to "the rulers of this age," whose comprehension is limited to human wisdom (v. 8). The Holy Spirit reveals the mysteries of God's truth (verses 9-13). For those who are "unspiritual" (literally, "natural" -- pertaining to human nature, rather than divine), such teachings are only foolishness (v. 14). "Those who are spiritual," on the other hand, "discern all things" (v. 15). Those who know Christ "have the mind of Christ" (v. 16).
Gospel Lesson
Matthew 5:13-20
Salt, Light, And The Christian Life
The Sermon on the Mount continues with images of salt and light, and miscellaneous teachings about the law, anger, and adultery. The lection this week is composed of two distinct pericopes, too much to cover in a single sermon. First, there are the related images of salt and light, both of which relate to the role Christian disciples are to play in the world (verses 13-16). The verbs are plural, directed to the entire community of disciples, rather than individuals. Salt and light are useful gifts from God -- salt is of course a preservative, and light is essential to life itself. The reference to salt losing its taste probably indicates the residue remaining after the process of making salt from seawater has been completed, and the salt itself removed. This powdery, white substance looks like salt, but is in fact useless minerals. In the next section (verses 17-20), Jesus defines his relationship to the law. He has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Not one letter (literally, not one iota -- a curious choice of a Greek, rather than a Hebrew, letter) of the law will be set aside "until all is accomplished." The meaning of "when all is accomplished" is open to some interpretation, but probably refers to Jesus' death and resurrection rather than the end of the world. In the meantime, Jesus' followers are to live exemplary lives, exceeding even the scribes and Pharisees in righteousness.
Preaching Possibilities
Over the grassy hillside, Jesus' words ring out. He's just told the people they are blessed... blessed no matter what may befall them in life... blessed whether they are poor in spirit, or grieving, or meek -- even persecuted. "Happy" is the word some translators use in rendering the beloved passage known as "the Beatitudes": Happy are you, even when you do not appear outwardly happy. Happy are you when the world knocks you down, pushes you around, lays you low... for the sake of the gospel! "Rejoice and be glad," says the Lord. "Yes, rejoice: for your reward is great in heaven!" Then Jesus comes out with this peculiar statement: "You are the salt of the earth." Whatever could he mean?
Most of us think we know what he means. Picture yourself, in your mind's eye, sitting in a restaurant. The server sets before you a plate of steaming french fries: Mmmmm, cholesterol heaven! Next to your plate, just waiting to be picked up and used, is the salt shaker. Now maybe you reach for it, and maybe you don't (your doctor would prefer that you don't). But don't deny it: you want to reach for it. You want to turn that little canister upside down, and shake that white stuff all over your food. It's sunk deep in our genes and chromosomes -- that craving for salt.
Most of us, when we hear Jesus tell his disciples, "You are the salt of the earth," think of salt in just this way: as a flavoring agent. We think of it, in other words -- along with most of our modern culture -- as a spice: a simple ingredient that makes food more interesting and enjoyable. Sure, there are those medical warnings about high blood pressure -- but what do the peasants arrayed on that hillside, listening to Jesus, know of those? Surely, to them, salt is an innocent pleasure: and so, the job of Christians can only be to make life better for others!
Time for a footnote. Some Bible students have been troubled by Jesus' observation that salt sometimes "loses its taste." Scientifically speaking, that's impossible. The chemical substance, "sodium chloride" -- common table salt -- is extremely stable. It never decays or goes bad. Pure salt tastes equally salty: one day, or even centuries, later. Scholars have figured out, though, that what Jesus is talking about is not pure salt. The purest salt -- the kind that pours out of the blue cardboard canister -- is mined from the ground. The kind of salt available to Jesus' people is inferior. Its strength is cut by impurities. Sometimes these impurities remain, even after the salt has been used: They form a residue, a white powder that looks like salt, but hardly tastes salty at all. It's no wonder that people of Jesus' day, who used this type of salt, would imagine it could lose its salty taste with time.
Even so, you can make a case for Jesus telling his disciples that their job is to bring "flavor" to other people's lives. God knows plenty of preachers have made that point over the years. Plenty of church members have gone home, too, after hearing sermons preached on Matthew 5:13, convinced that their job is relatively easy: to "spice up" someone else's life a little; to perform a random act of kindness or two; to do something "nice" for a friend or neighbor, to give that person a little pleasure. The only problem is: they're wrong. Sermons like that are wrong because -- while Jesus wouldn't be against any of these things -- they don't begin to fathom how important salt is to the people of Jesus' day.
In the kitchen of every one of our homes, humming quietly away, day and night, is an appliance most of us take for granted. Yet, if you could magically transport this appliance to the time of Jesus -- and, equally magically, find an electric socket to plug it into -- you would bring unending joy and wonder into the lives of every man, woman, and child who saw it.
In case you haven't guessed, that appliance is a refrigerator. Imagine what it would be like to live without refrigeration. Food would turn rancid in a matter of days or even hours. The only chance you'd have of preserving a piece of meat or fish, or a handful of olives for more than a day or two, would be to rub that item with salt, or to immerse it in the salty water known as brine.
If it should happen that you have no salt, the meat of that sheep you just slaughtered would have to be eaten all in one night. If you were an olive farmer, you couldn't transport your produce to market (unless you pressed it into oil). If you were a tanner of leather, that fine piece of cowhide you just got your hands on would be a total loss. You'd never be able to chemically treat it, so it would last.
For a community to be without salt, in that day and age, means nothing less than economic catastrophe. It's no wonder that salt in Jesus' day was sometimes used even as money. The Romans used it that way. Sure, they had coins, but not enough to pay their legions. Instead, the Romans paid their soldiers with salt. That was perfectly fine with the soldiers. They knew that, no matter what country they were in, as long as they had salt, they could trade for anything.
That, by the way, is the origin of the word "salary." The Latin word "salarium" is derived from the word for "salt." A vestige of this ancient meaning lives on in our English expression, "worth your salt." A Roman soldier "worth his salt" was a hard worker, who earned his wages.
When Jesus tells his disciples, "You are the salt of the earth," he means a great deal more than simply "spicing life up." He's comparing them to a substance that's essential to life, as he knows it. To be a "salty" Christian, according to this way of thinking, is to hold back the insidious forces of death and decay: preserving and protecting the best things in life.
Salt is a flavoring. Salt is also a preservative. But that's not all. There's yet another function of salt: one most of us have all but forgotten, in our modern age. Salt can also be used as a fertilizer.
Agriculture was primitive in Jesus' day. There was no concept of crop rotation, so if you wanted to keep using a field year after year, you have to put something back into the soil. One of those fertilizer ingredients -- along with other natural substances like manure and compost -- was salt. First-century farmers plowed salt into the ground in order to help their crops grow.
In light of this, the phrase "salt of the earth" takes on a very poignant and literal meaning. Farmers literally "salt the earth." Christian disciples, likewise, are called to salt the earth with their very lives: giving themselves sacrificially for the world. This, ultimately, is what Jesus himself does on the cross: the authorities consider him "no longer good for anything"; they "throw him out" and "trample him underfoot." Yet in due season, fresh, green shoots of new life emerge, nurtured by his very blood.
It is only because of Jesus' sacrifice that we can aspire to be "salty Christians" at all. Because he is salt for us, we can aspire to be salt for the world.
Prayer For The Day
God of grace and truth,
we call ourselves your people.
Make us worthy of our calling.
Your Son Jesus has declared
that we are salt and light.
May we live in joyful certainty
that truly we are these things.
Make us instruments, Lord,
through his church,
to bring light and peace to a dark and troubled world.
We ask for this precious gift
in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen.
To Illustrate
Even in later centuries, much closer to our day, salt continued to be precious. During the Revolutionary War, a number of minor skirmishes were fought over salt works. The British sought, several times, to burn American salt works because they were vital to Washington's war effort. During the Civil War, Federal forces nearly cut off the South's salt supply. This was such a crisis that Jefferson Davis offered lifetime exemption from military service to any man who would stir kettles down at the salt works. As recently as the 1940s, in India, Mahatma Gandhi began his country's independence movement with a 200-mile march to the sea -- that place where salt could be refined -- in order to protest the British tax on the precious mineral.
***
There are some who hear sayings like "blessed are the meek" or "you are the salt of the earth" or "you are the light of the world," and think they hear marching orders. They consider Jesus' words as a command and immediately begin asking themselves whether they have within themselves "the right stuff," so they can measure up. The Sermon on the Mount then becomes, for this anxious sort of Christian, a source of even greater anxiety. It becomes a new law -- an all-but-impossible law to fulfill.
"Mainline, liberal Christians," writes William Willimon, "often think of religion as something we do. Church is where we come to get our assignment for the week -- work on your sexism, your racism, God has no hands but our hands. Suffocating moralism pervades. Where is the good news in that?"
The good news is that Jesus' sayings to his disciples, here in the Sermon on the Mount, are not imperatives, but indicatives. They are not commands, but statements of fact. You are the salt of the earth: already. You are the light of the world: yes, you are. You are the city built on the hill that cannot be hid: this is how others see you.
***
Jesus is speaking, here, not to a single individual, but to the church. It doesn't come through in English -- where the word "you" can be both singular and plural -- but, in the Greek, there's no question about it: Jesus is talking to a group. Together these disciples of his are salt, light, and a city on a hill. When one tires, another takes up the task. When one falls, another steps into his or her place. Together, somehow -- by the grace of God -- we Christians amount to considerably more than the sum of our parts. There's strength in numbers. There's faithfulness there, too.
Lots of people, today, look on faith individualistically. They think faith means believing certain doctrines, or pursuing, in a very private fashion, whatever form of "spirituality" makes them feel personally fulfilled. The Sermon on the Mount dispels any such notions. Jesus calls us, yes but, he calls us into community. Church is not optional for followers of Jesus: it is the air we breathe, the water in which we swim. It is the very context in which we live out our faith. One of the most persistent and odious heresies of our day is the one that declares, "I can be a Christian on my own, privately, in my own little way; I don't need the church!" Yet, how could any of us profess to be salt, or light, or city on our own? It's impossible!
***
Those who seek to follow the spiritual life are like salt in the world. Salt crystals cannot give flavor to food unless they dissolve. If we dissolve the salt in a pot, it disappears but it does not cease to exist. Indeed, it can then give flavor to thousands of grains of rice.
It is the same with us. If we are not melted in the fire of love and spirit, if we do not sacrifice ourselves completely, then we cannot pass on to even a single soul the blissful experience of the spiritual life. If we do not sacrifice ourselves, then we are rather like Lot's wife who was turned to a lifeless pillar of salt. Yesu was melted in the Garden of Gethsemane and gave his life on the cross to open the gate of heaven for all. In the same spirit, we must be prepared to give up our own lives for the spiritual welfare of others. This is what will bring praise to God.
The sword of justice hangs threateningly even now over many souls. We must be willing to sacrifice our own desires -- even our lives -- for the benefit of those in danger of spiritual death. Then the world will recognize that true love abides in us and that we are children of the God who sacrifices himself for us.
-- Sadhu Sundar Singh, Wisdom of the Sadhu (Plough Publishing House, 2007), p. 137
Christians are meant to be the salt of the earth.
Old Testament Lesson
Isaiah 58:1-9a (9b-12)
A Righteous Fast
Much as been said in the media about the ever-growing waistlines of Americans. We are not a people who are accustomed to fasting. So, when a passage like this one comes along, most of us lack a frame of reference for dealing with it. Fasting was, however, a time-honored practice in ancient Israel. It was usually associated with penance, either on the Day of Atonement or on special fast days that would be called from time to time as a response to events of national importance. Fasting was also associated with mourning. Following the exile, the number of annual fast days was increased to four, a practice that probably began during or just after the exile (Zechariah 8:19). This passage from Second Isaiah, therefore, belongs to the time when fasting was on the rise as a part of Jewish religious life. Verse 1 is a call to fasting, akin to the one in Joel 2:15. This is a special fast, a result of the people's rank sinfulness. The people have grown weary with fasting (v. 3). They question whether God is paying any attention. The Lord responds, condemning the people for defiling their fast with quarreling and false humility (verses 4-5). In verse 6, the prophet calls for a new type of fast, one that is truly pleasing to the Lord: a fast from injustice (verses 6-7). This sort of fast is not inner-directed, focusing on the personal piety of the one who is fasting. Rather, it is outer-directed, focusing on acts of righteousness and justice. Should Israel undertake this kind of fast, the prophet is promising, their "light shall break forth like the dawn," they shall be healed and vindicated and "the glory of the Lord shall be [their] rear guard," as in the days of the Exodus when the Lord guarded them as a pillar of fire (verses 8-9a). The optional verses 9b-12 continue this theme with the images of restoration becoming more specific. In verse 12 ("Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt"), the promise is explicitly related to the restoration of Jerusalem.
New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 2:1-12
Wisdom From God
Continuing his argument from last week's lectionary selection, Paul differentiates himself from the Greek philosophers. He "did not come proclaiming the mystery of God... in lofty words or wisdom," but rather focused on the simple message of the cross of Jesus (verses 1-5). "Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom" (v. 6). Paul -- who is no unschooled country preacher, but rather a Pharisee learned in both Greek and Hebrew wisdom texts -- is able to discourse in the terms of the philosophers when he has a "mature" audience who is able to understand such matters. His core message is "God's wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory" (v. 7). It is not a wisdom that is intelligible to "the rulers of this age," whose comprehension is limited to human wisdom (v. 8). The Holy Spirit reveals the mysteries of God's truth (verses 9-13). For those who are "unspiritual" (literally, "natural" -- pertaining to human nature, rather than divine), such teachings are only foolishness (v. 14). "Those who are spiritual," on the other hand, "discern all things" (v. 15). Those who know Christ "have the mind of Christ" (v. 16).
Gospel Lesson
Matthew 5:13-20
Salt, Light, And The Christian Life
The Sermon on the Mount continues with images of salt and light, and miscellaneous teachings about the law, anger, and adultery. The lection this week is composed of two distinct pericopes, too much to cover in a single sermon. First, there are the related images of salt and light, both of which relate to the role Christian disciples are to play in the world (verses 13-16). The verbs are plural, directed to the entire community of disciples, rather than individuals. Salt and light are useful gifts from God -- salt is of course a preservative, and light is essential to life itself. The reference to salt losing its taste probably indicates the residue remaining after the process of making salt from seawater has been completed, and the salt itself removed. This powdery, white substance looks like salt, but is in fact useless minerals. In the next section (verses 17-20), Jesus defines his relationship to the law. He has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Not one letter (literally, not one iota -- a curious choice of a Greek, rather than a Hebrew, letter) of the law will be set aside "until all is accomplished." The meaning of "when all is accomplished" is open to some interpretation, but probably refers to Jesus' death and resurrection rather than the end of the world. In the meantime, Jesus' followers are to live exemplary lives, exceeding even the scribes and Pharisees in righteousness.
Preaching Possibilities
Over the grassy hillside, Jesus' words ring out. He's just told the people they are blessed... blessed no matter what may befall them in life... blessed whether they are poor in spirit, or grieving, or meek -- even persecuted. "Happy" is the word some translators use in rendering the beloved passage known as "the Beatitudes": Happy are you, even when you do not appear outwardly happy. Happy are you when the world knocks you down, pushes you around, lays you low... for the sake of the gospel! "Rejoice and be glad," says the Lord. "Yes, rejoice: for your reward is great in heaven!" Then Jesus comes out with this peculiar statement: "You are the salt of the earth." Whatever could he mean?
Most of us think we know what he means. Picture yourself, in your mind's eye, sitting in a restaurant. The server sets before you a plate of steaming french fries: Mmmmm, cholesterol heaven! Next to your plate, just waiting to be picked up and used, is the salt shaker. Now maybe you reach for it, and maybe you don't (your doctor would prefer that you don't). But don't deny it: you want to reach for it. You want to turn that little canister upside down, and shake that white stuff all over your food. It's sunk deep in our genes and chromosomes -- that craving for salt.
Most of us, when we hear Jesus tell his disciples, "You are the salt of the earth," think of salt in just this way: as a flavoring agent. We think of it, in other words -- along with most of our modern culture -- as a spice: a simple ingredient that makes food more interesting and enjoyable. Sure, there are those medical warnings about high blood pressure -- but what do the peasants arrayed on that hillside, listening to Jesus, know of those? Surely, to them, salt is an innocent pleasure: and so, the job of Christians can only be to make life better for others!
Time for a footnote. Some Bible students have been troubled by Jesus' observation that salt sometimes "loses its taste." Scientifically speaking, that's impossible. The chemical substance, "sodium chloride" -- common table salt -- is extremely stable. It never decays or goes bad. Pure salt tastes equally salty: one day, or even centuries, later. Scholars have figured out, though, that what Jesus is talking about is not pure salt. The purest salt -- the kind that pours out of the blue cardboard canister -- is mined from the ground. The kind of salt available to Jesus' people is inferior. Its strength is cut by impurities. Sometimes these impurities remain, even after the salt has been used: They form a residue, a white powder that looks like salt, but hardly tastes salty at all. It's no wonder that people of Jesus' day, who used this type of salt, would imagine it could lose its salty taste with time.
Even so, you can make a case for Jesus telling his disciples that their job is to bring "flavor" to other people's lives. God knows plenty of preachers have made that point over the years. Plenty of church members have gone home, too, after hearing sermons preached on Matthew 5:13, convinced that their job is relatively easy: to "spice up" someone else's life a little; to perform a random act of kindness or two; to do something "nice" for a friend or neighbor, to give that person a little pleasure. The only problem is: they're wrong. Sermons like that are wrong because -- while Jesus wouldn't be against any of these things -- they don't begin to fathom how important salt is to the people of Jesus' day.
In the kitchen of every one of our homes, humming quietly away, day and night, is an appliance most of us take for granted. Yet, if you could magically transport this appliance to the time of Jesus -- and, equally magically, find an electric socket to plug it into -- you would bring unending joy and wonder into the lives of every man, woman, and child who saw it.
In case you haven't guessed, that appliance is a refrigerator. Imagine what it would be like to live without refrigeration. Food would turn rancid in a matter of days or even hours. The only chance you'd have of preserving a piece of meat or fish, or a handful of olives for more than a day or two, would be to rub that item with salt, or to immerse it in the salty water known as brine.
If it should happen that you have no salt, the meat of that sheep you just slaughtered would have to be eaten all in one night. If you were an olive farmer, you couldn't transport your produce to market (unless you pressed it into oil). If you were a tanner of leather, that fine piece of cowhide you just got your hands on would be a total loss. You'd never be able to chemically treat it, so it would last.
For a community to be without salt, in that day and age, means nothing less than economic catastrophe. It's no wonder that salt in Jesus' day was sometimes used even as money. The Romans used it that way. Sure, they had coins, but not enough to pay their legions. Instead, the Romans paid their soldiers with salt. That was perfectly fine with the soldiers. They knew that, no matter what country they were in, as long as they had salt, they could trade for anything.
That, by the way, is the origin of the word "salary." The Latin word "salarium" is derived from the word for "salt." A vestige of this ancient meaning lives on in our English expression, "worth your salt." A Roman soldier "worth his salt" was a hard worker, who earned his wages.
When Jesus tells his disciples, "You are the salt of the earth," he means a great deal more than simply "spicing life up." He's comparing them to a substance that's essential to life, as he knows it. To be a "salty" Christian, according to this way of thinking, is to hold back the insidious forces of death and decay: preserving and protecting the best things in life.
Salt is a flavoring. Salt is also a preservative. But that's not all. There's yet another function of salt: one most of us have all but forgotten, in our modern age. Salt can also be used as a fertilizer.
Agriculture was primitive in Jesus' day. There was no concept of crop rotation, so if you wanted to keep using a field year after year, you have to put something back into the soil. One of those fertilizer ingredients -- along with other natural substances like manure and compost -- was salt. First-century farmers plowed salt into the ground in order to help their crops grow.
In light of this, the phrase "salt of the earth" takes on a very poignant and literal meaning. Farmers literally "salt the earth." Christian disciples, likewise, are called to salt the earth with their very lives: giving themselves sacrificially for the world. This, ultimately, is what Jesus himself does on the cross: the authorities consider him "no longer good for anything"; they "throw him out" and "trample him underfoot." Yet in due season, fresh, green shoots of new life emerge, nurtured by his very blood.
It is only because of Jesus' sacrifice that we can aspire to be "salty Christians" at all. Because he is salt for us, we can aspire to be salt for the world.
Prayer For The Day
God of grace and truth,
we call ourselves your people.
Make us worthy of our calling.
Your Son Jesus has declared
that we are salt and light.
May we live in joyful certainty
that truly we are these things.
Make us instruments, Lord,
through his church,
to bring light and peace to a dark and troubled world.
We ask for this precious gift
in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen.
To Illustrate
Even in later centuries, much closer to our day, salt continued to be precious. During the Revolutionary War, a number of minor skirmishes were fought over salt works. The British sought, several times, to burn American salt works because they were vital to Washington's war effort. During the Civil War, Federal forces nearly cut off the South's salt supply. This was such a crisis that Jefferson Davis offered lifetime exemption from military service to any man who would stir kettles down at the salt works. As recently as the 1940s, in India, Mahatma Gandhi began his country's independence movement with a 200-mile march to the sea -- that place where salt could be refined -- in order to protest the British tax on the precious mineral.
***
There are some who hear sayings like "blessed are the meek" or "you are the salt of the earth" or "you are the light of the world," and think they hear marching orders. They consider Jesus' words as a command and immediately begin asking themselves whether they have within themselves "the right stuff," so they can measure up. The Sermon on the Mount then becomes, for this anxious sort of Christian, a source of even greater anxiety. It becomes a new law -- an all-but-impossible law to fulfill.
"Mainline, liberal Christians," writes William Willimon, "often think of religion as something we do. Church is where we come to get our assignment for the week -- work on your sexism, your racism, God has no hands but our hands. Suffocating moralism pervades. Where is the good news in that?"
The good news is that Jesus' sayings to his disciples, here in the Sermon on the Mount, are not imperatives, but indicatives. They are not commands, but statements of fact. You are the salt of the earth: already. You are the light of the world: yes, you are. You are the city built on the hill that cannot be hid: this is how others see you.
***
Jesus is speaking, here, not to a single individual, but to the church. It doesn't come through in English -- where the word "you" can be both singular and plural -- but, in the Greek, there's no question about it: Jesus is talking to a group. Together these disciples of his are salt, light, and a city on a hill. When one tires, another takes up the task. When one falls, another steps into his or her place. Together, somehow -- by the grace of God -- we Christians amount to considerably more than the sum of our parts. There's strength in numbers. There's faithfulness there, too.
Lots of people, today, look on faith individualistically. They think faith means believing certain doctrines, or pursuing, in a very private fashion, whatever form of "spirituality" makes them feel personally fulfilled. The Sermon on the Mount dispels any such notions. Jesus calls us, yes but, he calls us into community. Church is not optional for followers of Jesus: it is the air we breathe, the water in which we swim. It is the very context in which we live out our faith. One of the most persistent and odious heresies of our day is the one that declares, "I can be a Christian on my own, privately, in my own little way; I don't need the church!" Yet, how could any of us profess to be salt, or light, or city on our own? It's impossible!
***
Those who seek to follow the spiritual life are like salt in the world. Salt crystals cannot give flavor to food unless they dissolve. If we dissolve the salt in a pot, it disappears but it does not cease to exist. Indeed, it can then give flavor to thousands of grains of rice.
It is the same with us. If we are not melted in the fire of love and spirit, if we do not sacrifice ourselves completely, then we cannot pass on to even a single soul the blissful experience of the spiritual life. If we do not sacrifice ourselves, then we are rather like Lot's wife who was turned to a lifeless pillar of salt. Yesu was melted in the Garden of Gethsemane and gave his life on the cross to open the gate of heaven for all. In the same spirit, we must be prepared to give up our own lives for the spiritual welfare of others. This is what will bring praise to God.
The sword of justice hangs threateningly even now over many souls. We must be willing to sacrifice our own desires -- even our lives -- for the benefit of those in danger of spiritual death. Then the world will recognize that true love abides in us and that we are children of the God who sacrifices himself for us.
-- Sadhu Sundar Singh, Wisdom of the Sadhu (Plough Publishing House, 2007), p. 137
