“You are the salt of the earth!”
“You are the light of the world.”
“Your righteousness will exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and the Pharisees.”
As we begin, let us remember who the gathered people are in
today’s Gospel reading. These are the people who have come from all of Syria,
Galilee, Jerusalem, Judea, and the land beyond the Jordan. They are the
diseased, the infirm, the mentally ill, the epileptics, and the paralyzed with
their care takers. They are the outcasts, the forgotten, the trampled on, the
hidden, the invisible ones of society; and they have followed Jesus up the side
of the mountain. These are the first people Jesus tells, “You are the salt of
the earth!”
A few years ago, I read a book called Salt: A World History. It begins with some interesting points. One
is that, if we don’t eat enough salt, in a year, we die. We have no way of
making salt in our systems so we must find it elsewhere in the world. Indeed,
much of human history is consumed with knowing where salt can be found. It is
so fundamental to our world that one of the things we still depend on, our
salary, comes from the word for salt. Roman soldiers were partially paid in salt,
hence, they received their salary.
Another point is it is thought that we became such good
hunters because we first tracked other animals who could smell salt and were
seeking salt themselves, and then we killed and ate them when they had found the
salt to preserve it for ourselves. One of the reasons that the Hebrew people
settled near the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the earth, is because they could
mine the salt cliffs and evaporate salt from the sea. It had great value,
almost as much value as water.
As time went by, we found that salt was a great preservative.
One way to keep salt in our diets, therefore, was to carry salt in our meats,
vegetables, and these amazing dairy products called butter and cheese. Salt was
important because it meant that we had to worry less about food poisoning, but,
mostly, the preserved foods became convenient ways to make sure that we had
that most basic dietary need covered. WE had salt. And today we hear that this
tattered crowd, the spoils of society, gathered on a hillside, are the salt of
the earth. They are a basic need of our society.
Then Jesus tells this group, many of whom had leprosy and
other crippling diseases, “You are the light of the world,” light—another thing
we need to survive and prosper. Natural light provides vitamin D which gives us
strong bones and healthy upright postures. It prevents rickets and helps
produce healthy skin tissue.
And artificial light is very dear at the time. It is
expensive and not always available. At the time Jesus declares these people are
valuable, the cost of fifteen minutes of artificial lamp oil cost about a day’s
salary. (Just think about how high our light bill would be these days if that
were still true.) But this light that Jesus is speaking of is not artificial
light. It is the true light from heaven that shines through us, and yet, it is not
our light, it is shared light. This light that is being named comes from
Christ’s self and is about to change the world.
These words are particularly good news to the crowd because
these people are ones who have been trampled on most of their lives. They have
been covered up and ignored. They have been pushed aside and hidden away in
segregated parts of their world, and now they are being told that they are the
essential ingredients for life itself. No longer are they to be tasteless,
trampled people. No longer are they to skulk around in the dark corners. Jesus
tells them to stand up and be counted, not hidden under a bushel basket. They
are to be part of the fulfillment of God’s great creation. They are to be
valued as God’s people gathered for the sake of the world.
These people who have been blessed, who have known God’s
presence in their lives, are now being told what it means to be identified as a
disciple. Again, it means that they need to stand up and be counted; they
should not allow themselves to be covered up, hid from the world; but they are
to find their place on the lamp stand, the cross arms of the empty resurrection
cross. These, indeed, are the words of revolution.
This revolution will take place in a way that says that the
law cannot be thrown down, that one cannot freely go out rampantly disregarding
the value of others, but that the law might be fulfilled. Jesus says, I have
not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, to overwhelm it. The word in
Greek is πληρόω (pleróō). It
means to be filled up to overflowing, like a woman’s womb when she is pregnant.
Think about it, this fulfillment of the law is not only going to fill the
space, but it is going to grow until it is so big that it has to come out into
the world we live in. It is going to overwhelm the world. It is going to
overflow into our world like Amos’ mighty streams of justice from the living
waters of the baptismal font into the places where we work and live. Jesus
says, I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, to make it
pregnant, to make it flow over all of God’s people as the waters of the sea
cover the ocean.
In this light, if you will excuse the pun, the fulfillment
of the law is the demand that all of God’s children be able to participate in
the kingdom of heaven, and that, yes, if we work to be inclusive of all of
God’s children, then we will exceed the righteousness of the scribes and
Pharisees who spent a great deal of time trying to discern who was in and who
was out. This righteousness that we participate in is the righteousness of
Christ himself, and this righteousness breaks the rules of the scribes and the
Pharisees to fulfill the law so that all might be part of the kingdom of
heaven. This is not a there-and-then kingdom of heaven, but a here-and-now
kingdom of heaven that begins in the waters of Baptism and flows out through
our lives. It is that divine place where we stand up and are counted as the
children of God living for the sake of the world.
Let us continue to hold in our minds who is being spoken to.
These are the ones who have been trampled underfoot. They are the ones who have
lost their taste. They have all but lost their hope. The only hope they have is
in the one who is seated on the hillside speaking to them and teaching them. So,
it is not their saltiness that they are able to depend on, it is Christ’s
saltiness.
They have been hidden away from
the world, ignored, and shunned. They know it is not their light that is going
to shine, but Christ’s light that will shine through them. They know their own
righteousness has not gotten them anything, so it will be Christ’s
righteousness that will prevail—the one who will die on the cross for their sins
justifying them, making them right with Godself, the one who is raised up from
the place of death into the world of everlasting, ever-living life in the
kingdom of heaven that begins right now with the promise of the fullness, a πληρόω (pleróō) pregnant
time of hope to come. It is not their righteousness. It is Christ’s
righteousness that shows them the way to go. So, in all that they will do, it
will be Christ that will do it, and through him, God’s kingdom, this kingdom of
heaven will overflow into all that they and we do.
Now you might be saying to yourself, “This is wonderful for
the people that heard Jesus speak and teach that day, but what about us today?”
Some of you may identify with that broken group of people gathered on the
hillside, but, if you can’t, I offer you a song I learned in Sunday School many
years ago.
God sees the little sparrow fall,
It meets his tender view;
If God so loves the little birds,
I know God loves me too.
God loves me too, God loves me too,
I know God loves me too.
Because God loves the little birds, I know God loves me too.
God paints the lilies in the field,
And shapes each little bell;
If God so loves the little flowers,
I know we’re loved as well.
God loves us too, God loves us too,
I know God loves us too;
Because God loves the little glowers,
I know God loves us too.
God loves the lame, the deaf, the blind,
And offers life anew;
If God can love these hidden ones,
I know God loves us too.
God loves us too, God loves us too,
I know God loves us too;
Because God loves the hidden ones,
I know God loves us too.
God made the little birds and flowers,
And all things great and small;
God won’t forget his little ones,
I know God loves us all.
God loves us all. God loves us all.
I know God loves us all;
Because God loves the little ones,
I know God loves us all.
