You Are the Salt Of the Fire

Sermon-5 Epiphany Year A-Feb. 6, 2011
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of that Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Matthew 5:13-20
[Jesus said:] "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. "You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." \

I told you last week that for four weeks we will hear Jesus speaking in the Sermon on the Mount. Last week you heard the Beatitudes, the blessings. Remember? This week picks up where last week left off. Jesus is still on the mountain. He’s still teaching. So you know the background.
Remember last summer (oh, yes, remember last summer- the warmth, the green grass, the…) ok. We had a verse from the gospel of Luke that I told you would influence every lesson for the following 4 months. The verse was: “he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Luke 9:51.Well here is the verse that will influence everything you will hear in the sermon on the Mount: , “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." The last verse of today’s reading. Jesus is teaching what it means to follow him.
I have told you many times, that the Pharisees were good people, righteous people. They lived very obedient lives, following the Torah, the Jewish law. But they tended to follow the law, literally, legally. They tended to scrupulously do what the law commanded, no more, no less. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus tells those who listened to him, you have to go deep inside the law, you have to be better than just a good citizen-you have to be different, better, MORE than just righteous-you have to not just follow the letter of the law, you have to obey what was behind the law-you have to follow the spirit and reason for the law! And this verse is the key: “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
This is harsh language. You have to be better than good. Does that sound a little, demanding to you? A little difficult? Maybe even too good?
I like it better when Jesus talks about forgiving me, or accepting me. I told you last week that the Beatitudes were words of revolution-blessed are the empty, those who are broken-hearted, those who powerless, those who are desperate for justice. Those are the ones Jesus said are blessed. That made no sense. And asking us to be better than good-that may be too hard, too. I don’t know if I can be better than the Pharisees. And yet, I think this is what the sermon on the mount is asking us to do, why it is considered so revolutionary. Who we are to be- different, better than the ones who simply- obey the law. Go to the intention, the purpose of the law, Jesus tells them, and obey that!
Think about that while I go down a different road for a while.
Jesus uses two very ordinary images in today’s teaching-salt and light. The phrases are very emphatic-You are the salt of the earth; "You are the light of the world.”
What was salt used for? It was used for seasoning, preservation, and purifying (2 Kg. 2:19-22). It was used to ratify covenants (Num. 18:29; 2 Chr. 13:5) and in liturgical functions (Ex. 30:35; Lev. 2:13; Ezek. 43:24; Ezra 6:9). To eat salt with someone signified a bond of friendship and loyalty (Ezra 4:14; Acts 1:4). Salt scattered on a conquered city reinforced its devastation (Jg. 9:45) (Reid, 35).In rabbinic metaphorical language, salt connoted wisdom (Hill, 115). Today, salt adds flavor to food, cures food, creates traction on icy roads, and can serve as an antiseptic in wounds. It also used to be rubbed on newborn children, and understood as a metaphor for wisdom.

When I am blessing water for holy water I add a pinch of salt because it is believed that salt was necessary to cast out evil. You probably have heard of most if not all of these, right?
But there is something else, another use for salt that Jesus was referring to in his teaching-one you probably have never heard of before. Listen to what salt was primarily used for in 1st century Israel:
In ch.5:v.13, the salt referred to was the leveling agent for paddies made from animal manure, the fuel for outdoor ovens used in the time of Jesus. Young family members would form paddies with animal dung, mix in salt from a salt block into the paddies, and let the paddies dry in the sun. When the fuel paddies were lit in an oven, the mixed-in salt would help the paddies burn longer, with a more even heat. When the family had used up the salt block, they would throw it out onto the road to harden a muddy surface. This is why the verse reads: "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
Jesus saw his followers as leveling agents in an impure world. Their example would keep the fire of faith alive even under stress. Their example would spread faith to those mired in the cultural "dung." But if their example rang empty, they were worthless; they would be dug into the mud under the heels of critics.” (from word-sunday.com).
In other words Jesus is telling his listeners-be the salt that makes the fire better .
Remember what Epiphany means? “a sudden realization: a sudden intuitive leap of understanding, especially through an ordinary but striking occurrence.”
:You are the salt of the earth”, a very ordinary, common occurrence. We are not a preservative, not something to make food taste good, not a deicer, not a sign of friendship, not any of those things-be the salt-we are the element in life that is supposed o make the fire burn brighter, to make the fire last longer.
“Thomas Long writes; the challenge is indeed formidable for Christians in the 1st century were "a small group trying with mixed results to live out an alternative life, set down in the midst of a teeming, fast-changing culture that neither appreciates nor understands them….The hardest part is not in being Christian for a day, but being faithful day after day, maintaining confidence in what, for all the world, appears to be a losing cause." Continuing to burn brighter, longer-that’s the hard part. “remind the congregation of who they are and what Jesus calls them to do in the world, no matter how great the obstacles they face, or what messages bombard them from the surrounding culture. …"Jesus is saying that what the people of God do in the world really counts" (Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion).
“Indeed, when people encounter us – as individuals and as communities of faith – they should see and sense more: they should feel hope, they should feel the possibility of a "different world," Charles Cousar writes, "marked by unheard-of reconciliation, simple truth-telling, outrageous generosity, and love of one's enemies" (Texts for Preaching Year A).
I like that. I really like the idea that what we believe, and what we do impacts the world. I like the idea that we are called to be salt and light to a world that is desperately in need of a long burning fire and understanding. What if when people talked about us (meaning Christians) they said with awe. These are people of “unheard-of reconciliers, simple truth-tellers, outrageously generous, great lovers of their enemies”
We need to be better than those who only, merely, simply keep the law. The world is full of good people, law abiding people, people who obey the rules and keep the commandments. Jesus taught from the mountain that we have to be more than that, more than only,simply, merely righteous. He calls us to be “unheard-of reconciliers, simple truth-tellers, outrageously generous, great lovers of their enemies”.
Keeping the law, most of the time, is easy. Christianity is not about doing the easy thing “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees,” This is why Jesus climbed a mountain to teach. This is why he drove away so many of the Pharisees -because he called them to be the kind of salt that actually made a difference -the kind that was mixed in with the world so that the fire kept burning. “when people encounter us – as individuals and as communities of faith – they should see and sense more: they should feel hope, they should feel the possibility of a "different world,” Amen.