When I was
praying about this week’s lesson, I got to thinking about my dad’s eating
habits. I know it’s kind of strange but hopefully it will start making sense so
be patient a little longer. Anyway, aside from my wife, I think my mom is the
best cook in the world (my mother-in-law, aka
my other mom, is also an amazing cook). However, it went without fail that
whenever my mom prepared a meal, which I always thought was perfect (except for
Polenta which always made me throw up), my dad would immediately reach for the
salt and complain that she never salted the food enough. He would always say, Needs More Salt! Not surprisingly, he
also suffered from high blood pressure no doubt exacerbated by his love for
salt. Nevertheless, his love for extra salt on food wasn’t without merit. I’m
not a master chef by any stretch of the imagination but I know that salt is an
essential ingredient and spice that serves to bring out the inherent flavor of
foods. Without it, foods lose their distinctive flavor and appeal. I got to
thinking about that this week from a theological perspective and how Jesus used
the simple idea of salt as a powerful teaching tool.
I also
thought about other aspects of my father’s behavior in respect to this lesson,
specifically how his behavior as an abusive alcoholic negated, in my mind, what
he said he believed about God. If you’ve spent any amount of time reading my
lessons then you are well aware of my disdain for the behavior of people who
profess to believe in Jesus Christ yet behave in a way that is completely
contradictory to that profession. During this political season, I have gotten a
stomach full of this type of profession from all the political candidates.
However, during a recent debate between the Vice Presidential candidates, one
of the candidates who claimed to be a faithful Catholic said some things that
are probably not inconsistent with what other Christians believe but are
prominent because of the public nature of his declaration. Specifically, he
made it clear on a number of occasions that his Christian faith is very
personal and he keeps his personal beliefs separate from his duties as a public
servant. In other words, this particular candidate has made a conscious choice
to separate the sacred and the secular in his life. I’ll let you think long and
hard about what that means and if that is even possible. For those of you who
don’t know me, I’ll give you a peak into the window of my life so you can see
what that looks like in real life and then I’ll demonstrate what that looks like
in the life of this particular public servant.
When I was
growing up, we went to church almost every Sunday morning and almost always on
Christmas and Easter. Without fail, we would sit in the front row or near the
front of the church every time. And also without fail, my dad would be
fall-down drunk by Sunday night and every other night of the week while I spent
those times dreading the outbursts of rage that would often accompany his
drunkenness. My dad likewise had a personal faith but let me ask you
something—What difference did his personal faith make if it didn’t translate to
his public behavior? It certainly made no difference to me. It was a useless,
tasteless faith like food without salt. So how was the Vice Presidential
candidate’s “personal faith” useful? Well he is personally against abortion yet
supports it publicly. That makes his personal faith entirely useless to the
world around him just like my dad’s personal faith was worthless to those of us
who were terrorized by his abusive behavior.
The truth
is, it is not possible to have a “personal faith” that does not inform our
public life. Think about this—Our public life reveals our “personal faith.” To
most people, what we say we believe is irrelevant. The truth is, our actions,
in large part, reveal what we actually believe. That’s a hard truth for all of
us including me. So let me ask you this, if God were to inspect your life, what
would He say about your faith? I’m pretty sure I know what He would say to me—Needs More Salt!
Subject Text
Matthew 5:13-16
13“You
are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be
made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out
and trampled underfoot. 14“You are the light of the world. A town
built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp
and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light
to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine
before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in
heaven.
Context
These words
by Jesus come right on the heels of Jesus’ sermon opening known as the Beatitudes
from His Sermon on the Mount. Our Subject
Text is part of the introduction that is a compendium of teaching about righteous
living. In this case, Jesus is not teaching about appropriate beliefs, Jesus is
teaching about appropriate behavior. In the verses and chapters that follow our
Subject Text, Jesus insists that the
righteousness of His listeners must exceed that of the Pharisees in order to
enter the kingdom of heaven. Don’t get this wrong, that doesn’t mean that right
belief isn’t important, or even the most important thing, it just means that
right belief without right behavior is useless. The rest of chapter 5 through
chapter 7 is a lesson in righteous behavior; behavior that will set them apart
from those who are not His followers. Everything Jesus taught them was
radically, counter-cultural. In fact, you could say that Jesus was the first
Revolutionary. He raised the standard of adultery and said that when someone
looks at another with lust in their heart, they have already committed adultery
in their heart. During a time when a man could divorce his wife for just about
any reason, Jesus reset the standard to include very strict and finite
standards. Jesus taught about loving enemies in a culture that practiced
exacting revenge and hating enemies. Jesus taught about quietly giving to those
in need without the need for recognition unlike the religious leaders who
craved attention and fanfare to go along with their giving. Jesus taught about
simple prayer in a culture where verbose and complex prayer was a sign of
religious superiority. Jesus went on to teach about fasting, money, worry, and
criticizing others. Finally, Jesus closes His sermon with some very important
lessons that are particularly important for the context of our lesson.
In a
culture that sought guidance and direction from its religious leaders, Jesus
taught that that if they sought God for direction, He would answer them without
the need for mediation by religious leaders. Jesus also taught that the way to
heaven was going to be hard and that not everyone would be willing make the
demanding trek. Finally, Jesus makes probably His most important point of the
entire two chapters when He says that His followers would be recognized by the
evidence that was revealed by their lives. He made it quite clear that there
would be many who would claim to be
His followers but that the evidence (“fruit”) of their lives would serve to contradict
what they said they believed.
Text Analysis
13“You
are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be
made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out
and trampled underfoot.
We, in our
modern society, we sort of take salt for granted except when we’re seasoning
our food. However, during the time of Jesus, salt was crucial not just as a
seasoning for food but also as a preservative and for medicinal purposes. While
we might see salt as no big deal, Jesus’ audience would have immediately
recognized salt as a necessary staple of everyday life. However, the idea of
salt losing its saltiness as described by Jesus is a little problematic as salt
is a very stable compound and can’t really lose its saltiness. So let me give
you at least one plausible explanation for what Jesus is saying here.
First,
Jesus is not giving a lesson in chemistry so we probably shouldn’t project our
understanding of chemical compounds over what Jesus is trying to say. Instead,
it is likely that the salt during Jesus’ time was not the same stabilized
compound familiar to us today. Most of the salt was mined from the areas
surrounding the Dead Sea and may have included other, less stable, compounds. Those
compounds made salt useable but impure and when those less stable elements in
the salt were exposed to moisture, they would disappear and leave behind a
flavorless white powder. In this case what was once salty would lose its
saltiness and become useless.
I believe
this is a good explanation for the idea Jesus was trying to convey. Christians
are like impure salt. As long as the outward display of their lives reflects
what they say they believe then they are like salt that is necessary for everyday
life. If, however, the outward reflection of their lives do not reflect what
they say they believe then they are like impure salt that is no longer salty
and has become useless for its intended purpose.
“Salt
preserves from corruption. In the centuries before modern refrigeration, salt
was the method of choice for preventing bacteria from poisoning food. Salt was
so vital for this purpose that wars were fought over salt, and entire economies
were based on it. Salt could literally make the difference between life and
death in a time when fresh food was unavailable.
“Just as
salt prevents or kills bacteria in food, the kingdom servant prevents or
confronts corruption in the world. Notice that it is the earth that needs salt,
not the kingdom of heaven. If the kingdom servant did not have a function to
perform on earth according to God’s plan, he might as well go straight to
heaven upon conversion. The reality is that the earth needs the influence of
Christ’s church in this age…
“Salt is to
add flavor or interest. Jesus highlighted this purpose when he spoke of the
danger of salt losing its saltiness. The kingdom and all associated with it are
anything but boring. They are life! However, the kingdom servant is capable of
living like a dead person. Part of the church’s task on earth is to live
according to its new nature—alive, purposeful, hopeful, joyful! Christians
should be living in such a way that others will pause and consider what is
different about them. Believers are different and should appear so, because the
Father is different.
“The
kingdom servant who does not live according to his nature as salt is useless to
the king’s advancement of the kingdom on earth. One might even question the
genuineness of a person’s kingdom citizenship.”[1]
14“You are the light
of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do
people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand,
and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let
your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify
your Father in heaven.
Jesus
continues teaching essentially the same thing in vv. 14-16 with respect to light as He did previously with respect
to salt. Again, we take light for granted, at least here in America. We walk
into a room when it’s dark and just flip on a light switch. When it’s dark and
we need to find our way, we have street lights, flashlights, and search lights
to help guide us. And when the electricity goes out and we don’t have access to
a flashlight or some other source of modern lighting, we inevitably revert to
the old reliable candle. Well candlelight or torchlight was the only light
available during Jesus’ time so again, this metaphor would have made perfect
sense to Jesus’ audience. And really it isn’t that hard for us to understand
either. It seems obvious doesn’t it? Who would light a candle to light up a
room and then cover it with a bowl? It’s a ridiculous question I know but
that’s exactly what so many Christians do with their faith.
We live in
a dark and sin-filled world with countless dangers orchestrated by Satan to
lead people further and further away from God. A Christian who proclaims that
their faith is a personal faith that they keep separate from their public life
is just like the person who lights a candle to light a room and then places it
under a bowl. Two things happen when a person puts a bowl over a candle. Do you
know what they are? One is obvious, the candle doesn’t light the room which
completely defeats the purpose of the candle. The second, however, is not quite
as obvious. Once the candle uses up all the oxygen under the bowl, the flame
goes out. And that is precisely what happens in the life of a Christian who
tries to hide their faith from the public. First, faith that is hidden defeats
one of the primary purposes of faith—to point others to the Object of that
faith. The other is that faith that isn’t exercised faithfully in all areas of
life, including the public square, slowly but surely dies and becomes useless
to a lost world stumbling around in the dark.
Conversely,
faith that reveals itself in a righteous life brings glory and honor to God who
calls His followers to be righteous and perfect in the same way the He is
righteous and perfect.
“Light symbolized
the new hope which arose through Jesus’ preaching of the coming of God’s reign.
Where there is light people can find their way and everything is clear; where
there is darkness they stumble and are lost…Here the light which Jesus brings
is also provided by the disciples…The world needs that light, and it is through
the disciples that it must be made visible…
“The
context indicates that it is about the effect which the life of disciples must
have on those around them. It thus takes for granted that the ‘job description’
of the disciple is not fulfilled by private personal holiness, but includes the
witness of public exposure…The phrase ‘good deeds’ conveys the qualities set
out in the Beatitudes, and especially the ‘righteousness’ of life which is to be
characteristic of disciples… It is only as this distinctive lifestyle is
visible to others that it can have its desired effect. But that effect is also
now spelled out not as the improvement and enlightenment of society as such,
but rather as the glorifying of God by those outside the disciple community.
The subject of this discourse, and the aim of the discipleship which it
promotes, is not so much the betterment of life on earth as the implementation
of the reign of God. The goal of disciples’ witness is not that others emulate
their way of life, or applaud their probity, but that they recognize the source
of their distinctive lifestyle in ‘your Father in heaven.’ The phrase, which is
distinctive of Matthew’s gospel and will be repeated throughout the discourse,
reflects not a universal concept of the fatherhood of God toward all his human
creatures but the distinctive relationship which exists between God and those
who, through their response to Jesus’ message, have become subjects of his
kingdom…
“[However,]
religious observance should not be undertaken ‘in front of other people so that
they will notice.’…The ostentatious performance of religious acts in order to
win approbation is not at all the same thing as a life of conspicuous goodness
lived in the public arena so that people cannot help being impressed. The
effect (and the intention) of the former is a reputation for piety; the result
of the latter is the glory of God.”[2]
Application
At the end
of Matthew’s gospel Jesus commissions the disciples to go and make disciples of
the nations. The Great Commission places an obligation on all Christians to
share the gospel with the world around us. However, the gospel message is more
than just a story about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. The gospel
message also includes the story of our lives that have been transformed by the
message of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. There are those who completely
dismiss this aspect of conveying the gospel message claiming that the lives of
sinful humanity can only detract from the beautiful message of redemption. It
is true that the behavior of Christians is far from perfect, and if you’re like
me, you’re a long way from perfect. Even though you and I may recognize just
how far our behavior falls short of God’s ideal, the ideal is still the
goal—not for our benefit or for the purpose of personal recognition but as
another medium to proclaim the gospel.
As much as
we want people to believe who we are based on what we tell them, the old idiom
holds true in this case that our actions speak louder than our words. In the
case of the Vice Presidential candidate I told you about at the beginning, he
told us that as a Christian he is personally against abortion. However, those
words are irrelevant and contradict his Christian claims because he supports
the practice as a matter of public policy. When a man claims to be a Christian
husband yet neglects and abuses his wife, his actions invalidate his claim if
he never amends his actions. If a student claims to be a Christian yet cheats
on her school assignments, her actions compromise her Christian profession if
her behavior isn’t corrected. An employee who claims to be a Christian while
neglecting their responsibility to their employer, tarnishes what they say they
believe about God with their actions.
[1]
Stuart K. Weber, Matthew—Holman New
Testament Commentary, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2000), 61-62.
[2]
R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew—The
New International Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007), 175-177.
(Audio version; Music: "Salt and Light" by: Lauren Daigle and "I Want To Be Just Like You" by: Phillips, Craig & Dean)
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