The Sermon on the Mount. Man, it really doesn’t get much better that this. Even though these few chapters of Matthew might be very familiar to some of us, it’s always a powerful experience to study them again. Yesterday we looked at the Beatitudes, where Jesus describes what it looks like to be a member of his kingdom. Today, we’re going to be taking a glance at 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 by men.
14”You are the light of the world. A city 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 men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
In these verses, Jesus uses two metaphors to describe how his disciples should be—salt and light. These metaphors are common enough; everyone knows what salt and light are like. I always like how Jesus uses everyday objects and situations when he teaches. The gospel isn’t something that only the academic elite can grasp, and the kingdom isn’t just open to the top tier of society. Instead, Jesus opens it up to everyone. However, even though Jesus’ teachings aren’t normally that hard to understand, they are certainly challenging to put into practice!
The thing about salt is that it doesn’t take much salt to go a long way. Salt is very distinctive. If a food is bland, it only takes a pinch to bring out the flavor.
When I was four or five years old, my older sister had a kit for making all sorts of different popsicles. She would just have to put in water, add a little flavoring syrup, and throw it in the freezer, and before long she had a snack to enjoy. Unfortunately for me, she also liked to pull pranks on me from time to time, so one day she made popsicles using saltwater and gave me one to eat. Needless to say, it didn’t take many licks for me to realize that there was something wrong, and getting sick from it confirmed the fact that my sister had sabotaged my digestive system. A little salt goes a long way.
Jesus says that’s what we, his followers, are like. We are like salt. We’re distinctive. If we follow the way of life described in the Sermon on the Mount, we’ll stand out from the rest of the world. We simply won’t be able to hide it. Jesus’ warning to his listeners is for them not to lose their saltiness. Not to lose what it is that makes them distinctive. A follower of Jesus should look different than the rest of the world. The “normal” way of life isn’t to be poor in spirit, meek, merciful, or peacemaking. But Jesus calls us to live a life that looks different. We’re like salt.
Light is the same way; it’s distinctive. Jesus says that his followers are like a city on a hill that you can see for miles. Whenever I read this verse, I think of a time when I was driving with my sister from Arizona back to my home in Kansas (yes, this is the same sister that gave me the saltwater popsicles. She doesn’t do such mean things to me anymore. Probably because I’m bigger than her now.) Anyways, we were driving through New Mexico, where there wasn’t much of anything—just a lot of desert. But then we came over a rise, and there was a city ahead of us, and you could see the lights for miles. Compared to the complete darkness, the lights of the city were absolutely brilliant. There was no way this city could go unnoticed. You couldn’t hide it. It shone forth into the darkness. And that’s what Jesus says we are like. We’re a city, lit up on a hill, shining like a beacon into the world.
In a similar vein, Jesus compares us to a lamp, and he warns us not to put our light under a bowl so that it is hidden. Instead, we are to be lamps that are put on a stand so that they light up the entire house. This immediately brings to mind the song I sang in children’s church: This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine. We may be little lights, but even a little light makes a major difference in the darkness.
I remember taking a tour of a cave when I was younger, and part way through the tour, the guide turned off the lights in that area. I had never before experienced such darkness. There was absolutely no light. You could feel the heaviness of the blackness. You could put your hand right in front of your face and not see it. But when the guide turned on just one light, everything changed. All of a sudden, the room was illuminated. Why? Because light is distinctive. It stands out in the darkness. In fact, the darkness gives way to light.
So again, the image of the city and the light is similar to that of the salt. Light stands out. It isn’t like its surrounding environment of darkness. And followers of Jesus aren’t like everyone else. Jesus calls us to be part of his upside-down kingdom, and the ethics of that kingdom are different than how the world operates. We see it in the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12, and we’ll see it throughout the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus calls us not to hide the fact that we live differently. We let our lights shine.
This section ends with Jesus saying in verse 16, “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” I think that last phrase, and praise your Father in heaven, is especially important for us to grasp. Sometimes, we might catch ourselves living as though it says, “that they may see your good deeds and praise you.” We sometimes want people to notice the good things we do so that they pat us on the back and say, “Wow, you’re so good and holy. Look at how righteous you are! You’re just the best.”
But that isn’t the reason we are to let our lights shine. It’s not so that we can draw attention to ourselves. Rather, it’s to point people to God. We don’t do good deeds so that people put us on a pedestal and salute us. We do good so that they understand how God’s kingdom works and how Christ can transform lives. We’ll see this idea later on in the Sermon on the Mount, especially in chapter 6, when Jesus strongly speaks against doing our righteous deeds for our own glory. All glory belongs to God and God alone, and that is a truth that we must constantly keep in our minds as we live out this kingdom lifestyle that Jesus describes.
It’s a bland world out there. So go be salt. And it’s a dark world. So be light. And through it all, point to the Father.
David Heffren
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