Salt & Light

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Dear Fellow Travelers,
This morning, two passages are “front and center” in my mind: “You are the salt of the earth”; You are the light of the world.” As you know, both of these are from that familiar sermon Jesus preached, the one we call “The Sermon on the Mount” (see Matthew 5).
As you know, salt can accomplish many things. It can melt the ice on one’s driveway, morph a “fresh” ham into a “country” ham, make food “tasty,” rust your shovel, and make water much less than potable. There is one thing that it can do, with which we are all most familiar: it can make us thirsty!
When I was much younger, my Mother would soak kit fish (mackerel infused with brine) overnight and fry them early the next morning, for a group of men who were going on a quail hunt or a dove shoot. My were they good, especially with grits, hoe cakes, and hot coffee!! Wish I had a mess of them RIGHT now!! There was one catch, however, and it was this: Unless you wanted to be miserably thirsty all day long, you had better take along a big container of water. Why? Salt makes us thirsty!!
I must believe that a part of what Jesus had in mind, when He said, “You are the salt of the earth” was this: Our lives will make others thirsty for truth (note that I said “will make,” and I did so because He said we ARE, not should be, the salt of the earth). Am I missing something? Is this book we call the Bible really true? Had Jesus had too much wine? Do you get my drift?
Again, as you know, light can also accomplish many things, many more things than salt! It can cut through solid steel, travel faster than a speeding bullet (much faster!), excise a tumor, cook food, burn your bohinney, and separate into red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. There is one thing it does, however, with which all of us (well almost all of us) are very familiar: It dispels darkness!
Since Jesus said that “we” are the light of the world, I must assume that at least a part of what He meant was this: Our lives will dispel the darkness that is the enemy of love. Again, am I missing something? Am I living on another planet? Had the sun “gotten to” Jesus and caused Him to hallucinate? Is this sermon like the sermons I preach—foolishness? Do you get my drift?
Now, instead of becoming religious and attempting to “rust someone’s shovel” or trying to “shine for Jesus,” remember this: Salt does nothing to be salty, it simply “rusts shovels” and make people thirsty; light does nothing to dispel darkness, it simply cannot coexist with it.
You ARE the salt of the earth and the light of the world—period!