Isaiah 58: 4-7; Matthew 5:13,14

Being salt AND light

“Dat slaat als een tang op een varken.” This is a strange Dutch expression that is hard to translate. It is something like: “that applies like a pair of pliers applies to a big.”  Or “that makes as much sense as a pair of pliers on a big.” Or:”those statements belong together as much as a pair of pliers on a pig.”

When we spend some time talking about the two verses in Matthew, we could ask that question:” are salt and light as qualities of the Christian not like a pair of pliers and a pig? How are they the same?” Yet the text has Jesus mention them almost in the same breath.  On top of it he doesn’t mention others.  But we must assume there is a reason for it.  Then it occurred to me that salt is of the earth and light is beyond earth, heavenly if you will.  Then I found in an article (in the Christian century) that both light and salt have one thing in common: they both dissipate. They do their magic but disappear having left their mark.  Let’s talk about light first.

In the current Netflix series “The Crown” Winston Churchill sits for a portrait commissioned by both houses of parliament.  He develops a relationship with the painter and they talk about their grief together.  However, when the painting is finally revealed, Churchill is irate. It shows him as the eighty year old man who is not in good health.  The painter explains that he paints truth, but Churchill winds up burning the painting in his garden.  He can’t bear that the light is no longer on him as the younger, powerful man he once was.  He can’t accept that the light he shed on the nation cannot stay on him.

Let’s assume there is a reason they are together

We are also talking about salt today, what the properties and characteristics of salt are and about how Christians are supposed to be “salt” to the world.  This is what Jesus tells us in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5.  So we have done some reflecting about that.  We have talked about the verse in question and we talked about the Old Testament lectionary reading in Isaiah for today.  Isaiah does not mention salt at all or any other ingredient for that matter, but he does talk about food or rather the withholding of food for religious reasons, namely fasting.  Isaiah questions the sincerity of those who do the fasting.  He thinks it’s just for show. It is an act of blandness.  These people fasting are not the “salt of the earth.” Isaiah says :” Is not this the fast that I choose:  to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them…?”  In other words, Isaiah is accusing the people of not connecting to life and the suffering of the people around them.  It’s almost as if they going through the motions of the ritual of the fast, floating above the world in a way and not connecting with it.  They are detached from the suffering world in which they live.  This is unacceptable to God.

We have talked about the properties of salt, about the vital nature of salt in the human body, we can talk about Gandhi’s long walk to the coast to make salt to tell the British that his people were alive.  There are a number of things about salt that speak to how we should live.  First, salt gives taste. It fights the blandness of food.  To a lot of people today life is bland, it has no taste. They live lives without meaning, focused only on themselves and how to meet their every day needs and wants. They are bored and they feel irrelevant.  They feel no one needs them or that they don’t have the skills to help someone who needs them. This also has to do with traction. On icy freeways, salt can give traction.  Even when we are not detached from the lives of others, we do not feel we have much traction.  It’s as if we cannot firmly plant our feet on this world, make a difference, or change where it is going. Then we get to preservation. This is another way salt contributes to our lives. Salt helps preserve.  When we are salt in the world, we preserve the tradition of thousands of years that proclaims God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. Finally, salt purifies. It cleans.  We gargle with salt, we ease sore throats with salt water.  We chemically rebalance ourselves with salt. Sometimes we need to put salt in the wounds by speaking the truth adamantly.  May God help us to give taste to, to find traction on, to preserve the faith in and to touch the wounds of our earth. (Northern California born Richard Rodriguez (Darling) quotes) William Saroyan, the Fresno Armenian American writer (who) has kind of been forgotten. Saroyan calls all of us human beings to an engaged life. This is what he said:” Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive.” It as Saroyan’s advice to a young writer.  It could also be advice to us.  We must be the salt of the earth and the light of the world as long as we can.  May God help us.