You are
Mt 5:11 “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
“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.14 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 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. 16 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.
So here is the result of all these qualities, conflict and persecution. Why? I don’t get it? It seems that all this wonderful teaching from God would lead to peace and harmony, but Jesus promises conflict. And the result of being in the kingdom of heaven is that we will be in conflict with the kingdom of earth. In the first chapters of the Bible we are introduced to this conflict; first as God separating darkness from light and then in the garden. Here we have Jesus right at the center of conflict and we inherit this by becoming his friends, “on my account”.
As I have observed persecution to Jesus’ followers it comes because of two issues; first because religious people who have invested their whole confidence into being worthy of God’s acceptance are greatly offended when someone being poor in spirit proclaims, “I came to the cross and Jesus forgave all I ever did and has brought me into the kingdom of God!” A second offence is when a believer submits to God’s authority on a moral issue. Someone who has invested their entire being into denial can be greatly offended when someone takes a simple stand for righteousness.
So here we have Jesus describing his followers as persecuted salty light. I think it’s pretty accurate. But remember this persecution is within the church as well. Many church people just want to point to the bad people outside, but the conflicts that Jesus endured were equally within the Jewish people of God. Jesus was crucified by two groups, Romans and Jews. This would be similar to the two types of offences listed above. And all of us ourselves can be found within one of those groups.
I love the salt and light metaphors because they are so practical yet not a set of rigid rules. Most religions have some way of distinguishing themselves from outsiders such as special clothes or special rules. And the Jesus way is similar yet very different, it is about “circumcision of the heart” or transformation of the heart. Christians in church often haggle over issues of conformity to the world’s standards. And here it is definitely an issue to Jesus but the issues of separation will be laid out in the following chapters.
If you truly want to be a salty follower please consider the metaphor: for salt to be a preservative it must actually have contact with the food. It cannot remain at a distance and scorn the evils of the world. It actually has to go get involved. Please consider Jesus as our example of this. Jesus could have stayed at home in his nice safe heaven with no exposure to us sinners (Philippians 2). He could have said, “No, I will not go to earth it is too dangerous”. Instead when God wanted to reveal himself to mankind he entered life as a baby and lived like us with human limitations, except one thing, he was pure and sinless! Christians can be so eager to prove the deity of Jesus that we overlook the power of his humanity. The beauty of the story of Jesus is that God became one of us, just a slob like one of us, riding on the bus next to us. I believe that Jesus had to pray like us using faith like us, making decisions like us without knowing the future results. When he was a carpenter he did not make perfect stuff and he hit his finger with the hammer! He had to wait in traffic instead of flying over it. If Jesus had been a superman immune to life’s human frailty then he really is a disappointment. People will quickly point to the miraculous aspects of his life. And I will point to his baptism when the Holy Spirit came upon him to enable him for those miracles, hmm, the same Holy Spirit given to us. So being salty is being like Jesus in the midst of a very corrupt world.
Being the light of the world involves standing at a distance and proclaiming truth? True or false, what do you think? How about living the truth? In John chapter 8 to the woman caught in adultery Jesus says, “Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin” then he proclaims, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness” (John 8:11-12). Our message of light must be the same as Jesus; we offer the mercy of God and leave our lives of sin. Jesus is the light and we are but little light reflections. Do you see the beatitude qualities coming forth here?
I want to draw out a very important fact here; Jesus says that we ARE the salt and light, NOT, TRY HARD to become! Or someday you might be! There is a great empowering in this commission because he says that we are-now! This empowering means that we are over comers. And some of us actually believe that we are now even reigning with Christ because of the victory won in Christ. The empowering force of these words is like a husband saying to his wife, “You ARE beautiful!” But we often hear something pitiful like, “You would be beautiful if you….” So I hear the empowerment by God’s authority saying, “You are now the salt and light of the world. As my people that is what you and I together are.”
