You are the salt of the earth.
Salt was associated with preservation. For this reason it was also associated with the kingdom promises made to David, which were a "covenant of salt" (see Second Chronicles 13:5). Additionally it was associated with the priestly vocation of the Levites (see Numbers 18:19). It was therefore an image the spoke deeply to the identity Israel was meant to embody.
But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?
For salt to be valuable as a preservative it must be salty. If one were to desire this result but try to mask it in the flavor by not adding enough salt and by introducing a variety of other ingredients to overpower it one would risk that there would not be enough salt to do the job. We see Israel succumb again and again to both of these temptations. They were prone to add every foreign flavor across which they came. They cared much about the benefits of preserving their kingdom but they did not always desire the taste of covenant fidelity. Thus Israel itself often lost its taste and did not fulfill the purpose of God for it in the world.
You are the light of the world.
A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Jerusalem was the city set on Mount Zion that was meant to be a light to the nations. Yet, as with salt, embracing the vocation to be light required a willingness to stand out, to be striking, and distinctive. And the chief defect of Israel, including Jerusalem, was always their desire to be like the other nations, and to imitate their pagan worship.
Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations (see First Samuel 8:5).
Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God, as his father David had done, but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel (see Second Kings 16:2-4).
The people of Israel were meant to embody the call to be light, as contrasted with the darkness of the surrounding nations. They would do this with they chose to see themselves as a people that was for others and not a people where each was for himself alone.
Share your bread with the hungry,
shelter the oppressed and the homeless;
clothe the naked when you see them,
and do not turn your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn
The light that Israel was meant to be would not function if it was contained within the individual, attempting to benefit the individual alone, shielded from the world by a bushel basket. Most likely then it would only function as a fire hazard. Fortunately, God did not leave Israel in this state, but sent Jesus to establish a Kingdom that could truly fulfill all aspects of this vocation, truly able to be both salt and light for the world. Salt that had lost its saltiness could be reinfused with flavor by his own perfect covenant fidelity. Lights that had been smothered and extinguished could be rekindled by contact with he who was himself the "true light, which gives light to everyone" (see John 1:9).
Now that Jesus has established us in this holy vocation to be light to the world we need to be careful not to conceal it by introducing too much of ourselves into the mix. We are still more than able to become increasingly opaque to his light if we insist on relying on ourselves to live out our vocation. And it is tempting to want to rely on ourselves, on sublimity of words or of wisdom. We sometimes recoil from the flavor of relying and Jesus, because it always brings with it a reminder of our own weakness, a reminder of the cross. But we have good examples of saints who have decided to rely completely on Jesus himself, of whom there is probably none better than Paul:
For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you
except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling
Paul had an abundance of credentials, training, and experience that he might have chosen to employ to 'balance' the saltiness of the Gospel message or to dim what might at first have seemed to be a glaring and garish brightness. But he had learned, through experiences that had not always been easy, to count such strategies as loss in favor of relying on the power of message itself.
and my message and my proclamation
were not with persuasive words of wisdom,
but with a demonstration of Spirit and power
Were there miracles of the Holy Spirit that accompanied his proclamation? We know that there were. Yet it seems likely to us that the chief demonstration of the Spirit meant here was the effect in the hearts of those who heard the message. We see this sort of demonstration again and again in the book of Acts.
While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word (see Acts 10:44).
May we learn to resist the temptations, more subtle in our own day, to be like the surrounding nations. May we learn a willingness to play the role of the preservative even when we would often prefer to be the sweetener. May we learn to let the light given to us by Jesus shine forth, not for ourselves alone, but for the world.
Light shines through the darkness for the upright;
he is gracious and merciful and just.
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