The Disciples and the Crowds, and the Saltiness of Salt

Scripture — Matthew 5:13-14 (NRSV)

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 underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.

Devotion

Salt and light. That’s how Jesus describes his disciples. My guess is that most readers of this devotion have heard those words countless times before. But what do they mean?

As he does so often, Jesus is teaching in metaphor and poetic imagery. We could imaginatively ponder what salt and light are like, what they do, and why they are important. And that would be a very worthwhile meditation. But at the same time, we should also continue the context of this passage. Jesus has just finished the short-but-powerful poetic introduction to the Sermon on the Mount known as the Beatitudes, and now he transitions to the main body of this sermon—one of his two longest recorded “sermons” in any of the four gospels, along with his Last Supper discourse in John 13-16.  Though, as I pointed out yesterday, like his Last Supper discourse, this Sermon on the Mount is presented more like an intimate message to his close disciples than a sermon to the crowds. Indeed, if I were to retitle it, I might call it the Discourse on the Mount.

Perhaps it shows part of this intimacy that at the end of the Beatitudes (verses 11-12) Jesus suddenly switches from speaking blessings upon his followers in general using the third person (“Blessed are those who…”) to a much more personal second-person address (“Blessed are you when…). In verse 13, he then continues to address his disciples directly in the second person:  “You are the salt of the earth. . . .  You are the light of the world.”

As I noted yesterday, those little paragraph headings that modern translations often add, while they can be helpful to some readers, can also cause us to miss the continuity of a passage. They suggest a change in topics, when the speaker or author of the passage wasn’t changing topics at all. I think this is certainly the case as we move from verse 12 to verse 13 and the main body of the discourse. These metaphors of salt and light that Jesus uses to describe his disciples follow immediately from the Beatitudes. So when Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth. . . .  You are the light of the world,” I think his disciples would understand this in the context of the characteristics he has just described. And so, I also try to ponder this passage in the same way.

What does it mean to be the salt of the world? It means that we are poor in spirit. We take lament seriously; we grieve and mourn for our suffering and for the pain and suffering of those around us; we are characterized by the sort of meekness, gentleness, and humility I wrote about yesterday.  To follow up on Jesus’ metaphor: when this ceases to characterize those who claim to be Christ’s disciples, the salt has lost its saltiness. To repeat something I suggested in yesterday’s devotion, one of the valuable practices of spiritual discernment is asking the question: would this decision or this course of action reflect the values Jesus advocated in the Beatitudes—thus reflecting what it means to be salt?

We could go on, continuing to understand the metaphor in the context of the Beatitudes that preceded it. To be salt is to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Not for power, or wealth, or comfort, but for righteousness. To be salt is to be merciful, to be pure of heart, and to be peacemakers. And when we are living as salt—and this is the part that can be scary to me—we are more likely to be persecuted than we are to be in power; “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me,” Jesus says.

But then I remember both the warnings and the promises that come with this teaching. As for salt that loses its saltiness? Jesus had sobering words for that scenario. Yet the promises are also many and they are hopeful—especially to those who seek, as disciples, to follow the way of Jesus and who endure hardship because of that. Those who mourn will be comforted. The meek will inherit the earth. The merciful will be shown mercy. The peacemakers will be called God’s children. The kingdom of heaven will belong to those who are persecuted.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Salt and Light in the World of Work (Matthew 5:13-16).