You are salt. You are light. If you have followed Jesus up the mountain, and if you will follow him from the mountain all the way to the cross, then he declares you to be salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16). Light to scatter the darkness and gloom. Salt to provide a lasting flavor and purity. And it’s not some “A-team” of spiritual experts for whom this is the case. It is the same “you” whom Jesus just called blessed and fortunate because of their sad, marginalized, mistreated and spiritually impoverished state of existence (Mt 5:1-12). Yes, those whom this world wants to ignore or persecute are the very same ones to whom Jesus now says, “You are precisely what makes this world a beautiful, worthwhile, and bright place to be.”
Today, salt is no harder to come by than the time it takes to visit the nearest store and get some. Light is no harder to come by than a light switch in a house or the headlights on a car. But for those listening to Jesus on the mount, salt had to be harvested from the sea, which wasn’t a quick process and only yielded a finite amount, unlike what’s on the shelf at a grocery store. Light came and went with the sun. If you wanted more before or after that, you most likely had a small lamp filled with oil and a wick, giving only a candle’s worth of visibility. Neither salt nor light were easy to come by.
But that’s Jesus’ point, isn’t it? Salt and light only count for anything where they were absent before. Too little salt and the food has no flavor. Too much salt and the meal is ruined. Too little light and you can’t see what’s right in front of you. Too much light and you’re blinded. Our salt-ness and light-ness will count the most when they provide contrast, when we bring them into the places sorely lacking them.
As Jesus paints this picture, he describes a great light shining for miles all around from a brightly lit city at a high elevation. And then he describes a small light, just one wick burning from one small oil lamp, giving only enough light for one room to have a little bit of visibility.
That’s all Jesus asks of us, all he’s calling us to, all he’s naming us – to be whatever amount of light he’s made us to be. For some of us, it will be enough light to shine for quite a distance. And for some of us, it will be enough light to shine for just a few others that are close by. Either way, Jesus sees our light and declares, “it is good.” He is the light of the world. Matthew has already told us a chapter earlier: “Those who sat in darkness have seen a great light. And for those in the shadow of death, light has dawned (Mt 4:16).” That’s the effect, Matthew is telling us, that Jesus has on this world simply by being in it. He is light. But he tells us that we are that light, too. To be his disciples is for him to make us clear as glass, so his light can shine through us with nothing to block it.
So, let us be clear as glass. Let his light shine through us. Let our presence in every place be a source of peace and comfort. Live out the Sermon on the Mount – being a loving, forgiving, humble, non-anxious, non-judgmental presence – and his light will move through us, making us the same light that he is. According to Jesus, that’s what we already are.