I love cilantro.  I realize it is a flavor that is hit or miss with people – there are those of us who think cilantro could enhance the flavor of just about any food we eat – and then there are those who think cilantro tastes like soap.  It is a flavor that excites me and that I make use of regularly, but it is a flavor I didn’t know about until college – because in the house I grew up in the primary spice we used to flavor our cooking was salt.  Salt, while no cilantro in my book, is another kind of miracle ingredient.  Salt does enhance the flavor of anything it is put on.  That is how salt works as a flavor – it brings about a change or enhancement in the existing flavors of whatever it is put on – and it does its work quietly and powerfully.  A little salt goes a long way and unless you are a fancy chef that makes use of chunky, or specialty colors of sea salt, salt does what it does mostly invisibly.  Salt does more than just flavor food though – it has uses as a preservative, water conditioner, is has de-icing properties (which we have been made well aware of this winter – as witnessed by the grey sheen of salt residue on the side of our cars), agricultural and manufacturing uses.

Now I am not a salt, or chemical expert, so feel free to refute what I am about to say – or maybe I should caveat this part of my talk by saying – “take it with a grain of salt” (a phrase that originates from an ancient recipe for an antidote to poison – the last line of the recipe reads – combine this with a grain of salt – either meaning the salt was helpful in fighting poison – or else that the antidote would have tasted terrible but would have been easier to swallow with a pinch of salt added!).  I was interested in exploring the properties of salt this week to understand why Jesus would talk about it losing its taste. My very basic research into salt tells me that sodium chloride is a super stable compound and that it is virtually unchangeable by any reaction – other than the potential for it to be diluted in a large quantity of water – at which point the salt hasn’t lost its saltiness, but instead is reduced to such a small quantity that it is hard to taste.  A use of salt during Jesus’ time, other than food preparation and preservation, may have been as an addition to fire to increase the temperature of the rocks used as a heat source to bake bread.  At some point after much use the salt was not as effective at increasing the heat and so it was taken out and spread on the road where it provided a texture like gravel underfoot.  There were also suggestions that the salt in that region would have been marsh salt and would have been mixed with a high volume of impurities and therefore when exposed to the elements, like wind and water the actual pure salt continent may have gone down resulting in a tasteless substance that was still identified as salt but was in reality just residual impurities that had been mixed in with salt.

But I have digressed here with my questioning of the ability of salt to lose its flavor.  Jesus isn’t talking about if it is possible for salt to lose its taste, Jesus says, once it has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?  This is not a call to figure out how to restore flavor, this is a call to awareness of the flavor that exists within us.  Jesus doesn’t say you can be the salt of the earth – instead he says you are the salt of the earth – we have, in our nature, a powerful ability to enhance the world around us.  It is also a reminder to be gentle with ourselves and that power so we do not lose our flavor – this is not a call to gentleness that exhibits frugality, but is instead a call to mindfulness in how we care for ourselves and in how we interact with the world around us because, if we are not mindful, we can lose our saltiness.

In addition to salt, we have another powerful namesake: Light.  “You are the light of the world” Jesus says. You are not called to be like light, you are light.  Light – visible light that is – is electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye – it is movement that allows us to have sight with our eyes.  As a visual artist I have a special affection for light because of this – I love that light is what allows me to see and I love that it has a great impact on how I see what I see.  As we talked about during the children’s time, light has the power to permeate us and leave a lasting physical impression of an experience – a beautiful sunset, clouds parting with streams of light coming through, the contrast of bitter darkness and bright pinpoints of light in the night sky, a tree full of beautifully colored leaves shimmering in fall sunlight – each of these experiences is offered as a visual expression of the beauty of light and yet leaves a physical imprint on our souls.

Again I have digressed in my explorations because, in Jesus’ time, there was no understanding of the science of light as we now know it – there was no understanding of light as electromagnetic radiation that reflected off of and refracted through things to assist in our vision – there was just the observed power of light.

A city built on a hill cannot be hid. You don’t light a lamp, then put it under a bushel basket, do you?  No, you set it on a stand where it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, your light must shine before others so that they may see your good acts and give praise to your Abba God in heaven.

Just as light has the ability to let us see and impacts how we see and experience the world around us, so we, being the light of the world, make God visible to those around us and our light has a lasting impact through the impressions that God leaves in the world through us.

Light, like salt, is powerful and it doesn’t take much of it to make an impact.  Rachel Macy Stafford, blogger at The Hands Free Revolution, a blog that encourages people to put down their phones and other distractions and engage in living attentively and in the moment, shared a story about the power of a simple act to spread light in the world.  She and her daughters made Valentine’s Day gifts for the man who worked as their trash collector and left the colorful packages beside the trash can with a note identifying them as being for him.  The incident played out like this:

“We were upstairs getting ready for school when we heard the roar of the garbage truck. The kids ran to the window and had a perfect aerial view of the man who was about to discover the colorful gift bags next to a trashcan.

We watched as a man — who normally works at lightning speed — took pause in confusion.

It appeared that we caught him off guard.

It appeared that a handmade Valentine was the last thing he expected to find sitting next to a trashcan.

It appeared that he was not convinced these gifts were for him.

It appeared that although there was hesitation, he finally accepted that these gifts really were for him.

It appeared that it was just what he needed on an unusually cold and unlikely “snow day” in the South.”

She goes on to say:

“But I must admit, what touched me even more deeply than the awe-struck look upon the trash collector’s face were the expressions of the people who had created this moment. Peering out the window with wide smiles were two children who realized that despite having small hands, they held great power—power to put love and kindness in the most unsuspecting places. And when they do, the world as they know it becomes a little bit brighter and a little more hopeful.”

This is what is it to live a salty life full of beautiful light. It is the living out of God’s vision, God’s law.  In the sermon on the mount, just before this description as salt of the earth and light of the world, Jesus had preached the beatitudes and offered insight into how God’s vision plays itself out in our living and in the living of those around us.  And after this conversation on salt and light Jesus talks about the importance of living out God’s law:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfill.  For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.  Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Coming after all the inspiring talk about being salt and light in the world, this passage has the power to make me squirm – it seems so full of legality and authority and can quickly have me cowering in a corner full of hopelessness at the impossibility of my ability to live out every letter, every stroke of every letter, of the law.  But then I step back and remind myself, God has not set us up for failure in the light of the law, God has made us salty and full of light so that we have the ability and power to live out God’s vision and law.  Jesus, our great role-model, did not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them – let me restate that – Jesus did not come to abolish God’s vision but came to live it.  Likewise, we are able to live it, we may just need to refresh our own vision of what it means to live out God’s law so that we truly seek to live God’s vision and not our own bogged down ideas of what is God’s vision.

Look at the people in Isaiah – these are a people striving to seek God daily, longing to know God’s ways, trying to not ignore the law of God, but getting it wrong in action.  They ask in frustration “Why should we fast if you never see it?  Why do penance if you never notice it?”  God’s reply is this:  when you fast, it is business as usual, oppression still abounds and the poor remain unnoticed.  This is not what it is to fast in a way that delights the Lord – appearing to be righteous and fasting by following a manner described in the written law but without a heart for justice is not what it is to live God’s law.  To live God’s law, to fast in a way that is pleasing to God, is to live out God’s true vision:

Remove the chains of injustice!

Undo the ropes of the yoke!

Let those who are oppressed go free,

And break every yoke you encounter!

Share your bread with those who are hungry,

And shelter homeless poor people!

Clothe those who are naked,

And don’t hide from the needs of your own flesh and blood!

Do this and your light will shine like the dawn –

And your healing will break forth like lightening!

Your integrity will go before you,

And the glory of YHWH will be your rearguard.

Cry, and YHWH will answer;

Call and God will say, ‘I am here’                     

Living a life of salt and light by living out God’s vision, with a heart for justice and freedom from oppression, enhances the world and brings into the moment the kingdom of heaven.  You are salt of the earth, you are the light of the world.  Let your light so shine and God will be seen.