START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 5:13-20
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OBSERVE:
The Gospel of Matthew has been called the “Jewish Gospel” because it focuses on Jesus as the Jewish Messiah who fulfills the Law and Prophecies of the Hebrew Bible. And some even refer to the Sermon on the Mount as the Gospel version of the Torah (with some good reason, as we’ll soon see).
In this lectionary reading, there are two distinct sections. In the first section, Jesus speaks directly to the disciples and people who are sitting at his feet on the hillside. He tells them about their identity:
You are the salt of the earth….you are the light of the world.
These are two powerful metaphors that Jesus uses. Salt was precious in the ancient world, and was even sometimes used as currency. There are reports that Roman soldiers were paid, at least in part, with salt. The etymology of our word for salary derives from salt. Salt was used as a preservative for foods, as well as a seasoning, in a time when there was no refrigeration. Salt was an essential ingredient in some of the sacrifices in the temple (Leviticus 2:13).
Jesus is saying of his followers that they are precious — but if they lose their savor, they become:
good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under the feet of men.
The implications seem clear — if the followers of Jesus fail to fulfill their purpose, which is adding seasoning and preservation to life, then they are no longer useful. They are lost.
The metaphor of light is much more common and obvious in the Scriptures. Light is frequently associated with the illuminating presence of God’s glory that provides guidance, hope, and overcomes the darkness of evil. Only here Jesus tells his followers that they are the light of the world!
What he says next makes clear what it means for his followers to be light. Just as a city built on a hill is visible to all, so a lamp is to be visible as well. It would be silly to light the lamp and then extinguish it under a basket! Like the salt, such a lamp would become useless.
So if the followers of Jesus are to be the light of the world, what does that mean? His next sentence tells us:
Even so, let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
The light is to illuminate the good works that ultimately reveal who God is! The light originates with God, and that light then reveals how God is working in the lives of his followers.
Jesus stresses that his followers are not to be useless or hidden — they are to make a difference in the world by their presence, just as salt and light make a difference.
In the second section of our passage, Jesus makes clear his relationship to the Scriptures of his people:
Don’t think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn’t come to destroy, but to fulfill.
Jesus makes it clear that his regard for the law is extremely high — heaven and earth won’t pass away until all the Scriptures are fulfilled; and he insists that even the smallest commandments must be fulfilled. Fulfillment of the law will be the criterion for determining whether a disciple or a teacher is insignificant or great.
He even makes an astounding claim, especially as we become aware of the great tension that comes to exist between himself and the scribes and Pharisees:
For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, there is no way you will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
All of this demands a larger context in order to understand what he is saying. First, it is clear that Jesus considers the law and the prophets of the Hebrew Bible to be the authoritative word of God. Several times in the Gospels, Jesus makes it clear that the law comes from God. He tells the young man what he must do to have eternal life:
If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments (Matthew 22:17).
Second, we will see as we continue to read his Sermon on the Mount, that Jesus’ demand for righteousness exceeds the traditions of the scribes and Pharisees. For example, he will point out that the ancient prohibitions against murder and adultery fall short of his standards of righteousness — even anger and lust make a person subject to judgment!
Again, the larger context of the Scriptures helps us to understand what Jesus means. But in order to understand this, we must explore it further in the Apply section.
APPLY:
We are to be the salt of the earth because we add zest and preservation to life. And we are to be light of the world because the light reveals our good works and directs the attention of the world toward the glory of God. But it is also possible that we may lose our flavor, and be lost ourselves! And it is possible that if we allow our light to be extinguished, we may fail to fulfill our purpose in pointing the way to God.
So, how does this connect to what Jesus says about the vital importance of the law and the prophets? Actually, the law and the prophets aren’t really his point at all. His real point is righteousness. It is through righteousness that we are enabled to come into the presence of God. Therefore the law and the prophets are means of grace for that to happen.
But the standards are so high! How can we possibly be more righteous than the people who have made obedience to the law and the prophets their entire life’s work?
We must go back to what Jesus himself says:
Don’t think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn’t come to destroy, but to fulfill.
Jesus is the one who fulfills the law and the prophets on our behalf! Remember, that’s what Jesus said to John when he was baptized. John had protested that he wasn’t worthy to baptize Jesus, and Jesus answered:
Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:15).
Jesus fulfills the law vicariously on our behalf — first through his perfect, sinless life, and then through his sacrificial death in which he exchanges his sinlessness for our sin:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).
The consensus of the New Testament is clear — the law is holy, just and good (cf Romans 7:12). The only problem with the law is that we are like the salt that has lost its savor, or the light that has been put under a basket. We cannot keep the law — without God’s help! Paul says it like this:
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh; that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Romans 8:2-4).
The simplest way to say this might be to say that for the scribes and the Pharisees, the law was external. When Christ pays the penalty for our sins, his righteousness becomes internalized in us. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus does in us what we can’t do for ourselves.
The scribes and Pharisees tried to use the law as though it were a medicine to be applied externally. But Jesus fulfills the law in such a way that through the Spirit it is applied internally. We are made righteous not from the outside /in, but from the inside /out.
St. Augustine said it well:
Give what you command, and command what you will.
We cannot fulfill the righteousness required by the law and the prophets; Jesus can and does, and then through his Spirit fulfills all righteousness for and in us.
RESPOND:
A colleague in the ministry said something to me in passing a few years ago that captured my imagination:
We aren’t called to be the sugar of the world, but the salt of the world!
I think of what he said when I consider the words of Jesus. We aren’t to be sweet and harmless — we are to be thirsty for righteousness, and to make others thirsty. We are to add flavor to life. And we are to offer a Gospel that will preserve life everlastingly!
But our saltiness must make us so thirsty for holiness and righteousness that nothing but Jesus Christ can satisfy that thirst.
Lord, make us salt and light in the world, and give us a thirst for the righteousness that can only come from you. Amen.
PHOTO:
“Lectionary reflection from Matthew 5.16 ‘In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.’” by Baptist Union of Great Britian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.
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