For Sunday, February 9, 2014 – Matthew 5:13-20
The salt of the earth is in high demand at the moment. At least in this region, it is making headlines every day. “I have people calling from all parts of the East Coast looking for it, and we just have nothing,” one county manager said. Governors are calling states of emergency as salt supplies diminish. “Everybody is low right now.” And even worse, lights have gone out in wide swaths. Electrical lines have fallen due to ice storms, thus causing trials for millions. No salt. No light. No small problem.
Jesus understood this kind of double whammy, how a whole region—a whole society—reels when the salt and the light of God’s nature are in short supply. Unnoticed much of the time, yet they are necessary for the well-being of all. God provides, but how shall the vital elements of life be distributed, conducted, dispersed? Who will carry them to places of need? The salt and the light are not in short supply, only those willing to be the salt and to shine the light. The news reports try to determine who is to blame when the salt runs low and the lights don’t come on. But Jesus already knew. He says we are the salt, we are the light, conveyors of God’s nature, not to be stockpiled in a shed or hidden under a basket but to be dispersed widely, with prodigal abandon.
We tend to hold ourselves in reserve, afraid to give it all, counting up the cost. One roads supervisor said in an article about the increasingly dire situation in his area: “It’s actually more of a salt bottleneck than a salt shortage.” I think Jesus would appreciate that take on the situation. The availability of salt is not to blame; the light of God has not abandoned us. We are the responsible ones. We either will be light and salt, given freely, or we will not. If we say we want to follow Jesus, we no longer live for ourselves alone. We become anonymous servants of the common good. We are day laborers, linemen, road crew, dutiful distributors of salt and light.
