You Are the Salt of the Earth
You are the salt of the earth!
It’s not this: “you might be the salt of the earth” nor is it “you are becoming the salt of the earth,” it’s you are the salt of the earth. You melt the ice, you make everyone want to eat French fries because without salt they’re not worth eating, you preserve food, you are the salt of the earth. You are already offering flavor even if you don’t know it. Your very existence matters and changes things. God doesn’t just want you here, God recognizes that your very being matters. And it’s not just God, it’s also the world.
Will you turn to your neighbor and tell them this? You matter. You are the salt of the earth.
So why are we doing this exercise on Epiphany 5? Because it’s so easy to forget. Existence is frustrating. Futile. Painful. Hard. Work. Exhausting.
And all of this is true, and still you are the light of the world, the salt of the earth.
This is our world that God is redeeming, that God is fulfilling, and this didn’t start yesterday or even with Jesus. This work has been going on from the very beginning of creation, when everything began radiating out in a beautiful order. You know that story, when the swirling gases came together little by little to form our earth, when everything was mixed together. And then the waters were separated and dry land appeared. And then tiny living organisms, and plants, and animals, and then us, human beings, the first creatures that had a heart to love God and hands to serve God. Next came that baby born in Bethlehem, true God, true human, the glory of the human creature, the one who died and was risen, this life of the risen Christ that continues to spread everywhere, just a little at at a time.
That light — that’s what changed everything. That is what makes us what we are and gives us the strength to become even more. Remember? The true light that enlightens everything is coming into the world and also the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it. That great light coming into our world for us changed everything. Fulfilled everything. Brought possibility to everything, every atom, every molecule, every creature, but especially us humans.
A single candle can be seen in the darkness for more than a mile. A single candle, y’all! You are the light of the world.
Sure. Sometimes it feels like we’re all going to hell in a hand basket. Sometimes it feels distressing, sad, overwhelming. There are days, weeks even, where I might roll my eyes if someone called me the light of the world, because it certainly doesn’t feel like it.
That Isaiah reading this week — it just reminded me of what I want the world to be like, removing the bonds of injustice, the thongs of the yoke, letting the oppressed go free, sharing with the hungry, having houses for the homeless poor — I just want it, I want it so badly, so profoundly. We are not alone as we work for this kind of justice to be lived out in this here and now. We want the gloom to pass away, to be gone.
We are not a people without hope.
It’s not the end yet. History continues on a page yet to be written, and this page is written by us all, together with God’s Spirit.
We’re writing it! We’re writing history right now together with the Spirit of God, lighting the world with our little lights so that the gloom subsides, so that loving God and neighbor becomes that thing that we all think about first, before greed, before everything.
We are a people speaking God’s wisdom, guided by the Spirit of God, moving towards fulfillment, towards Parousia, when God will be all in all, when God’s kindom will be established forever.
You are hearing it right. God is shouting YES to your existence.
You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.