I think Jesus must have liked savory food and clean well lighted places. All this talk of salt and light as metaphors to describe his followers betrays such an interest. You are the salt of the Earth, you are the light of the world, Jesus declares in our New Testament reading for today and in numerous other places in Scripture. Salt and light, strange metaphors it seems, but well chosen metaphors, I think, that can guide our journey of faith toward God.

Among the things that Jesus seeks to communicate with this comparison is that we are essential to the world that God created. Salt and Light, flavor, preserve, illumine, and reflect whatever they come into contact with and this is also our challenge. Jesus’ declaration that we are salt and light means that we should perform these functions for our world. As the salt of the Earth, how are you flavoring and preserving the places you go in the world? The people with whom you have contact? Are things better because of your flavoring and preservation or not?  As the light of the world, how are you illuminating and reflecting the places you go in the world? Can people see more clearly because of your light or not? Jesus chose these elemental metaphors to remind us that we are essential to the goodness of the world. Without salt and light, the world cannot survive.

Jesus chose these strange elemental metaphors also to remind us that we are to be different from the world in which we live, move, and have our being. Through centuries of domestication of the person of Christ, we have lost just how different, just how radical, Jesus was. A good exercise should you wish to attempt such is to read the New Testament without the various lenses all of us have been given. If you attempt to do this and are successful you may be alarmed, amazed, and disconcerted by the Jesus who emerges. You may finally understand why the authorities of his day killed him and why authorities in our day would also likely do the same. This is the figure who is calling us to be different. This is the one who challenges us as the salt of the Earth, to give an edge and satisfying taste to its flavor. To spice things up, where they are bland. This is the figure who challenges us as the light of the world to go into the darkness and illumine and expose the darkness to the light of God. But least you think that Jesus is only about upsetting the established order, remember that he knew as we know, that too much salt can overpower and ruin the taste of what it seeks to season, too much light is more blinding than illuminating, so our challenge is to find the balance that is helpful.

Jesus chose these strange elemental metaphors also to remind us that we are to be good people in our world. Salt and Light in the world of Jesus were embraced because of the good that they could do. All of my life, likely based on these words of Jesus, I have heard some people described as “the salt of the Earth”. I do not know all that is meant by this, but in most cases I’ve found these people to be good people, who do good things, and live good lives. They are the people you call upon in times of distress. They are the people you count on to help you answer the critical questions of life. They are the people who you know will be there to make a positive difference in the world no matter what. They are “the salt of the Earth”. This is no doubt something of what Jesus had in mind when he calls us salt and light and challenges us to make a difference in the world with our lives.

Salt, Light, strange elemental metaphors indeed, but may God give us the grace to flavor, preserve, illumine, and reflect our world in ways that will make it better. May God be able to say of us at our journeys end they were “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world”. AMEN!