Matthew 5:13-20 "Mixing In without Blending In" Scott Hoezee

Salt, light, and law. That seems like a rather odd combination of images. Just imagine what you'd think if you heard someone give a speech in which, within the span of a minute, he mentioned pork chops, neon signs, and the United States Constitution. Surely we'd have to wonder about the verbal triple play of pork, neon, and Constitution! Of course, we're so accustomed to the Sermon on the Mount that we're not struck by the quirky array of metaphors Jesus tosses out. On the surface, however, salt, light, and law don't have much to do with one another. You certainly would never expect these three to be combined. But Jesus does combine them, and so somehow it must add up to something.

The last time we had a youth-led service was October when we were all still shaking over the very recent terrorist attacks. You'll recall, no doubt, how I called all you young people to the baptism font as a way to remind you that as you go forward in our uncertain world, your ultimate security comes from what God did for you in your baptisms. Today I'm not going to do anything quite that dramatic, but in a way this morning's sermon continues the theme of how you are to find your way in this world as a Christian.

After all, the goal of parenthood is to prepare children for life in the world. Few parents are eager to have their kids leave the nest, and most of us sooner or later regret how quickly our children grow up. You've only got them home with you for just so long and then, before you know it, they're spreading their wings, heading off on their own. The irony, of course, is that if we are good parents, then everything we do all along aims precisely at preparing our kids to leave home and function normally in the larger world. We're forced to prepare them to do what we don't look forward to their doing; namely, leave home.

To a degree, the same is true here in the church. As I reminded you young people last fall, once upon a time we brought you to the baptism font and made some promises. Ever since then, we've kept those promises by providing TLC, Worship Center, Catechism classes, and our youth programs. The goal has been to help you claim the promises of God for yourselves so that you'll be ready to stride out into the wider world as a Christian.

We don't want you to be a Christian just here in church. We don't expect all of you to remain right here in Grand Rapids for the rest of your lives nor do we baptize you in the hope that every last one of you will become a full-time minister or missionary. We know that you'll grow up, maybe move away. We know that you'll become teachers, bus drivers, lawyers, doctors, accountants, sales people. So our desire is not to teach you how to behave as a good little Christian boy or girl just here at Calvin Church but to help you grow up into a Christian who will be a witness wherever you end up going.

That's really what Matthew 5 is all about, too. That odd combo of salt, light, and law helps to chart a course for your future in the world. Let's look at these diverse images to see how they come together into a lovely mixture that ends up meaning a great deal.

We begin with salt, which is one of the most sublime as well as one of the most ancient of all cooking spices and additives. Sodium chloride is the only mineral that we human beings take directly from the earth and eat. We would die without salt but we'd also find a good bit of otherwise tasty food to be dull and lifeless were it not for salt. Perhaps that's why in history some cultures exchanged salt as money. The earliest roads were built to transport salt, the earliest taxes were levied on it, whole military campaigns were launched to secure salt. Salt gave Venice its start as a commercial trading empire in Europe and it helped Gandhi bring India to independence in the mid-twentieth century.

According to Jeffrey Steingarten's book, The Man Who Ate Everything, we're probably the first generation of earthlings to be paranoid about salt. Some people do legitimately have a low tolerance for salt, and people who already have high blood pressure need to monitor their sodium intake. But for the most part we need salt to live and the vast majority of us can handle about as much salt as we want.

On average Americans take in 12,000 milligrams of salt a day or about 266 shakes from a salt shaker. And again, why not? Salt is indispensable to good food. When used thoughtfully, it sharpens and defines flavors and aromas, it melds flavors in ways that transform bland dishes into something complex and wonderful. Salt controls the ripening of cheese, strengthens the gluten in bread, preserves meats, and just generally provides what Robert Farrar Capon calls the "music of cookery, the indispensable bass line over which all tastes and smells form their harmonies." Of course, even so, salt needs to be used well. Few things are more disappointing than finishing a dish at the stove only to remember too late that you forgot to add any salt. Then again, nothing can ruin a soup faster than too much salt.

"You are the salt of the earth," Jesus said to his disciples. It was a striking image then and it's a striking one now, but what does it imply for the life of discipleship? Well, I just mentioned the good effect salt has on the food we eat. Of course, to get that tasty effect, you have to mix the sodium chloride into the food. How foolish it would be to think that just having a box of kosher salt next to the stove will make a difference even if you never sprinkle it into the soup. If you ask a cook, "Did you add any salt?", then the answer had better not be, "No, but I have a box of it close by. Isn't that enough?"

That's an absurd scenario, yet it seems pretty much to be the one Jesus has in mind. In verse 13 Jesus talks about salt losing its saltiness. Actually, however, in Greek Jesus wonders about salt becoming moronos, from which we derive our English word "moron," or "fool." If salt becomes foolish, Jesus asks, then what good is it?

To have salt but not use it, to have a shaker of salt sitting next to the stove but never to put any into the pot, is foolish. What's the sense of having it there if you're not going to add it to the food thoughtfully and with proper balance? You may as well toss it out the window for all the good such unused salt will do your dinner! Salt has a definite purpose and if you won't use it for that purpose, then the salt becomes foolish to have around.

The implication for disciples is exceedingly curious: it means that we exist for mixing it up with the world. It means that for us to do our savory gospel task of making this world a better place, we need to be out there, being mixed up into people, culture, and society. That's why earlier I mentioned the idea of you young people eventually growing up, moving out into the world. Even as Christians, that's what you're supposed to do. You are the salt of the earth, but if you stay bottled up inside the shaker, if the only place you act like a Christian is when you're inside the salt box that just is the church, what good are you?

Following hard on the heels of his Beatitudes that we looked at last week, Jesus is saying that if you're going to live those grace-filled attitudes, then it's not enough to work inside the church community, it's not enough to nurture a strong interior life of spirituality. No, the result of all your piety must be pouring yourself out onto this earth so as to bring out life's complex and beautiful flavors.

What we have in this simple image, therefore, is a huge vision for life in this world. We expect you young people to move out into that world, to mix it up with society. We're not like the Amish who withdraw from the world as a way to maintain purity and distinctiveness. In a way, that Amish approach represents one extreme, but the other extreme would be to think that this salt image means that you are allowed to mingle anywhere you want in society even if you are not providing a clear witness. We shouldn't think this salt image means we can go to any movie, take any job, buy any house, go to any concert just because as salt, we think we have permission to mix into any part of the world.

Because being genuine gospel salt does not mean that you may mix yourself into the crowd at a strip club or that you may join your business colleagues in mingling with the prostitutes your boss brought in to liven up some company party. Mixing your savory Christian presence into the world doesn't grant blanket permission to mix into the crowd at a university frat house where getting high and drunk is the prelude to seducing the co-ed of your choice.

Being out in the world in that kind of indiscriminate, loosey-goosey fashion would be the opposite extreme of withdrawal from the world. Because you see the real challenge is not just the salty idea of mixing into the world, but to shine like a gospel light at the same time. You cannot mix yourself salt-like into any part of the world you like if doing so means that you are going along with the world's way of doing things. You need to mix in without blending in! That's maybe why Jesus immediately launches into verses 17-20 and those words about the law. Jesus did not come to this earth to say you may live however you want. He maybe wasn't quite as strict as the perennially up-tight Pharisees, but that hardly meant dumping God's way of living as revealed in things like the Ten Commandments.

But just here is where the challenge of Christian living comes into focus. It's one thing here in church to sing "This Little Light of Mine" and "Shine, Jesus, Shine." It's one thing to follow God's way of living when you're sitting at home with Mom and Dad, coming to church, or attending a Christian school. It is quite a different matter, however, to keep shining Jesus' light and following God's rules when you've mixed yourself, salt-like, into a part of society where there is not another Christian in sight.

Here behind our stained-glass windows you learned to sing, "Hide it under a bushel? No! I'm gonna let it shine!" But in truth, there isn't much temptation in this crowd to hide your Christian light. While on the job, however, while traveling to San Francisco for a convention, while sitting in a restaurant with your co-workers, or hanging out at the mall with your friends, then there are any number of "bushels" available and any number of reasons why you might feel the urge to reach for one of those bushels to cover your light so that you can do your own thing (or do what everybody else is doing).

To be useful and true salt, you need to mix into the world, bringing with you gospel savor. But the light still needs to shine, the pathways of God's kingdom still need to be followed. Maybe it would be easier to let your light shine if you stayed in church all the time, never left home, so to speak. But literal salt that never leaves the shaker does nothing to add zing to your french fries, and likewise Christian disciples who never interact with non-Christian people have no chance of reaching those people with the influence of that whole new world of God that just is the kingdom.

We've talked the last two Sundays about that whole new world of God. We've talked about its reality and about its effects. But today's verses show that being part of that new world does not remove you from this world. Jesus is not interested in your developing a rich interior spiritual life where it's all "Me and Jesus" and private devotions and silent prayer and thinking good thoughts just inside your own head. The Sermon on the Mount ultimately aims us toward the bull's-eye of this needy, broken, and sinful world.

A while back someone asked the preacher and writer Eugene Peterson what he would say if he were writing what he knew would be his very last sermon. He replied, "I think I would want to talk about things that are immediate and ordinary. In the kind of world we live in, the primary way that I can get people to be aware of God is to say, 'Who are you going to have breakfast with tomorrow, and how are you going to treat that person?'"

Peterson suggests we need to stop thinking that being a Christian means always being part of only obvious religious contexts. We just need to pay attention to what the people around us are doing most every day and then help them do it in ways that glorify God. "In my last sermon, I guess I'd want to say, 'Go home and be good to your spouse. Treat your children with respect. Do a good job at work." We need to be salt in the real world, and that involves genuinely being with real people, listening to them well, and treating them as the little images of God they all are.

To do anything less is downright moronic and foolish. Of course, we need to accept that the world doesn't always want our seasoning presence. Don't forget that in Matthew 5:12 Jesus predicted our rejection and persecution by the world. That's how Jesus sets up his words about salt. Some people think salt, including gospel salt, is bad for them. Some people like their food bland--too much spice upsets their systems.

How the world will react to our seasoning is up to them, but Jesus himself promises it won't always be pleasant. The main thing for us, however, is that we get out into the world anyway. Because we are the salt of the earth and so need to add the savor of the kingdom. How we do that may vary a bit from person to person, situation to situation. In that sense, it is a little like real cooking: not every dish needs the same amount of salt. My chef friends even tell me that there are some dishes that need to be salted at the start of the cooking process and others that must not be seasoned up until just before you serve the food. Either way, just about every recipe I've ever seen includes somewhere the well-known line, "Salt and Pepper to Taste." You season at the right times and then taste it--the better refined your palate is, the better you can judge what needs adding and when.

Being a Christian in the world may be a bit like that, too. Different situations and different people require different touches, different amounts of seasoning. Knowing just when to add the gospel's salt (and how much) requires a wisdom granted to us by the Holy Spirit. But if our light is shining and if our lives reflect God's desires for life, then sooner or later we most certainly will season the lives we touch. We will speak of hope, of love, of joy. We will talk about a Savior who loves us, who died for us, who rose again to give new life. We will demonstrate kindness, gentleness, self-control, and a generous heart. We will notice the invisible people and not always be trying to grab the attention of the powerful, the famous, or the rich.

For you young people as you prepare to leave high school behind and take your first steps out into a wider world, Jesus' reminder to you today is that you are to be salt and light as you follow God's law. It is, as we said in October, a dangerous and uncertain world. The promises God gave to you in baptism are your only final comfort and security. But precisely because it is that kind of a world, it needs the seasoning that only the gospel can provide and that can come only through people like us.

Because notice that Jesus did not order you to become salt. He did not encourage you at least to try to be salt-like. He said you simply are the salt of the earth. The only question is whether you will be useful salt by mixing into the parts of this world that need your seasoning influence or foolish, moronic salt that stays in the shaker. By grace, Jesus has made us salt. That part is already done. What remains is our getting mixed into the world in ways that will bring out the sweet savor and fetching aroma of God's glory. Amen.