Epiphany 5A Gospel
Matthew 5:13-20
Tyler Boyer
Flavor, Focus and Fullness
Every January at Knox Knolls Free Methodist Church we have an event that we call, “Soup and Pie Night.” During this blessed event the people of the church bring their best soups and desserts to share. The identity of the creators of the food are kept secret. After the soups and desserts have been tasted, people vote and decide which is best in each category. The winner receives the coveted Knox Knolls Soup Ladle or Pie Scoop which they hold onto, guard and display in their home until their culinary skills are put to the test next year.
At every soup and pie night I have ever been to, there are two kinds of soup that seem inevitable. There is the soup that is so bland as to be almost nonexistent. The best you can hope for with this soup is a pleasing texture or temperature because flavor has long since left the building for fear of offending the taste buds of anyone. The other extreme is the soup that is so over-seasoned that you take only one bite, smile, nod, and never touch it again because inflicting that level of spiciness upon your mouth is simply out of the question. It is challenging to arrive at real flavor. It is easy for flavor to get lost in excesses, deficiencies or experiments that ultimately lead nowhere.
After proclaiming the blessedness of so many unlikely, slip between the cracks kinds of disciples and people, Jesus continues to inform those on the mount with him that they are salt and light. Fred Craddock notes that, “the Mount is most likely a composite of teachings given on different occasions, but even composites have a uniting center or a discernible movement.”[1] One such discernable movement is Jesus clear declaration of what his followers are, whether they know it, believe it, feel it or not. They are salt whether they feel flavorful or not. They are light regardless of whether they feel particularly shiny.
In Jesus day, salt was valuable. Salt’s task was to preserve food and to give it flavor and savor. Because of its usefulness, salt was prized and even used as currency. Special salt rations given to early Roman soldiers were known as “salarium argentum,” the forerunner of the English word “salary.”[2] Calling his hearers salt was a high compliment. It was high praise to be considered as valuable and essential as salt. This identity comes with a warning however. Jesus warns, “but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under-foot.”
Any chemist who is “worth their salt” (sorry couldn’t help myself) will tell you that sodium chloride is highly stable and technically cannot lose its flavor. The only way for salt not to be salty is for it to be poorly applied. Along with modern Chemists, early biblical commentators understood that the only way for salt to become flavorless was by it being diluted by water, dispersed by the wind, or so blended with other things that it was no longer discernable.[3] Once diluted, diminished, dispersed or destroyed, salt cannot get its flavor back. In such a state, something as valuable as salt becomes unnoticeable and even gets trampled on.
As with salt, so with light. To be called the light of the world by Jesus is nothing to scoff at. Again, with the compliment comes a warning. “A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.” A light to the world can only do its job if it is not hidden. Disciples who are true lights are warned not to hide or obscure their light. The light of Christ turned only inward for the sake of self, leaves the world in darkness. Like salt rightly applied, “in the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Disciples living out the light of Christ in good works helps to focus the gaze of the world upon God the Father who receives glory.
Thomas Merton wrote, "Pride is a stubborn insistence of being what we are not and never were intended to be. Pride is a deep, insatiable need for unreality, an exorbitant demand that others believe the lie we have made ourselves believe about ourselves."[4] There is a tremendous temptation to be something other than what Jesus has told us that we are. Not content to be salt, many in our day want their life in Christ to be more spicy and exotic. Many of us would rather be the curry of the earth, or the cinnamon, or the turmeric; something entertaining to worldly palates. Not content to light a fallen world, we often settle for being a kind of cell phone flashlight that illumines only the next step in our own particular journey through the darkness. It is far too big a task to light the world after all, so we settle for hiding the light of Christ in ourselves and directing only to our own ends. These decisions not to be who we really are as disciples of Jesus are indeed prideful. Like salt with no flavor or light kept hidden we find ourselves diluted, and diminished by our own discontent with what Jesus calls us to be.
As the text shifts to a discussion of the law, Jesus affirms where he stands in regard to the law. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” Kataluo, the word translated in the NRSV as “abolish” could also be rendered, “diluted,” “demolished” or “destroyed”. Jesus has no intention of treating the law like salt stripped of its flavor through dilution or trampling. On the contrary, the desire is that the law becomes full and complete with nothing lacking in it at all,[5] “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” Jesus' desire is for the law to be what God intended, not something diminished by interpretive emphasis, or its spiritual efficacy obscured by man-made hedges, and oral traditions. As such Jesus wants the law to be precisely what God intended it to be.
So, as with the salt and the light, Jesus offers a warning and a challenge regarding the law. Whoever breaks even the least commandment and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom. The law is to be lived as it is, undiminished and undiluted. For Jesus whoever does what is commanded and keeps law will be called great in the kingdom. This life where the law is rightly lived and taught looks like something other than what the Pharisees and the scribes of Jesus day call righteous. Righteousness is about more than just knowing the grammar and the letter of God’s word and how to read and write it with precision like the scribes. Righteousness is about more than knowing all of the oral interpretations and theological constructs surrounding the law like the Pharisees. Jesus calls for a righteousness that is beyond the kind that these groups could produce. He calls his hearers to a living of the law that is as earthy as salt. He calls them to lives that will illumine the dark places of the whole world. This is a righteousness fulfilled in the living and the teaching of God’s word and will, undiminished and undiluted. It is a righteousness that is flavored by God’s Spirit and focused in a redemptive way towards the world that God loves.
May you be all that you really are as a follower of Jesus. Be the salt of the earth, valuable, preserving, stable, and flavorful; rightly applied without excess or deficiency. Be the light of the world, and not just the light of your own personal Journey. Shine unhidden and unhampered. Keep the law of love in Jesus Christ in such a way that knowing the word and how to rightly interpret it, doesn’t get in the way of living it and teaching others to do the same.
[1] Fred B. Craddock, Two Arenas For Faithfulness (Matthew5:13-20), (Christian Century, January, 31 1990), 98 – http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=709.
[2] History of Salt, Saltworks website, https://www.seasalt.com/salt-101/history-of-salt/
[3] An example of this approach can be seen in comment on Matthew 5:13 by Remigius that Aquinas includes in his Aurea Catena. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/catena1.ii.v.html
[4] Thomas Merton, The New Man. (Bloomsbury Publishing, Jan. 8, 2003), 70
[5] Check out, http://www.biblewebapp.com/study/ Look at the definitions of the Greek words for abolish and fulfill.
Tyler Boyer
Senior Pastor, Knox Knolls Free Methodist Church