Sermon for MHBC (17 July 2022). You can watch on our website or on Facebook or YouTube. Live at 11:00am on Sundays.
I love the phrase the city of God from Augustine. I think it’s this incredibly powerful image of what we are called to be. The original Latin sense of the word city is that of a community, a group of people who are bound together by shared standards and practices and laws.
Even here at MHBC we are called to be the city of God in Richmond. We are called to be a people living under a different standard because we are citizens of another kingdom. We saw some of what that looks like last week in Jesus’s opening teaching on the Sermon the Mount.
Now in the passage this week, Jesus tells us that those who follow him are good for the world. In other words, the city of God has a direct impact on the city of man.
Let me sketch this idea out from the whole passage, then I want to unpack a few key parts of it.
Jesus begins with two images. You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world (salt and light). Both of these are good. But there’s two warnings. The salt can lose its saltiness. The light can be hidden. Then in v. 17, he says that he has come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, which is a way of referring to all of the divine instruction in what we know as the OT. And his concluding point in v. 20 is that he is teaching genuine righteousness that flows out of a transformed heart. This is in contrast to the self-righteousness of the religious leaders who believe they are the only worthy ones. These religious leaders demonstrate their self-righteousness externally by all the stuff they do. I say they demonstrate it externally by all the stuff they do for at least three reasons that are apparent from the context.
First, Jesus is talking about the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. These are highly religious, devout people. They are serious about religion. But Jesus says their righteousness isn’t genuine.
Second, this section sets up Jesus’s teaching on some of the most common “laws” in the OT (many of which we find in the Ten Commandments for example). What Jesus demonstrates throughout the rest of chapter five is that a commitment to following outward laws without inward transformation is hardly genuine righteousness.
Third, Jesus’s teaching in chapter six is all about inner righteousness before God—righteousness that isn’t necessarily seen by others. And he contrasts that with all the stuff the Pharisees do. But Jesus has come to teach his disciples the way of inner transformation not outward self-righteousness.
So there’s an alternative to scrambling to prop ourselves up by self-righteousness, by impressing others with our goods works. It would be easy to read the passage as though our job is to impress others, but that is ignoring the context of the surrounding verses. When Jesus says his disciples are good for the world, he has something much deeper in mind.
Let’s unpack the passage starting with the two images in vv. 13 and 14. The first image is salt. Look at v. 13: You are the salt of the earth.
Following Jesus has a bearing on your life right now. It is not something to be saved for the future. And not only does it have a bearing on your life, but according to this verse, it has a bearing on other people’s lives as well. You are the salt of the earth.
How does one become salt? By being one of Jesus’ disciples. When Jesus issues the call, “Come, Follow Me,” and the person answers, they become a disciple. And by virtue of being Jesus’s disciples, they are the salt of the earth.
Many different interpretations have been suggested for the meaning of this metaphor: you are the salt. In the ancient world, salt had a number of uses.
Salt can be a preservative. In the legal portions of the OT, we see salt being used to describe the permanent nature of God’s covenants. Of course, we still use salt as a preservative today. But I don’t think Jesus is talking about preservatives.
Another function of salt is for flavor. I’ve met some people who don’t even taste their food before grabbing the saltshaker. Salt can do a lot for the flavor of food. Job even asks the question, “Can something tasteless be eaten without salt?” Most modern translations and commentators understand Jesus to be saying something along these lines. In fact, Eugene Peterson in the Message puts it this way: “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth.”
I don’t think he’s that far off from the sense of the passage. Salt enhances the flavor of food. Even sweet things need a little bit of salt. That little bit of salt brings the sweetness out. Jesus’s disciples are to bring out the goodness of God. We are to enhance the good things in our world. We ought to be the ones loving people the best, showing the most mercy, forgiving the quickest. We ought to be the champions of peace. Do you believe that Jesus’s disciples actually have something good to offer our world? Jesus does. The problem is that we lose focus. We quit being salt and instead of being savory we end up being bitter.
Finally, salt can be seen as a purifying object. There are many examples of this, but one good one is Elijah. Elijah pours salt in a corrupt city’s water supply. This action shows that God had issued a new beginning.[1] The salt was the symbol of purity. Jesus says we have something to offer the world. In a world of hatred, in a world that celebrates violence, Jesus says we can be a purifying presence. Think back to the Beatitudes. Nearly every one of the virtues Jesus blesses are the opposite of what is celebrated in our culture.
The second image Jesus uses is light. Look at v. 14: You are the light of the world. Light illumines the dark places. it provides clarity. It brings revelation. It exposes. Salt and light. These are the two images.
But Jesus also includes two warnings. Salt can lose its saltiness. And if it does, it can no longer function as salt. Look at v. 13 again: You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
The second warning is that light can be hidden. Look at vv. 14–15: You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. When the light of God’s people is obscured, the world remains in darkness and that is dangerous.
For 165 years, on the Great Lakes, lightships were used to mark sandbars, shallow water, and rocks. These lightships could be moved, which could be a real advantage. But during storms, they had a tendency to drag their anchors and get out of position. This was dangerous for everyone involved. And when they were out of position, incoming ships ran the risk of running into real dangers they couldn’t see. In 1985, the last lightship was replaced with a lighthouse.[2]
In the same way, when God’s people aren’t grounded, they have the potential for great harm both to themselves and to others. Paul warns in Ephesians 4 about our need for rootedness so that we are not carried away by the winds and waves of false teaching.[3]
Both of these images have a plural pronoun. Saltiness and luminance are communal not merely individualistic.
I really can’t emphasize this enough. The language in these verses is not merely to individuals. Jesus is not just saying, “You, individual, let your light shine.” In our culture we hear it that way. And of course within American Christianity because we’ve been so influenced by western individualism
Remember the children’s song, “This Little Light of Mine”? “I’m going to let it shine.” There’s nothing wrong with that song but notice how it strikes the chord of individualism. By contrast, Jesus teaches that we are the light together.
An analogy I’ve always found helpful for the church is that of coals. A single coal by itself can’t create enough heat to cook something. But together, they generate a tremendous amount of heat. In the same way, a single individual can only bring so much light to a dark world, but together, Christians can generate a tremendous amount of light.
God’s people are the light of the world. Yes, we are made up of individuals, but it is together that we are a lighthouse. It is together that we are a city. So when Jesus says, “Let your light shine” in v. 16, he’s saying, “You together let your light shine.”
And how do we do that? By being students or apprentices of Jesus. Immersing ourselves in Scripture as Jesus did and teaches us here in v. 17 when he says he didn’t come to destroy the Law and the Prophets. By trusting in his righteousness because he is the one who fulfills every aspect of the law. By hearing and obeying his teaching as he says in vv. 18–19. And by seeking inner transformation not external self-righteousness as he says in v. 20. Really, we could say it this way. Genuine righteousness comes from looking to Jesus who is the complete fulfillment of all righteousness. Contrast that with the Pharisees who display their own righteousness.
What might these images and this teaching mean for us? What can we learn about the images of salt and light for how we engage the world around us? One of my favorite commentators, the late R. T. France, writes, “each [image] is essential but has its necessary effect on its environment only if it is both distinctive from it and yet fully involved in it. So disciples must function in society as an alternative and challenging community. It is by their visible goodness that they will bring glory to the God who has made them so.”[4]
Being good for the world doesn’t mean taking on the character of the world. That is losing our saltiness. That is hiding our light.
When the church is faithfully following Jesus, it is good for the world.
Our secular society might say otherwise, but consider this. We live in an overtly secular and material world. The consequence of that is that the world has been stripped of its spiritual meaning. It has been, to use the phrase of the late Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor, “disenchanted.” Now we are seeing the implications of disenchantment. Look at the rapidly rising levels of anxiety. Look at how fearful we are right now. Look at how bleak things seem. And that’s a collective outlook. People are searching for something to make sense out of this disenchanted world, particularly younger generations. This is why millennials, for example, are being drawn to the Latin mass in the Roman Catholic Church. Various spiritualties are on the rise. Buddhist practice is everywhere in the public sphere. Virtually every celebrity is practicing some form of Buddhism. Ancient philosophies like Stoicism have huge followings and are on every bestseller list. Even the ancient pagan religions have made a comeback. And so here we are. We have this treasure.[5] We have gospel, good news. We have an alternative way of living under the standards of God’s kingdom.
It’s not the happy-clappy gooey sentimentalism of “everything is OK” and there’s a genie in the sky who will answer our wishes. It’s the announcement that God has acted powerfully and decisively in the death and resurrection of Christ and now Christ has been installed as the mighty Lord of the universe and he has disarmed the powers of hell and he has broken the back of sin and he has dealt a mortal blow to death. And he is pouring out his Spirit for transformation.
This is what it means to be good for the world.
Do you remember when Jesus asks his disciples if they will go away too? And they say, “Lord where would we go. You have the words of life.”[6] That’s what we are talking about. We are talking about the great reality that we have been made ambassadors of the words of life.[7]
To put a practical point on this, I want you to think of MHBC as a lighthouse. Our steeple might even bring that image to mind. And God has placed us in this neighborhood. Our Missions and Evangelism committee knows the strategy I’ve been pitching since my first months here. I call it “flooding the neighborhood.” I don’t often like to share this sort of thing, but one of the big audacious prayers I like to pray is for God to claim this neighborhood around the church. There’s a reason we’ve been to almost 1000 houses on these streets in the last few months. There’s a reason I’m talking to our lay leaders about prayer walks. It’s because Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.” Jesus believes we are good for the world.
So it’s a two-pronged approach. Here we are trying to construct a program of formation that promotes the inner transformation necessary for us to follow Jesus, to ground us like a lighthouse. We must begin by being students of Jesus. Otherwise, we make the mistake of the Pharisees who were religious and did many good things, but who weren’t being transformed. And then we are to go because we are good for the world, not through our self-righteousness, but through Jesus’s genuine righteousness. We are the city of God right here on this property.
[1] 2 Kings 2:21
[2] https://uslhs.org/history/lightships; https://historycollection.com/16-tales-that-make-these-historic-lighthouses-unexpectedly-interesting/9/
[3] Eph 4:14–16.
[4] R. T. France, New Bible Commentary, p. 910.
[5] 2 Cor 4:7.
[6] John 6:68.
[7] 2 Cor 5:20.