salt and light

the other day i was thinking about the relevance of matthew 5:13-16 in our everyday lives. the message bible puts it this way:

13 “let me tell you why you are here. you’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. if you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? you’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage. 14-16 “here’s another way to put it: you’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. we’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. if I make you light-bearers, you don’t think i’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? i’m putting you on a light stand. now that i’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! keep open house; be generous with your lives. by opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.

the passage is pretty direct, eh? "let me tell you why you're here." quoting Jesus, matthew highlights 2 principles: we are here to be the salt of the earth, and we're here to be the light of the earth. in other words, we're not here to do our own thing. we're here to do a God thing. God has a very specific work for us to do that only we can do as we represent God here on earth. He is counting on us to share and spread "God-flavours" and "God-colours."

consider some of the uses of salt. it seasons, preserves, cleanses. and what about light? well, it illuminates, warms, energizes. most significantly and encapsulating, i think, is that salt and light influence and penetrate their surroundings. once introduced to an environment, the environment changes. this is what Jesus intends for us to do in our world...to influence, to penetrate, to change. we do this when we show God-flavours and God-colours, the most notable of which is love, because when we love other things like forgiveness, humility, kindness, generosity, etc., will most certainly be easily exercised in our lives.

being salt and light is a lifetime exercise. as with exercise, we need to extend ourselves. it's something we need to keep going back to, over and over. and, just like salt is spread and light radiates, we need the world to taste and see God in us. by doing this, we can say with the psalmist david, "open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see--how good God is" (psalm 34:8).