Matthew 5:13-16 Jesus said to his disciples: "You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.
“You are the salt of the earth”. Don’t ever lose your flavor or else! Or else what? I have some pretty old salt in the house and honestly, it still tastes just like….well...salt! I had to look this bit up, how does salt lose it’s flavor. It can’t! If salt loses it’s flavor it is no longer salt at all. In Judaism however salt can become unclean and then would need to be thrown out, it would still have it’s flavor but it would now be useless. If we fail to heed our call from God then we do become that flavorless salt, we are no longer what we were created to be!
Now let's move to the city on a mountain, perhaps that city is Jerusalem itself, that clearly cannot be hidden. I get that, you would be able to see that city from a great distance.You don’t light a lamp and put it under a bushel basket. Yes, I get that too, those are two very clear images. Lighting a lamp and then hiding it under a basket would indeed be foolish. You would use up precious oil without gaining any light from it and not only that I’d have to imagine that the basket you put over the lamp would most likely be a fire hazard and then real trouble starts!
No, you would light a lamp and leave it uncovered and probably high up on a stand because that is how it would shed the most light to a room. Another interesting thing about this image is that light will remove darkness from a room but darkness cannot remove light. There is no way to bring a box of darkness into a room that will make a bright room dark, the light will always win.
This light image reminds me of Dicken’s book A Christmas Carol and Ebineezer Scrooge’s parting encounter with the first spirit, the ghost of Christmas Past.
“Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head.
The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.”
Scoorge did not like the light because it was illuminating the darkness of his past. The light had an influence over him, it shone on a past that he wished to avoid but needed to see it clearly in the light so that he may repent of it properly. John 3:20 states “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed”
We are the salt, we are that light, we are that city on a hill. God has called each and every one of us to a special and unique mission. It is our duty to find that mission and carry it out. Sometimes that light will need to be used to shine on sin. On January 27th hundreds of thousands of people shone their light at the March for Life in our nation’s capital to cast their light on the sin of abortion. That’s a lot of lights shining!
Sometimes it might be more difficult, we won’t have hundreds of thousands of people shining around with us. There will be times, at work, at school, on a job site or just at the coffee shop where our light will be tested and we will be the only one shining light at that moment. How will we do then? Will we look for a basket to hide under? Will we be the dim bulb on the strand? Will we shine bright? Many things go into how we shine in those moments, how strong is our faith? How well do we know the Bible or The Catechism of the Catholic Church? How strong is our relationship with Jesus Christ? Are we always striving to get better at our faith?
Through these tests we will have good days and we will have bad days. Begin each day asking the Holy Spirit for guidance, wisdom, knowledge and understanding because it won’t always be easy but with the Holy Spirit as our partner it will be doable. Keep in mind also that this light we are shining is not a spotlight to shine on us, it is a spotlight to shine away from us on to Jesus Christ instead.
I’d like to end with some words from Bishop Robert Barron, he’s kind of like a floodlight to my 2 watt led. Anyway, here’s what the good Bishop has to say about light:
When you invite Jesus into your life, you are inviting the light into your life. Again, this is wonderful, but it is also frightening. Jesus will shine his light in every corner of your life, in every room of your house. Things that look okay in the dark or in the indirect light will suddenly stand out in all of their unpleasantness.
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