I am a preacher. I make my living with words, and I have always been fascinated by them — by their power, by their flexibility. Think about the times a single word changed the course of your life. A yes. A no. The things you said yes to, and the things you needed to say no to.
Words make us laugh and make us cry. Words start wars and end them.
January 20th, 1961: ask not what your country can do for you. August 28th, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial: I have a dream. June 12th, 1987, at the Brandenburg Gate, against the counsel of every advisor he had: Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
And September 11th, 2001. Forty passengers and crew aboard United Airlines Flight 93, hijacked, huddled in the back of the aircraft, working out that the plane was about to be flown into a building in Washington. They did the most American thing you can do. They discussed it. They took a vote. They decided they were not going down without a fight. One of them, Todd Beamer, was on the phone with an operator. He asked her to call his wife and children and tell them he loved them. Then he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer with him, and she did. Then he turned to the others and said: okay, guys, are you ready? Let's roll.
Words are just air from the lungs, shaped by tongue and teeth. And they shaped a nation.
Matthew 5:13-20 is a handful of words that shaped the world. Salt. Light. Life.
If you read the Bible seriously and you never once find yourself saying, wait — Lord, really? You said that? — then I would gently suggest you go back and read it more carefully. This is not the inoffensive little Sunday homily people sleep through and then call a nice speech on the way out. These words move heaven, shake earth, and send cold chills up and down Satan's bony little spine.
Jesus tells us here who we are to be, what we are to do, and how we are to live.
Who we are to be
You are the salt of the earth. There is no refrigeration in the first century, and food is precious — when they pray give us this day our daily bread, it is not a slogan. Salt is how you keep good food from spoiling. So we are agents of preservation, called to conserve what is good and right and true about our families, our homes, our cultures.
But salt also seasons. It is what gives food its flavor. We are not called to be the anti-people, the ones who say no to everything. Every party needs a pooper — let's invite some Christians. That is not our role. We are also here to liven things up.
Let me get a little technical. The mood of that verb is indicative. It is not a command. Jesus is not telling you what to do; he is telling you what you already are. If you follow him as Lord, you are the salt of the earth — so now think and act and live like it.
That is why the last thing I say in the benediction is live the life. What we do in here on a Sunday is not a one-hour spasm with no bearing on the rest of your week.
There is a warning attached. Salt degrades if you leave it exposed, and when that happens to Jesus's people — when we let our faith and our vitality decay — we are not much use to the world, or to the Lord.
You are the light of the world. Same mood, same logic. And notice: when the Pharisees criticized Jesus, they never once said he was a bore, a stick in the mud, no fun. They complained that he was too lively for their taste. He ate dinner with the wrong people, and he seemed to like them.
What we are to do
D. L. Moody wrote that a holy life makes the deepest impression: lighthouses blow no horns, they only shine.
I read that quote out loud once, in another church far away, and afterward an older gentleman came up to me — a seasoned sailor. Pastor, he said, that's not true. Lighthouses shine, all right. But if they see a ship in trouble, heading for the rocks, they make a great deal of noise. They warn that ship: you are in danger, alter your course.
So yes, we shine. And when we need to, we raise our voices. That is why we speak up for the preborn child, against abortion and against human trafficking — nobody should own another human being. That is why Christians work to eradicate disease and hunger, even in countries that are no friend of ours. We believe every human being, whatever their age or race or ability or bank balance, is made in the image of God and owed dignity and respect.
And a great deal of it is ordinary. Be the person at work who refuses to cut an ethical corner. Be the person who actually cares about their coworkers, their neighbors, their students — including the ones with different politics and worse taste in music.
How we are to live
I have not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them.
I am not the world's biggest football fan, but try this. Four quarters are played, the score is tied, and the game goes to overtime, where the rules are different. Does that mean the first sixty minutes meant nothing? No — those sixty minutes are what got you to overtime. The law and the prophets were the rules at the time, and they brought us to the point where Messiah could take the stage. He fulfilled what we never could. He took the punishment we deserved and handed us his righteousness instead.
Which leads to one last shock. Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Anyone listening would have thought: then who can possibly be saved? Nobody out-righteouses a Pharisee.
But there was one person on that hillside whose righteousness did exceed theirs. It was the man saying it.
Salt. Light. Life. Who we are to be, what we are to do, how we are to live. And now some more words that changed the world: this is my body, which is broken for you.
