Have I Realized I Have Been Made Salt and Light?

A life of Sunday-only Christianity has never transformed anyone.  Perhaps imagining that Christianity is a once a week activity has left many people inside as well as outside feeling disappointed.

We must never give anyone a chance to say, "If that is a Christian, then I never want to be one." Instead, our lives ought to motivate people to say, "That is what I want my life to be.

We have covered two sub series Prayer in Jesus’ Style and Happiness in Jesus’ style. The purpose of this Lenten Meditation Cross in Jesus style is to make our lives, and live out our lives as Jesus lived. We today begin a new series Change makers in Jesus’ style and For our brief meditation let us turn our Bible’s to

You are the salt of the earth.

You are the light of the world.

Matthew 5:13a, 14a

There is an ancient legend first told by Christians living in the catacombs under the streets of Rome which pictures the day when Jesus went back to glory after finishing all his work on earth. The angel Gabriel meets Jesus in heaven and welcomes Him home. "Lord," he says, "Who have You left behind to carry on Your work?"
Jesus tells him about the disciples, the little band of fishermen and farmers and housewives.
"But Lord," says Gabriel, "what if they fail You? What if they lose heart, or drop out? What if things get too rough for them, and they let you down?"
Well, says Jesus, then all I've done will come to nothing!
"But don't You have a backup plan?" Gabriel asks. "Isn't there something else to keep it going, to finish Your work?"
No, says Jesus, there's no backup plan. The Church is it. There's nothing else.
"Nothing else?" says Gabriel. "But what if they fail?"
And the early Christians knew Jesus' answer. "They won't fail, Gabriel," He said. "They won't fail!"
Isn't that a marvelous thing?

That's what Jesus tells us in these verses. "You are the salt of the earth!" He says. "You are the light of the world! You are My witnesses!"

I cannot imagine what Jesus saw as he stood there looking into the faces of the people who gathered around him to hear him teach. They would have been dressed in the clothing of poor people. The men’s faces were probably all deeply creased from too much work in the sun, and their hands toughened by hard labor.  The women were probably exhausted by childbearing, childcare, and food preparation that started with gathering firewood and pounding grain by hand.

If he would have asked them, “Who are you?”  What would they have said?  “We are Israelites, under Roman oppression.  We are peasants.  We are poor.  We are powerless.  We are tired.  We look around, and everything is going downhill.  That is who we are.”

But Jesus looked at them and saw something else.  He saw beyond the rags and callouses.  He saw another identity.

He looked them and said:

    “You are the salt of the earth…you are the light of the world.”

You are the salt of the earth – that is who you are.

You are the light of the world – that is who you are.  That is your true identity.

If we carefully note – Jesus is not telling them “ You should be salt and light. “ There is no “should” here.  This is not an aspiration Jesus is laying out for them.  This is not a goal, it is a fact, already settled. in other words Jesus was saying, you are necessary; you are needed.  You have something precious, something valuable that the world cannot live without.

In a world in which power and wealth justify just about any evil under the sun, Jesus was saying, you have a vision of a better world. As badly as everyone needs salt, and as crucial for existence light is, you all are necessary for this world.

Dear Friends this Lenten Season, can we bear the salt of compassion and the light of justice deep within us and have a vision of a world of compassion and justice that can fire a movement of people who, together, can literally change the world.

May the Lord help us. God Bless you