Matthew 5: A Radical Call to Be Salt and Light

Introduction

"Tie your toque on with wire, because this morning is going to be radical." David Pothier, pastor of la Chapelle in Montreal, continues his series on the Sermon on the Mount, which he calls "the greatest sermon in history." The week before, the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) offered an invitation: Jesus invites everyone to enter his kingdom. This time, the text is Matthew 5:13-16.

The title of the message: a radical call to influence. The pastor sets out a premise right away and keeps repeating it: "Your identity will determine your activity, and your activity will determine your influence."

Jesus doesn't only tell his followers what to do. He tells them who they are: the salt of the earth, the light of the world. And he warns them of two dangers: letting their salt become contaminated and hiding their light.

Message outline

1. Your identity determines your activity

• For the pastor, no era has known identities as confused as ours. Today people debate the meaning of words like man, woman, father or mother. He isn't surprised: Paul writes in Romans 1 that when people forget their Creator, identity becomes blurred.
• "The most important thing about you is your identity." Your way of thinking, your self-esteem, your values, your worldview, the way you handle your money and your priorities all flow from it.
• It was true for Jesus. He said "I am the bread of life," and he fed the crowds. He said "I am the good shepherd," and he cared for souls. "When you know who you are, you know how to act."
• When you don't know who you are, you become whoever the room wants you to be, you believe everything you are taught at college or university, and you think, speak and act like everyone else.
• Some come to celebrate what they would never have celebrated ten or twenty years ago. The reason, according to him: they look for their identity in the wrong place, in the approval of people or of their children, in their emotions, their urges, their political convictions, their money, their career or their appearance.

2. A given identity: son, daughter, disciple

• The world teaches that you choose your identity. In God's kingdom, "you don't choose your identity. It is given to you by God. You simply have to walk in it."
• The first identity in the Gospel of Matthew is that of Jesus at his baptism: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). It is also the first one God wants to give you: son or daughter of God. "It's not a choice, it's a gift. It's free."
• In chapter 4, those who decide to follow Jesus receive another identity: disciple.
• In Matthew 5:13-14, Jesus adds two layers: "You are the salt of the earth" and "You are the light of the world." Both images speak of influence. The question put to each person: will you stubbornly insist on choosing your own identity, or will you accept the one God has already given you?

3. The salt of the earth: adding flavor and preserving

• In Jesus' day, salt was very valuable. Historical records mention Roman soldiers being paid in salt, and people ate it when making covenants and contracts.
• Salt adds flavor. The pastor smiles at the thought: who eats fries without salt, apart from someone who has to? The disciple is called to add flavor to a bland world, notably through their words, which are to be "seasoned with salt" (Colossians 4:6).
• But the main function of salt was preservation. Without refrigerators, meat and fish spoiled quickly, so they were packed in salt to keep them for a long time.
• The world tends toward chaos and decay. The pastor points to redefined marriage, the nuclear family seen as a threat, a majority calling good evil and evil good, parents who think they don't love their children if they say no to them, and a deteriorating political leadership.
• In the Greek, the "you" is emphatic. After inviting the crowds, Jesus turns to his disciples. Not everyone is the salt of the earth, only those who choose to follow him. But when a group of disciples takes on this identity, the Church can change a neighborhood, stop a city from decaying, hold back God's judgment on a nation and carry "a prophetic voice in a world that desperately needs truth."

4. Don't let your salt be contaminated

• "If the salt has lost its flavor, with what will it be salted?" The pastor says he is not a chemist, but salt is a stable element. It only loses its flavor if impurities contaminate it.
• That is what happens when we start watching, doing and saying impure things, or going to impure places. The salt becomes contaminated, and we lose both its flavor and our influence.
• Then we start thinking like everyone else, saying what everyone says, and following the crowd so as not to be rejected or ridiculed.
• His question to the congregation: "Are you losing your flavor because contaminants have entered your life?"
• The remedy is concrete: some things may need to be cut out, removed. "Maybe you need to cancel your subscription."

5. The light of the world: what Israel did not accomplish, Jesus entrusts to his Church

• In the Old Testament, Israel was called to be a light to the nations. It wasn't favoritism: God had chosen Israel to show the world what a blessed life looks like when you walk with him.
• Israel failed. Instead of being salt and light, the people became like everyone else, and sometimes worse than the nations around them.
• Then Jesus arrives. Matthew 4:16 announces it: "The people who sat in darkness saw a great light." Jesus does what Israel did not do. He represents God perfectly.
• But Jesus knows he is going back to the Father. So that the light would keep shining, he turns to his small community of disciples and says to them: you.
• This "you" is plural. Nobody salts their steak with a single grain of salt. "You can't be the salt of the earth on your own. You need the flavor of your brother, you need the flavor of your sister." That is why you need the Church every week and a disciple-making group, which la Chapelle calls a "5 à 7."

6. Don't hide your light: faith is not private

• Jesus gives two images: a city built on a mountain, which can be seen from far away at night, and a lamp that nobody lights only to put it under a basket, "in good Quebec French, a pail." Nobody does that.
• Why does Jesus bring it up? Because we tend to hide our light. "When you shine in the darkness, you become an easy target." That is the meaning of the last beatitude: "Blessed are you when people reproach you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake" (Matthew 5:11).
• Jesus is both the most loved and the most hated person in history. With him, there is no neutrality. Some face pressure at work because of their faith, guilty by association. The pastor makes clear he is not talking about the employee who arrives late and stays on his phone.
• He mentions the American novelist Anne Rice. Not yet a believer, she had wanted to write a work of fiction about the life of Jesus and had read the scholars' work. She was stunned by the visceral hatred some researchers had toward him, a hatred she had seen on no other subject.
• A very widespread lie, which in his view the government keeps repeating: religion is supposedly a private matter. The temptation is to answer "nothing" when a coworker asks what you did over the weekend, or to buy a farm and live in your bubble.
• Jesus says the opposite: "Everyone therefore who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 10:32-33).
• The pastor quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor under the Nazi regime, who went into exile in the United States, returned to Germany, and died a martyr: "A community of Jesus that seeks to hide has already stopped following him."
• He admits that for a long time he stayed silent on certain subjects from the pulpit for fear that the church would lose its building. "We lost it anyway." He no longer wants to hide his light, even if it costs another building.

7. Shining through good works, while staying under the light

• "Even so, let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).
• Two mistakes stand opposed. On one side, those who say it is enough to do good without ever speaking about Jesus. On the other, those who shout at people in the street, in an inappropriate and aggressive way.
• Good works include works of compassion, proclaiming the good news, and a character that reflects that of Jesus: being merciful, making peace, keeping joy in persecution. Paul sums it up in Philippians 2:14-16: shining as "lights in the world, holding up the word of life." Reducing good works to doing good around you is already a way of hiding the light.
• One example: the mathematician John Lennox, professor emeritus at Oxford, a guest on Steven Bartlett's podcast The Diary of a CEO, who is not a Christian. After the toughest questions about Christianity, the host confided that he felt like considering it, because his guest was "such a being of light."
• Jesus is also aiming at the Essenes, who withdrew to the desert because the world was too impure and called themselves "sons of light." Nobody lights a lamp to hide it in the closet.
• How do you start? Pray in the morning: "Lord, show me where you are already at work today." When God puts someone on your heart, take the person aside and ask: "Can I pray for you? How could I pray for you?" At worst, they will say no, and you will pray anyway. "Don't be a jerk": we are not here to attack people.
• To avoid the legalism of "I have to shine," the pastor uses the image of the sun and the moon. The moon doesn't produce light, it reflects it. "You're not a sun, you're a moon." The secret: stay under the light, spend time with Jesus every day, fifteen minutes before work, Scripture on your break.
• For some, it will be "a stench from death," for others "a sweet aroma from life" (2 Corinthians 2:16). Some will persecute, others will turn to God and glorify him "in the day of visitation" (1 Peter 2:12). The message ends with an invitation to follow Jesus, to which several people responded.

Key takeaways

• Your identity determines your activity, and your activity determines your influence. You don't choose your identity: God gives it to you.
• Salt adds flavor and preserves. It only loses its flavor if it is contaminated by impurities.
• Jesus' "you" is plural: nobody is the salt of the earth alone, the Church is.
• Faith is not only private. Jesus calls us to confess him before men, even under pressure.
• You don't produce the light, you reflect it. Stay under the light of Jesus, and your good works will make it seen.

Personal application

1. Where are you looking for your identity today: in other people's approval, your emotions, your career, your opinions, or in what God says about you?
2. What contaminant has entered your life and is making your salt lose its flavor? What do you need to cut out or unplug?
3. In what recent situation did you answer "nothing" rather than let your faith show?
4. Who is God putting on your heart this week, and will you dare to ask them how you can pray for them?
5. What daily moment will you set aside to stay under the light of Jesus?

Verses cited

• Matthew 5:13-16
• Matthew 5:1-12
• Romans 1
• John 6:35
• John 10:11
• Matthew 3:17
• Colossians 4:6
• Matthew 4:16
• Matthew 5:11
• Matthew 10:32-33
• Philippians 2:14-16
• 2 Corinthians 2:16
• 1 Peter 2:12

Frequently asked questions

What does "you are the salt of the earth" mean?

In Jesus' day, salt added flavor, but its main function was to preserve food. For David Pothier, Jesus' disciples are called to add flavor to a bland world and slow its decay, carrying a prophetic voice in a world that needs truth.

How can salt lose its flavor?

Salt is a stable element: it only loses its flavor if impurities contaminate it. In the same way, what we watch, what we do and the places we go can contaminate a Christian, who ends up thinking and talking like everyone else and loses their influence.

Is faith a private matter?

No, says David Pothier. Jesus says in Matthew 10:32-33 that whoever confesses him before men, he will confess before his Father, and whoever denies him, he will also deny. Faith is lived in private too, but it cannot stay only private: nobody lights a lamp to put it under a basket.