Robert Barron - You Are the Salt of the Earth
Peace be with you. Friends, these weeks we're reading from the marvelous Sermon on the Mount, chapters five, six, and seven of the Gospel of Matthew. For your spiritual reading anytime of the day or night, go to those three chapters, and you see the Son of God laying out for us the program for life. So we talked about the Beatitudes last week. This week, something very interesting to me, and I don't think we aver to it as much as we should. Jesus now is speaking to his disciples, and he compares them to three things: "You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You are a city set on a hill".
Now we're accustomed to those three descriptions. We say, oh yeah, of course. But here's what I want you to see: all three of those things do not exist for themselves; they exist for something else. Let me say that again. They're not so much existing for themselves, for their own sake; they exist for the sake of something else. Now, what do I mean? Well, look at salt. You're the salt of the earth. In Jesus' time, so way before we had refrigeration and all that, it's a way that you preserved meat, especially if you had to send it or go on a journey or something. Only this kind of cured meat would be preserved, and salt had that power. It existed for the sake of something else to preserve something else.
Now, flip it around. Salt was also used in the ancient world to make sure that nothing ever grew in a place. So if one city conquered another or one nation conquered another, it'd burn down the city, tear down the walls, and they would salt the earth. Why? To make sure that nothing would ever grow there. It was a way you put the people to death, you put the animals to death, and then you made sure nothing would ever grow there. Salt was used for that purpose, for the sake of something else, to enhance, to preserve, and to destroy. You're the light of the world.
Well, think about it. We don't really see light. Light is that by which we see other things. Light is a means of illumination. It makes other things visible. It brings beautiful things to light. It enhances them. But think of this too. Light suddenly shining in a dark corner can reveal unsavory things. There are insects or there are vermin or something, and the light suddenly reveals them. Or you say, boy, I had no idea how dirty that corner of the room was till the light was on it. Didn't realize how weird I looked until I was photographed in direct sunlight, right? So the light can enhance. It can also reveal what's imperfect.
The point is it's for the sake of something else. How about a city set on a hill? Well a city obviously has its own integrity, but why did Jesus say a city set on a hill? Well, that's how people navigated in his time. Long before maps and GPS systems and all that, what they would do is they would find a landmark, like it's a hill or a mountain or a city. "See the city up there? I know I've got to go south of that or north of that". It was the means of navigation. Without the city set on a hill, I wouldn't know where I was going. Okay. What's he saying now to his disciples, that means to us? "You who follow me, you who take in my teaching, you are meant for others".
The purpose of this is not primarily to make you holy. That's in a way a means to an end. Jesus says, I'm making you holy and happy that you might become the vehicle by which others become holy and happy. I want to send you out into the world. I want you to be a beacon of light that illumines the way for others. I want you to be salt that preserves and enhances others. I want you to be a city set on the hill by which others navigate their lives. I wonder how often, everybody, we think of our spiritual lives that way. I bet not that often. We live in a self-help-oriented culture.
So what's religion all about? Well, it's to make me happy. Well, yeah, true enough. As we saw last week, it is meant to make me happy, but that's not the final goal. Oh, okay, I'm happy. Everything's fine. No, if you're happy, now you're a light for others, and that's why I've chosen you. If you're happy and holy, good. Now you're salt that's meant to preserve and enhance what's good and true and beautiful in the world. You're holy and happy, great. Now you be the city on the hill by which others guide their lives. Only then, my followers, are you really doing what I want you to do.
Now, the devastating line that follows: what if salt loses its savor? With what will it be re-salted? Salt that loses its savor is no good at all; doesn't preserve anything, doesn't destroy what needs destroying. It's lost its power. A light under a bushel basket, what good is that? That makes nothing beautiful around it. It exposes nothing that needs exposing. No, no, no. You're meant to shine. You're meant to enhance. And what will happen? See, here's the thing I want you to think about, everybody. What will happen if we lose our savor as Christians? The world around us will go bad. If I don't do my mission, the world around me will go bad. Things that are meant to be enhanced won't be enhanced. Things that are meant to be preserved won't be preserved. And things that are meant to be destroyed or challenged will not be destroyed or challenged.
See, that's the hinge upon which a lot of the spiritual life turns. Okay. Can I make this a little more concrete with some examples? I think one of the most painful truths of the last century, the twentieth century, which was by any measure the bloodiest on record. I mean, more people died brutally in the twentieth century than in all the previous centuries combined. The corpses piled up by the awful totalitarianisms and the awful warfare of the twentieth century would mock the destructiveness of previous centuries. But here's the thing that I find really disturbing. Where did all this mayhem take place? In the heart, very often, of deeply Christian civilizations.
Look at the twentieth century in Europe, Christian Europe: France, England, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Christian countries. Tens of millions of people slaughtered in the First World War. Second World War, even more killed. Yes, in those same countries, now add America, Canada, Australia to the mix, largely Christian countries. Where did the Holocaust happen? Greatest moral outrage of the twentieth century. Where did it happen? In the heart of Christian Europe. How do you explain that? Oh, it's Hitler and his wicked henchman.
Yeah, yeah, of course. Sure, sure. Nazi party, which came up out of the terrible aftermath of the First World War and the Versailles Treaty and the economic collapse in Germany. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure. All that's true. But I want to ask the spiritual question: Why was it that all of this mayhem happened in the very heart of a supposedly deeply Christian culture? Short answer, because a lot of salt had lost its savor, because a lot of lights were placed under bushel baskets, because an awful lot of Christians, let's be frank about it, everybody, an awful lot of Christians didn't care, looked the other way, or cooperated with it.
What will happen if the salt loses its savor? Nothing. Nothing will re-salt it. What will happen if Christians lose their power to witness, to illumine, to reveal darkness, to salt the earth where it needs to be salted? Why weren't more Christians putting salt in the earth of Nazism so it didn't grow? Why weren't more Christians getting in the way of this awful violence? Now, what's the other great moral outrage in the twentieth century? Just go a few miles east, the Communism that grew up in Russia, the Soviet Union. Stalin, arguably the greatest butcher in human history. Tens of millions of corpses piled up.
Russia? Last time I checked, supposedly a deeply Christian country. The Russian Orthodox Church gave rise to great saints and great heroes, beautiful liturgy, people like Dostoevsky. I mean wonderful Christian culture. But how come they didn't get in the way of the outrages of the twentieth century in Russia? How come they didn't salt the earth where they should have been salting the earth? How come the light wasn't shining in dark corners? How come Christians by their hundreds of millions were not blocking the way? Let's face it, an awful lot of Christians in Russia looked the other way, didn't care, or cooperated. That's deeply challenging stuff, everybody.
Now, lest we in this country say, "oh yeah, those terrible Germans and those terrible Russians," as I record these words, we just had the fiftieth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. Since Roe v. Wade in our country, more than sixty million have been aborted in our country. I mean, not to mention the kind of gun violence that dominates so many of our cities. But sixty million in this still largely Christian country. How do you explain that? Well, I know it's uncomfortable to say, but an awful lot of us Christians didn't get in the way of it, didn't shine our light where it should be shone, didn't salt the earth where it needed to be salted. But we acquiesced, cooperated, looked the other way. You are the salt of the earth, Jesus says.
You're the light of the world. You are. Not somebody else. Not, "oh, it's the bishops and priests, I guess". No, no, you, all of you, everyone baptized, all my disciples, all my followers. You are the light of the world. Don't put the light under a bushel basket. You are the salt of the earth. Well don't let the salt lose its savor. How is your Christianity, my Christianity, right now impacting the world around us? Oh, no, no. I don't want to be imposing my faith on anybody. Yeah, that might be the weird, modern etiquette, but that's not the Gospel.
"Who am I? Who am I to be imposing my views"? Well, yeah, that's a secular prejudice. It's not the Gospel. How is your Christianity, my Christianity, impacting the world around us, making it better and getting in the way of evil and wickedness? That's a challenging question, everybody, right at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. How do we think about our spiritual lives? For our benefit, or for the benefit of the world? I think everything will change depending on how you take in these words. And God bless you.