I don’t remember when I first heard Jesus’ words about being salt and light. I grew up in a good Lutheran church, and my family went every Sunday. I went to VBS and a church camp in the summer, and I’m sure I learned to sing “This Little Light of Mine” as a preschooler, and I knew what “hide it under a bushel, NO” meant before I could tell you what a bushel was.
The song is cute and fun, but I was always unsettled by Jesus’ words. He says we are the salt of the earth, but he gives a warning. What if I lose my saltiness? If I lose my saltiness, I can’t be made salty again, and I will be thrown out and trampled underfoot. How do I make sure that doesn’t happen?
From a very early age, there was this underlying worry in my faith that amounted to doubts of whether I was enough—good enough, faithful enough, prayerful enough, loving enough. Many Christians might relate to those feelings. When we read Jesus’ parables, there are wise and foolish maidens, or sheep and goats, or several servants in charge of talents. Each story invites us to find ourselves in those characters and imagine all the ways we fit into the different categories. This is a key part of Jesus’ teaching, but more than a rhetorical tool, it is God’s word at work, transforming us.
But if God’s word is going to do its proper work, we need to learn to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). God’s word has two parts that are active in our experience of it, and each part does exactly what God sends it to do. The first part is the law. The law convicts us of our sin and puts to death our sinful selves (see Galatians 3:19-26 and Romans 7:7-25 for more). The law prepares our hearts for the second part of God’s word to do its job. The Gospel is the second part, and it saves us! The Gospel resurrects what the law put to death.
Unfortunately, we humans tend to like one more than the other, and we would rather have the word of God tailored to our taste. Some of us are very bent toward justice, and we like the law. We want things to be fair, and we want to earn everything we have coming to us or we don’t want it at all. This doesn’t work; we can only find peace with God on God’s terms. There is no earning through the law, which only the Gospel can give.
On the other hand, some of us would rather not have the law at all. Can it all be love and good feelings? If the law is going to convict me of sin, let’s go with the Gospel only, thank you. This is kind of like trying to stay healthy by eating only sugar—it just doesn’t work like that.
Instead, only the law can deal with sin, and only the Gospel can set us free from the burden of the law. Now, as we see ourselves, we can be honest with our failings and the power of God’s grace to transform so that God’s word will work through us for the sake of others.
Prayer:
Holy and gracious God, you are perfect in every way, and there is no limit to your mercy. Thank you for the law and for helping me submit to it. Thank you for the Gospel and the freedom from sin and death only it can give. As I go into the world with salt and light, work in me for the sake of the world through the law and the Gospel. Bring your salvation, and may your kingdom come. Amen.
Reflection:
- What are some ways your salt has lost its saltiness? How have you hidden your light? Confess your sins to God.
- Receive God’s forgiveness; if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, but if we confess, he is faithful to forgive. You are forgiven. As you are forgiven, you are also sent so that through you the law and Gospel would be at work in the world.