God’s People are Light and Salt, Part 1

Matthew 5:13

St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
August 17, 2025
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes

Mrs. Moore taught at Fort Lupton High School for over forty years, and she is now a favorite substitute teacher. When students and teachers see her, they reach out to her with smiles and hugs.

This summer, Mrs. Moore and her husband traveled to Japan, and she reflected. The scenery in Japan was stunning, and it was a daily reminder of God’s grandeur and omnipotence.” She continued, “and then we come home and we learn about homicides and tragedies in our communities and around our country.”

The ongoing narrative of the human condition. Look at the news headlines: Early this morning: “Three dead, eight wounded in early morning restaurant shooting.” Five days ago: “CDC shooting in Atlanta.” Six days ago: “Police identify suspect after three people killed in shooting at Target parking lot.”

What words describe your reaction to these tragedies? Horror? Outrage? Anger? Grief? You’re shocked, but you’re probably not surprised. As of yesterday, August 16th, there have been 272 mass shootings in the United States in 2025, and the year is only eight months old.

The fact that we’re shocked but not surprised is one of the most tragic parts of these tragedies. It’s easy to lose hope, to believe that this is just the way things are now and that there’s nothing you and I can do to make a difference.

But hopelessness is the wrong way to respond. We must find a way to make a difference of some kind. Counselors tell us that when dealing with grief, doing something positive for someone else is vital. For them, of course, but for ourselves as well.

British comedian and actor Paul Shane Spear stated, “As one person, I cannot change the world, but I can change the world of one person.”

This week, as we continue studying Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we come to one of the greatest compliments paid to anyone in all of Scripture. We’ll learn that it applies to us. And we’ll learn how God can use even our lives to change the world, one soul at a time.

The next time you get discouraged about our fallen planet, remember what we’ll learn today. And decide to be who Jesus says you really are.

Who is spiritual salt?

“You are the salt of the earth,” says Jesus of Nazareth. Following his Beatitudes, these words begin the most famous sermon in human history. Every single word deserves our attention this morning.

“You”: Jesus’ word is plural, not singular. Whatever it means to be the “salt of the earth,” it means it for every one of Jesus’ followers.

No matter how mature spiritually you may think you are or are not, no matter what you know about your faith, if you are Jesus’ follower you are the “salt of the earth.” You may not know much, but then neither did they at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry with them. If you follow Jesus, you are addressed here. You are included.

No matter what your past has been. These disciples were of little account in the world’s eyes. While they were successful businessmen, Galileans were seen as second-class citizens compared to the city sophisticates in Jerusalem and Judea.

Tax collectors would join their number, and farmers, and prostitutes and slaves. And murderers. God always uses surprising things to do his work. Dust to make Adam, a rib to make Eve. A desert bush to call Moses. A slingshot to defeat Goliath. A baby in Bethlehem to save the world.

No matter what your future may be. Every disciple addressed initially by these words would die a criminal’s death except one, and he was a convicted felon.

We all have something in our life which we think exempts us from being used fully by Jesus. Failures, shame, insecurities, inabilities. But the Bible says, “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him” (1 Corinthians 1:27–29).

Jesus knew we’d need help believing it. And so, his Greek is emphatic, literally translated “You, yes, you.”

“Are”: This is a present-tense statement. It’s true right now, of every one of us.

This is not a status you are to work to attain. You are the salt of the earth, at this very moment. If Jesus is your Lord, you’re in his spiritual saltshaker. This is who you are.

And it’s your nature, not just your location at church or your work during the week. Salt is always salt, no matter where it’s found. Whatever it happens to be doing. Whether it’s sitting in the saltshaker as we are this morning, or part of the ocean, or flavoring a potato. It is always and everywhere sodium chloride, salt.

You are Jesus’ hands and feet: “You are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27). Right now.

“The”: The Greek uses the definite article, so that it can be translated, “You and you alone are the salt of the earth.”

Jesus’ description is true only of us. There are no others. These words are addressed only to his followers. This function cannot be fulfilled by political leaders, or military generals, or economists or business leaders, or doctors, lawyers, teachers, athletes, or musicians.

And not only by preachers, elders, or staff    members. Not only by seminary graduates. There is no clergy/laity distinction in the Bible. Every member has a ministry. Every person is saved to serve. “You will be my witnesses,” Jesus says to us all.

Being “the salt of the earth” is a calling we each fulfill. And we alone.

What does spiritual salt do?

So, what is it that we each are uniquely? The “salt of the earth.” In first-century eyes, this would be the highest compliment Jesus could possibly pay his followers. Salt was so valuable in the ancient world that it was considered to be worth a man’s weight in gold. The ancients would choose salt over gold. Why?

First, salt was the only means of preserving food in the first century.

There was no refrigeration, of course. No way to keep food. During the routine crop failures and economic depressions that plagued them, salted meat and food were all they had with which to survive.

And so, we exist to preserve the world spiritually. God created the world to be good. In fact, when his creation was completed, he called it “very good” (Genesis 1:31). But human abuse of our spiritual freedom led to the “fall” which changed everything. Now “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

You and I exist to preserve the world spiritually. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). The only hope for mankind to be preserved from spiritual, eternal death is the gospel we exist to give the world. The message of the Church is the only spiritual hope of the world. And of your neighbors and friends. For whom are you the “salt of the earth”?

Second, salt was the primary purification agent in the first century.

Rubbing salt onto meat or food was their only way to purify it so it wouldn’t poison them. Rubbing salt into wounds, as painful as this is, was their only way to clean the wound so it wouldn’t become infected and kill them. Salt was the penicillin of the ancient world.

Christians are the purification agents of the earth. We are to be examples of purity in all we do. James 1:27 admonishes us to “keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

You know some Christians whose lives are so pure and moral that they encourage you to be pure and moral as well. It is said that when people saw George Truett, the longtime pastor of First Church in Dallas, on a downtown sidewalk, they would stop and stare. There was something about him, a godliness and purity, which caught their attention. And he made others want to be godly and pure as well.

Who is godlier because they know you? For whom are you the “salt of the earth”?

Third, salt was the chief seasoning for common people.

Most had no access to expensive imported spices. They had no way to make food palatable except with salt.

Christians are the seasoning of the earth. Jesus promised that he came “that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).

Salt makes you thirsty and seasons what you eat. Who wants the faith they see in you? For whom are you the “salt of the earth”?