13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.
In the 70s, symphony conductor and composer, Leonard Bernstein wrote a kind of an opera/musical called “Mass” which the story of the celebrant of a Roman Catholic Mass and his faith and loss of it, and restoration, told within the parts of the Christian Liturgy. . The opening is “Simple Song”. Part of the song’s lyric has stuck with me now for years, “Sing like you like to sing; God loves all simple things. For God is the simplest of all” A simple man is a humble man. Jesus said, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.(St. Matthew 11). God is the humblest of all, compared to the preening of his creation, man. Man, wanting to be like God, will only say I am humble to impress someone. Someone wrote, How odd of God to choose the Jews. Only odd to man who thinks he’s god. He chose a people needing choosing, despite themselves, Israel. He chose as His first disciples 3 fishermen. He began the Sermon on the Mount with beatitudes with the first Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. His blessing is simple. For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar. Psalm 138: 8 And before Sermon on the Mount, the Lord simply called His first disciples.
One day Carl asked Jesus:
He called, the fishermen followed but it is in the Lord’s calling they followed, by His Word. He baptized, we follow, all His Words from love your enemies to seek ye first the kingdom of God, coming to realize only by staying close to Him as He is to us, we are not straying. Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. His last beatitude before today’s Gospel, Blessed are you when you are persecuted. The message of His forgiveness will not be received well in self-sufficient, self-made, self-invented world that is Olympic in it’s ambitions.
You are and you are, the salt of the earth, the light of the world. The Lord loves simple things, after all He created them. We take salt and light for granted yet without salt and light there would be no life on the earth. The first thing the Lord created was light. He created salt to sustain life. Salt and light are so simple. You are the salt of the earth, the light the word: these are plain declarative sentences. They are not imperatives, You must be the salt of the earth, you must be the light of world. There is nothing to achieve in our Lord’s declarative statements but everything to receive by faith in His call to us all. It is you He redeemed to be salt and light and they are meant to be in the earth, here and now. It makes not sense to light a candle and put it under a basket! Maybe we, as a mission, should not be hidden away here in the Piovano room here in the library.
Jesus is describing His Church, His own Body. Salt is bitter and is so different from that which it preserves, seasons and yes, saves. Light is so different from darkness so that we can see the way and yes, be saved. The Apostle Paul really only had one mission strategy: “ For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. We have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, so good that He died alone, shamed, bloody and naked on the cross to save us from even our selves. So good, He rose again from the dead and gives us His Body and blood, taste and see the Lord is good, His mercy endures forever, as the psalmist prayed. The Cross is so different from the tasteless and dark world. If any pastor or minister in his preaching and sermons does not lead always to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he’s not doing his job. The apostle Paul said we preach Christ and Him crucified, present tense. Jesus Christ is the present tense Savior for present tense sinners. His Word pierces the darkness as to who He saves us to be: the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Our righteousness is to exceed that of the Pharisees. And, as Pr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer commented on this lesson: “…the disciple had the advantage over the Pharisee in that his doing of the law is in fact perfect. How is such a thing possible? Because between the disciples and the law stands one who has perfectly fulfilled it, one with whom they live in communion. They are faced not with a law which has never yet been fulfilled, but with one whose demands have already been satisfied.” The righteousness it demands is already there, the righteousness of Jesus which submits to the cross because that is what the law demands. Jesus Christ was born under it that in Him we have the righteousness that comes by faith, exceeding the law. He deepens our righteousness into our very hearts and will as we will see next week.
A few years back I saw an ad for this kind of hand-held olive wood cross with this ad copy, ““Shaped to comfortably fit into the palm of your hand as you pray and meditate, crafted to inspire you with its deep meaning in your faith.” The cross is no talisman. His Cross is not about fitting comfortably into the world but that we be comforted and fit into His hand, forgiven, loved before the foundations of the world. Pastors, congregations, have tried so many ways to make the church tasty to attract new members, or maybe consumers. A comedian once quipped that when he came back to church, in addition to communion, they now have a salad bar. Trying to be tasty, we become tasteless. Our calling is not to use the salt but not to lose the savor of His grace, mercy and peace in our lives. Our good works in our Monday through Saturday life will point not to our selves but to Him, which we won’t even know we are doing pointing to Him who is our beatitude, our righteousness and peace. His Cross is not fitting comfortably into the world but that we be comforted and fit into His hand, forgiven, loved before the foundations of the world and we will look different than the world, in Him we point to him, who bore the Cross, we preach Christ and Him crucified, a present-tense Savior for present tense sinners, forgiven. I conclude with a portion of a sermon preached by Pr. Johann Gerhard:
The Lord the Master, dies instead of the servants
In place of the debtors, the Faithful One;
The Physician dies for the good of the patient;
The Shepherd rescues His sheep,
The King dies for the sins of His subjects;
The Peace-maker for the warriors;
The Creator dies for His creation;
God Himself wins man’s salvation!
What now should the servant, the debtor,
the sick one, the sheep, the nation, the multitude do? What should the creatures, mankind, do?
In love extol his Redeemer!
The peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Concordia and Koinonia 
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