Lenten Series
You are the Salt of the Earth 

John
And from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Both
Amen

Ed
Lent is one of the grand worship events in the life of the church.  For the past seventeen hundred years Christians have been coming on Ash Wednesday to begin their walk to Good Friday.  For seventeen hundred years Christians have gathered together to focus on Christ, and asked the question: “What does it means to be disciples of Christ, to be people of the Cross.” We here at Grace Lutheran are part of that long processional of seventeen hundred years.    

John
And in the tradition of Lent here at Grace Lutheran Church we have always done a  series for Lent – we have chosen a series that we think would be interesting and developed that throughout the season of Lent.  So for this year we have chosen a series on the Sermon of the Mount.  The Sermon on the Mount is found in Matthew 5, 6 and 7.

Why is this important.  The Sermon on the Mount are all of the teachings of Jesus kind of all pulled  into one section..  If you were to go through all of the gospels and collect all of the important teachings of Jesus and pulled them together into one section – that is what we have here. The Sermon on the Mount.  And also, this is the oldest layer of the gospel, and in the oldest layer here we find more Aramaisms than any place else.  That indicates Jesus’ original language and indicates a very old section of the gospel.  So here we are going through the Sermon on the Mount  - a very significant part of the Scriptures – Jesus’ primary teachings all rolled into one section.

Ed
Now in this oldest section of the gospel – these primary teachings of Jesus – Jesus gives us his fundamental moral law for what it means to be a New Testament Christian.

Now for the Jews in the Old Testament, what their guideline? What was their guideline for the Jews in the Old Testament?  The Ten Commandments – that was their moral guide. But in the New Testament, the Ten Commandments are no longer the moral guide.  Instead, there is a new moral guide – the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount are the new moral guide for Christians.

John
Another interesting thing is that this section – the Sermon on the Mount - is not about doctrinal issues as important as doctrinal issues are. Rather, the Sermon on the Mount is  about everyday life. It is about the important things of life – about everyday struggles that we all go through – things like anger and sexuality, revenge, prayer, money, anxiety, clothes, judging others. It is all about this “gut level” kind of stuff.  Things all of us face as Christians.  

Ed
All of us. Children, youth, young adults, middle aged, older people. Jesus is addressing all of us when he says,  “You, you, you” and in Greek the accent is on the word You – You, you are the  

John
Me?  

Ed
You –  and me. You are the salt of the earth.  You, you and you.  

John
Does that mean everybody?  

Ed
No, not everyone  That is, we are very keenly aware that  not everyone who says that they are a Christian  is a Christian.  Rather those people who are truly committed about being a disciple of Jesus.  Who are serious about Jesus Christ.    

The crowds were left down in the lake.  Jesus took his true disciples up onto the hillside and to his true disciples, to those people who were truly serious about Jesus, Jesus said, “You, you and you, you are the salt of the earth.”

John
But…  

Ed
But…  

John
But if the salt loses its saltiness, of what value is it?   What is it worth?  Matthew was very clear.  He says that salt that loses its saltiness is no good for anything except to be sprinkled on the pathway (John takes out a salt shaker and shakes it on the floor and John and Ed trample on that salt as a visual aid.) and trampled underfoot. But I like what Luke says about salt that loses its saltiness. Luke says – his words are stronger – Luke says the salt that has lost its saltiness is so worthless that the only thing it is good for is  to be thrown on to the dung heap.  

Ed
On to the dung heap?  

John
On to the dung heap!  So basically, what Jesus is saying is that salt that has lost its saltiness ain’t worth doodoo.  

Ed
Ain’t worth doodoo?  

John
Ain’t worth doodoo.  

Ed
All of you kids who are taking notes on the sermon tonight, here is the title for the sermon.  The title for the sermon tonight is,  

Both John and Ed together
“Ain’t worth Doodoo”.  

John
That is spelled d-o-o-d-o-o. The text for tonight’s sermon is Matthew 5:13.  

Ed
Now it is important for us to hear what the Bible thinks about salt.  For you and me, salt is a part of our everyday life, and salt was also very important in Biblical times. But they used salt in different ways in Biblical times. For instance, did they have refrigerators during those days? No. Big walk-in coolers? No. Ice-making machines?  In hot Palestine,

there was no electricity, no refrigeration, no coolers. Therefore, what did they need?  They needed salt.  They would take salt and put it on the fish in order to preserve the fish and other food for the winter season.  You absolutely had to have salt if you were going to have food for winter.  Salt was very valuable.  

John
Another image that was very important is that salt was understood by the Greeks to be one of the purest of substances.  It was one of the purest of substances because it came from two of the most pure of places then.  It came from the sun and the sea. And so salt was seen as pure – the white glistening nature of salt reminded people of purity.  A pure substance.  That is an important image to understand when you talk about salt.  

Ed
Salt was incredibly valuable. They said that a man’s life was worth a bag of salt.

They said that salt was like gold.  In fact you paid people salt for their work. In fact, the Latin word for salt and the Latin word for salary are the same word.  Do you understand that? That the Latin word for salt and the Latin word for salary are the same word.  We will pay you your salt.  We pay you your salary for a days wage.  So when Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth”, Jesus was paying you the highest of compliments.  

John
And because salt was so valuable in biblical times, one of the things merchants would do to cheat their people and make a little extra money, was they would take the salt, the pure form of salt, and they would dilute it by mixing it with something that looked like salt, such as white sand.  And so when someone was buying salt, they thought they were getting pure salt.   When they got home they would find out that it has lost its saltiness. It wasn’t salty because it had been diluted so much with white sand.  

Ed
So that is what this text is all about.  Jesus was aware that disciples would cheat, dilute, water down, and weaken their discipleship, where they would put white sand into the salt and make it absolutely worthless.   

John
But what does this mean?  What does this mean for us that, we are supposed to be the salt of the earth?  What does this mean today?  

Ed
Salt is a moral preservative.  But Jesus said, “You – you – you – YOU are the salt of the earth.”  What Jesus means by that is that we are to preserve moral goodness.  We are to be the preservers of goodness and justice and kindness, and decency - the fundamental moral values.  You are to be a preserver of moral values in your home, your school, your neighborhood.  And without that preservation of moral values, a society becomes rotten.  It begins to stink. It begins to decay.  Without salt, a society starts to smell and acts rotten. I feel that many aspects of our society seem rotten to the core.  

John
You know, for me, something that really troubles me recently  –  I looks around and a person really has to have their head buried in the sand to not see what is happening all around us in the world today. The moral decay is absolutely incredible and you would have to be blind not to see it.  I mean it is all around.  For example:

Ed
Violence. Violence on TV, in the movies, on the news. Violence is everywhere. The surgeon general of the U.S.A. said that we have a national epidemic in our addiction to violence in our nation.    

John
Teen pregnancy is a still a horrendous problem. TV pornography.  

Ed
Aids. Aids has become the pandemic of the world, worse than the Bubonic plagues in the Middle Ages, killing hundreds of millions of people. How is it primarily spread? Illicit sex.  

John
Domestic abuse  

Ed
Swearing. You can’t walk in your school hallways without hearing four letter obscenities all around you. 

John
Cheating, etc in confirmation. The list goes on and on.  

Ed
So in Jesus’ real world and in  our  real world today, we need salt,  Jesus needs salty Christians.  Jesus needs the kind of Christians who are going to be a moral preservative, who will preserve the fundamental moral value of goodness and justice and decency. Jesus needs salty Christians.  

John
And I think everybody would agree with that.  Specifically, what does that mean for me personally?  I want to be the salt of the earth, like Jesus said. What does that mean to me personally?  

Ed
I think what that means is to lead a moral life – to lead a moral life.  Also..to speak up for moral values and to speak against those immoral values which you know are not good and just.  There are times in life when it is wise to be silent, but there are also times in life that it is important to speak out on moral issues. There at times in life where we need to speak out about it.

John
Well, it seems to me that if you are hanging out with some people and they are using Christ’s name in a way that really bothers you, or is offensive to you, you are to say something about it. Just say, “You know Jesus is an important  person to me and the way you are using God’s name, really bothers me.” We are to speak out about that.  

Ed
And when and if you do that, John, do you think others will say, ”Oh, thanks for telling me that, and I am so glad you brought that up.”  

John
I am afraid that it will be a little tougher than that.  

Ed
Yes, because we know that the very heart of salt is to be sharp.  There is a sharp taste to salt and when you speak like that you know that there is going to be negative consequences.  You know that people are going to pick on you and  that’s what it means to be a salty Christian. There is a sharpness in being a salty Christian.  

But let’s talk abut another one – let’s talk about cheating.  What are your experiences on cheating?

John
It seems to me that if you are in a situation like that, and you see someone cheating, it may not be appropriate to bring it up at that time in a public setting. But one should go to that person privately and say, “That is just not right. Cheating is not right. It is unfair to the rest of the class.”  

Ed
When you say that to your friends, do they say, “O thanks. Thanks for telling me that.” Absolutely not. Nobody is going to like you for doing those kinds of things and saying those kinds of words.  When you are honest and stand up for those things which are right, when you are a salty Christian, people are not going to say, “What a great guy you are.” Rather, there is ridicule, persecution, people make fun of you for being so religious and self righteous. How about changing sexual values in our society, John?

John
I think that many, many people struggle with in our society. Certainly young people in high school struggle with those kinds of pressures. And young adults. There are lots of pressures in our society when it comes to sexuality and what is right and good.  

Ed
It cuts across all segments of our society. People living outside of sexual boundaries. Paying the penalty for that. Paying the enormous painful consequences for that. Pretending that it is not going to hurt them and other people. So, what does it mean to be a salty Christian when it comes to sexual values?  

John
That is one of the toughest area of life. How to speak to someone about living an immoral life sexually? You say, “Hey, don’t you realize what you are doing?” We need to talk to those people and be bold about that.  

Ed
When you do that, do those people say, “Thanks for the good advice. Thanks for talking to me about this.” No, absolutely not. Any time you speak the will of God and are a salty Christian, people are not necessarily going to like that because the very essence of salt is that there is a sharpness to it. We know within our relationships with our family members and friends, there are times when it is wise to keep one’s mouth shut about moral improprieties and let one’s example speak. But there are also those moments when the time is right and we attempt to speak God’s moral word to our family member or friend.

John
So what are the consequences? Let’s say that you think to yourself, “I want to be a salty Christian.” Jesus wants us to be salty Christians. We know that. Those of us who are serious about Christ want to be salty Christians. So what are the consequences of that?  

Ed
You get accused of all kinds of things. You hear accusations such as these:  

John
 “You are being judgmental.”  

Ed
“You are so self righteous.”  

John
“Hypocrites. You are nothing but a hypocrite.”  

Ed
“You are nothing but a do gooder.”  

John
“Mind your own business”  

Ed
“You’re just a goodie two shoes.”  

John
“I’ll do what I want.”  

Ed
“My business is my business, and your business is your business.” And so we find all kinds of consequences when we are salty Christians. We all expect that kind of ridicule. Jesus said, “When you are a disciple of mine, a salty Christian, you expect to be ridiculed for taking a stand for Jesus Christ.”  

John
When you are with a group of your friends and your peers and you know that they are about to do something wrong and you don’t feel good about, do you have the guts to stand up to that group of your friends, “This is wrong and I am not going to be any part of it.” How many of you have the guts to stand up to your group of friends and make this statement, “This is wrong and I am not going to do it.” That is tough.  

Ed
And that is what Jesus wants us to do. John, I have this favorite quotation from Martin Luther. It is not about teenagers but about preachers. Luther says, “A preacher loses his salt. It happens when preachers no longer tell people the truth and show them their misery and their sinfulness nor do they press for genuine repentance. Bishops and successful preachers are the smartest of people. They preach in a lovely manner, calculated to keep themselves out of trouble, calculated to say things in such a way is that they will be paid a big salary, prosperity, honor and power by refusing to tell the truth, by refusing to salt the people.” When I read that about Martin Luther and what he said about preachers, I never wanted to that said about you are me, that we had lost our salt.

John
Jesus took his disciples, those people who were truly committed, up to the mountainside. Jesus sat his true disciples down. Jesus looked at them and paid them the highest compliment when he said to them, “You…..you…..you….. you…..you…..You are the salt of the earth.  

Ed
But if the salt has lost its flavor.  

Both John and Ed
It ain’t worth doodoo. Amen.


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