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Friends,
in today’s Gospel Jesus uses the images of salt and light to show how
we are to bring salvation to the world. In our rather privatized and
individualistic culture, we tend naturally to think of religion as
something for ourselves designed to make our lives richer or better. Now
there is a sense in which that is true, but on the Biblical reading,
religiosity is like salt, light, and an elevated city: it is meant not
for oneself, but for others.
Perhaps
we can bring these two together by saying that we find salvation for
ourselves precisely in the measure that we bring God’s life to others.
The point is that we followers of Jesus are meant to be salt, which
effectively preserves and enhances what is best in the society around
us. We effectively undermine what is dysfunctional in the surrounding
culture.
We
are also light by which people around us come to see what is worth
seeing. By the very quality and integrity of our lives, we shed light,
illumining what is beautiful and revealing what is ugly. The clear
implication is that, without vibrant Christians, the world is a much
worse place.
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