In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spoke to a crowd of people gathered around him to hear his words of wisdom. He spoke to them about who they would be as they carried his words to a weary and crooked world. He called them salt and light.
My husband is a kidney doctor, so he thinks a lot about salt and his patients and how badly their kidneys are at filtering out salt. He wants them to really limit their salt! And if you think about it, as you work on a recipe, the smallest thing you probably add is salt: it doesn’t take much, a sprinkling, or a half-teaspoon. You might use cups of other things, but just a little bit of salt is all you need.
Jesus knew that for the foreseeable future, there would only be a sprinkling of Jesus people in the world. They would scatter from his Sermon, and be dispersed widely, one or two here and there. But if they did their work of saltiness, the good news of Jesus would be savored and passed along here and there, more and more widely. So it was important for them to retain their saltiness. (Some ancient kinds of cooking salt did lose saltiness, and when that happened, it went straight into the garbage.) Jesus wants us even now, to be the salt of the earth.
Jesus wanted his followers to be the light of the world. He first called to mind the sight of a city on a hill, shining its light on a larger landscape. Then he went smaller; he called to mind a little candle or lamp that was the only source of light in a darkened house—just a small flame, and yet, if it was uncovered and on a lampstand, it warmed and lit the whole house. Jesus taught that he wanted his followers to be like that, and he told them that when their light shined, people would be drawn to the light and would see their good works and give glory to God. Their small flame would light the way to God.
Both of these images, salt and light, are about small beginnings, small numbers, but with a big effect for God, a big effect that spreads the good news of the gospel far and wide!