This Sunday’s gospel passage is strategically placed after the Sermon on the Mount, “the Beatitudes,” where Jesus sets out the path of life to be followed by those who decide to follow Him. I say strategic because in the narrative He declares His disciples – who have already begun a path of following – as: “salt of the earth” and “light of the world,” it is not a future affirmation, but rather, by freely accepting Jesus’ proposal to begin a journey with Him, they have already been transformed into what those two images represent.
Today it is necessary to explain the metaphorical content of the two images used by Matthew, however, in the Palestine of the 1st century, the language used by Jesus with the allusion to these two elements was easily understandable. “Salt and light” are very ancient symbols within the tradition of the people of Israel; they were part of the cultural anthropology of the southern Levant.
The “salt,” well known in the Middle East and especially in the land of Israel, since it was extracted from the Dead Sea, also known as the Salt Sea, was an essential ingredient in the gastronomic preparations of those peoples, especially when combined with some aromatic spices, giving a pleasant flavor to the food, which otherwise would be tasteless. Its use was not limited to food; it extended to other areas as an indispensable element for the preservation of organic matter, in medicine as an antiseptic, and in the liturgical-cultic sphere, it was used as a purifying element for sacrificial offerings.
Within the primordial values of the Semitic peoples, salt was a symbol of that which endures and gives consistency, alluding to honest behavior. In the New Testament writings, the semantic field of salt acquires a spiritual theological connotation, especially in Colossians and James (Col 4:6; James 3:12) where it appears as a qualifier that denotes in a particular and experiential way the prudence of fraternal language.
“Light” has a fairly broad universal symbolism, related in the religious sphere to divinity, to that which is capable of breaking the darkness, providing security, tranquility, and warmth. In the Old Testament, light is the most sublime representation of the presence of God; the first act of creation in Genesis, insofar as it is the most divine thing it represents: God as the source of all light. In the Book of Wisdom it is affirmed that light is eternal and therefore an attribute of God (Wis 7:26). In the New Testament, “light” is an allegory of joy, well-being, and happiness, as gifts that come from the source of said clarity: God. Jesus defines himself as “light of the world” in Saint John and, therefore, his disciples must carry the “Light” to the nations. Saint Paul, both in Second Corinthians and in Colossians, affirms that the “Light” shines in the hearts of believers as children of light (Eph 5:8; 1 Thess 5:5); this appropriation of light makes human fragility capable of exercising fraternal charity in the midst of the darkness that surrounds it. “Light” is the image through which one can access the mystery of God and communicate it later. It is also the symbol of life, because man cannot subsist for long in darkness and chaos without being corrupted, perishing irremediably. There is a moral component that underlies the term, because walking in the light is living according to the will of God, experiencing his salvation.
For these two symbols to mean something, they must come into contact with their immediate realities in the space of the everyday. For salt to fulfill its functions, it must come into contact with the foods to which it provides good taste, with the materials, preserving them from corrosion, with the incense and the fire of the temple candlesticks to purify the environment, with the body to help heal and cleanse. Light also converges with darkness, in order to dispel it and illuminate the paths, with the cold, sheltering the gathered community like a welcoming home. Finally, as a faculty that allows one to emerge from ignorance and progress in the attainment of knowledge to exercise wisdom: the art of living in coherence, justice, and fraternity.
The followers of Jesus who are already “salt and light” must come into contact with the earth, they are sent by the “Sent One” to give hope to the world (good taste), to make present the one who called them together by the Sea of Galilee; to preserve and protect from the corruption that lurks. All of the above through the testimony of the “Beatitudes”; acting against the darkness of error and injustice, through the “Word” they announce. The followers will salt and shine in the cities not with their merits, but with the Grace of the Lord, which will make them live the praxis of the spirituality of communion; authentically feeling the other as someone who truly matters to them. “Salt and light” have the gift of life as a common denominator; therefore, the disciples of Jesus will work and wear themselves out tenaciously helping to give new meaning to the existence of the people they find along the way.
All the force of the story falls on the second person plural, as Jesus’ definitive sentence: “you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world,” taking for granted that what has been pronounced will inexorably be realized in the lives of those who one day decided to follow him, with only one promise: “I will make you become fishers of men,” an expression somewhat enigmatic today, but which, understood in the context of the Sermon on the Mount and the role (salt and light) with which the followers are characterized in this Sunday’s gospel, is more than possible; because becoming fishers of men is nothing other than carrying out the mission of Jesus: to rescue (fish) humanity from all forms of evil (dehumanization), teaching them to live in the justice of God and to avoid normalizing any form of violence that threatens universal fraternity.
The eleven who made up the community close to Jesus and the other disciples, who lived as poor in spirit, meek, and pure in heart, managed to be authentically salt and light for the world. Without nobility and humility, the disciple will never be the joyful flavor and the new light of Jesus, because he will only radiate a false appearance of his own darkness. We were not called to be candles to illuminate ourselves rejoicing in the lies of our “false self,” nor flavor to cloy ourselves with our vanities. The mission and every evangelizing project is not mine, it is Jesus’ and if his “Word” does not burn in our heart (where it is felt and thought), all pastoral work, however dazzling it may seem, will be nothing more than a failed discourse and an insipid theatrical performance, lacking the grace and the strength that only the owner of the harvest grants.
