You are the salt of the earth... You are the light of the world.
There are two actors, or participants, in the Sermon on the Mount: Jesus and his disciples; “I” and “you”. The emphasis seems to be very much on the “you”. The word “you” occurs, by my calculation, 179 times in the Sermon on the Mount. The word “I” occurs much less frequently. But it is implicitly there, all the time, as the one who speaks, and as the reference point for everything that is said. The aim of the Sermon is that these two poles, “I” and “you” come together, into one. The Sermon is addressed to us, and it’s about us, in so far as we are disciples of Jesus; modelled on him, united with him, filled by him, identified with him, transformed in him, alive with his life.
Last week because of Candlemas we missed the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, which is the Gospel of the Beatitudes. Jesus there pronounces Blessed all those in whom his own life is mirrored; those who share his dispositions; those ultimately who share his relationship with his Father. Such a Blessing comes about only through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is never actually mentioned in the whole course of the Sermon, but also He is never absent. He is the one who makes this apparently impossible task possible, who brings about this transformation. By the Holy Spirit we can truly become what before we were not; what we long to be; what we are called to be: authentic images, bearers, mediators of Jesus.
The Salt of the earth, and the Light of the world is in the first place Jesus Himself (cf. Jn 8:12). Because of Jesus, humanity as such is made acceptable to God. For the sake of Jesus God is able in principle to look down on the human race not in wrath, as it deserves, but with love, declaring it to be his beloved Son, in whom he is well pleased.
You are the Salt of the earth; You are the light of the world. That is, henceforth Jesus will be present in the world through his disciples, through his Church. We now have to do his work: to love, praise, honour his Father; to make his Kingdom present wherever we find ourselves; to stand among the many who do not know him, interceding for them; to suffer and die with Jesus, in order that the world might be saved. Mediating the presence of Jesus, we have to act now as his hands and his feet, and his teaching, and his healing, and his blessing, and his love, and his mercy.
The Catholic Church as such does this work, and so do all her Saints. Just thinking over some of the Saints we have celebrated recently: we have Christ-like Pastors like SS. Timothy and Titus, or St. Francis de Sales, or St. John Bosco. We have theologians and teachers like St. Thomas Aquinas. We have monks and nuns like St. Antony of Egypt, SS. Maurus and Placid, or tomorrow St. Scholastica, sister of St. Benedict. Yesterday we remembered St. Josephine Bakhita, who emerged from the humiliation of slavery and abuse to live as a shining witness for Christ. And we have the martyrs: lots of them. SS. Agnes and Agatha and Blaise, St. Paul Miki and his Japanese companions; the Apostle Paul too, whose conversion led him to pour out his blood for Christ. Such people are salt and light indeed, whether or not the world knows it. In them God is glorified; they give us all hope, because we see in them true images of Christ, and of his victory; in them good triumphs finally over evil, and life over death.
What though of those who seem to be rather mediocre Christians, not at all candidates for canonisation; sinners whose witness is to that extent compromised and blunted? What about those who fall from grace and commit a serious sin? The words of Jesus that follow seem to be terrible indeed: If salt becomes tasteless, what can make it salty again? It is good for nothing, and can only be thrown out to be trampled under foot by men.
Jesus here teaches that if the calling of his disciples is very high, very noble, then so much worse must be their fall. There are sins which of themselves cut us off from Christ, and from his Kingdom. Such sins render us no longer able to mediate him for others, or to share his company in eternal life. And the condemnation of the Lord is just. Imagine a Christian to whom many look up as a model of virtue and good example. If he should publicly betray his Master, how, on the purely natural level, can his reputation ever be restored?
But the words of Jesus cannot imply that for such a one, there is no more hope. We know Jesus doesn’t mean that, because we know that his mercy is without end, and his blood has infinite power to wash away even the very worst of sins. Think of St. Peter. He was there on that Mountain, privileged to be among those directly addressed by Jesus as “you”. But on the night of the Passion Peter publicly denied Jesus three times. Surely there the salt became tasteless indeed! Yet Peter repented and was forgiven. His savour, by God’s grace, was restored, and his role as rock and pillar of the Church was confirmed forever.
There’s a story from the Russian Revolution about a country monastery that had a bad reputation. Its monks gave scandal to the local people through their slovenly lives and their notorious drunkenness. One day a squad of Bolshevik soldiers arrived. All the monks were hussled out of their monastery and into the public square. A pile of holy Icons, crucifixes, relics and sacred vestments was heaped up there on the ground. The Commissar ordered the monks to trample on them in public, or face the consequences. Many in the surrounding crowd were shouting abuse at the monks. Then the Abbot shuffled forward, and addressed his community. His habit was dirty with food stains, his eyes bloodshot, his nose red from long habits of over indulgence. “Brethren”, he said. “We have lived like pigs. Let us die like Christians!”
Every one of those monks stood firm behind his Abbot, and every one was then immediately martyred. Surely then, all of them entered at once into the joy of their Lord? Not only that. All of them were truly then salt, able to preserve their country from final corruption, and light, shining truly, amid the encroaching darkness of atheism.