The Sermon on the Mount starts in an odd way for a Sermon. The hill Jesus is speaking from is crammed with people trying to hear. No opening joke or anecdote, no catchy hook, but a list of counterintuitive statements. Blessed are the poor? It’s the rich who are blessed, that’s why they are rich. Blessed are those who mourn? Those who celebrate do so because they are the ones who are blessed. But the crowd eats it up because they are an oppressed people – they are poor, they are mourning, they are hungry.
Then Jesus pivots to a statement directly to the crowd. “You are the salt of the earth.” The Greek here is second person plural (you all), emphatic and present tense. And what does it mean to be salt? Salt is a transformative agent, enhancing flavor and preserving food. In ancient times it was far more important than we think of it today, far more valuable and essential for what was then modern life.
So Jesus is telling the crowd, “You all, right here, right now, your identity, purpose, value is to be a transformative agent on this earth.” How do we do that? By living out those odd statements Jesus just gave – by living out the beatitudes.
But what good is salt of it loses its flavor? The word “good” here means “what use is it?” The term for “lose its flavor,” mōrainō, literally means “to become foolish” and is our source for the word “moron.” What does it mean to become foolish? By failing to live out the beatitudes.
Next Jesus tells the people that they are “the light of the world.” They are the thing that drives out darkness. Again, this is a small, oppressed group and Jesus is using the same term that Cicero used to describe Rome itself! This small group of seekers is somehow the city on a hill.
But it comes with the same kind of warning – don’t hide that light. Don’t cover it over with worldliness, don’t hide it in a church building – let it shine out
Instead, Jesus gives the first command of his Sermon: “Let your good and beautiful deeds shine! So that all people will experience and recognize God, the true Father’s redemptive love and power.” This is the first time we get the word “Father” in the gospel of Matthew, very possibly as a purposeful contrast with Caesar, who was seen as the father to all. But Caesar is the evil, authoritarian, oppressive Father – Jesus is speaking of the loving Father who brings out the beatitudes.
What good and beautiful deeds can you do to encourage others to see our father in them?
Now, there were other groups out there who also had to find a way to live under the empire. The Essenes headed out to the desert, didn’t want to be complicit in empire – they hid their Lamp, and many think that Jesus’ words here were an implicit rebuke. The Saducees bowed the knee to empire, being nationalistic, securing power and economic gain for themselves. The Pharisees kept to a strict holiness and piety code, believing that their personal holiness would bring change. Then the zealots – they sought active overthrow of the empire. They were prophetic voices calling for change, but were willing to useviolent means, which Jesus clearly rejects.
We can be tempted in all these directions – we can seek to hide or avoid society. We can throw in with the world and seek power and wealth. We can retreat to our own holiness with no regard for the hurt around us. We can adopt the violent means of the world and lose our very purpose.
What should we do instead? Again, looking back to the beatitudes, living out those counterintuitive words, seeking to be salt and light in the world.
— Sermon Notes, Tim Hsieh, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, February 2, 2025
Image by Midjourney.