Jesus said to his disciples:
“You are the salt of the earth.
But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?
It is no longer good for anything
but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
You are the light of the world.
A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father.”

You are the salt of the earth…,You are the light of the world.

What does this parable mean? There are several ways to look at this analogy, and they are all deeply meaningful. First, salt and light both have the remarkable ability to enhance everything that they come into contact with. They give of themselves to make the things around them better, and they make all things more like that thing. Salt makes the food it is on taste more like that food and even better. Light makes a thing it shines on more clearly visible, and more clearly that thing to all those that look on it

Salt and light also have the extraordinary ability to protect and purify. When food is salted, the salt preserves the food, protecting it from bacterial infection, and it kills off any bacteria that are present on the food prior to being seasoned, purifying the food from corruption and rot. Light as well has similar properties. Light dries things out protecting them from infection, and the rays of light kill off bacteria purifying that thing. It is only in dark and wet places that bacteria and disease grow. But when things are placed out in direct sunlight, the opposite happens. With enough time, anything placed in the light will be totally purified.

Finally, Salt and light both have a spiritual warfare attributes as well. Conquering armies (like the Romans), if they wanted to totally destroy their enemy, and make them totally dependent on their new masters, would use salt to utterly kill farm fields of their enemies, making it impossible to grow anything in them. Salt has also traditionally been used as a sacramental, for protection from evil spirits. So too with light, Consider the metaphor of the cockroaches scurrying away when the lights come on. It is the same with the devil and his demons. They love to live in the darkness and shadows, and they hate light. The darkness hides their true cowardly nature and their ugliness…, light exposed them for who they are, and for all to see. Thus we know that the greatest protection we have against evil is to shine God’s light on them because they cannot stand, in their shame, illuminated by the light.

So today, Jesus is saying that we have to be like salt and light in the world. We have to enhance the world around us, shining light on it, and making it better. We have to use our nature and our connection with Jesus to purify those that we come into contact with every day. And we have to fight off the evil in our midst, conquering our worlds, claiming them for christ, and making them intolerable places for the evil forces of the world to ever return. It may seem like a tall order to fulfill, but with God all things are possible. So go out into the world and be salt and light.

Oh lord, help me today to be salt and light to the world, helping to enhance those around me, to purify those that you have given me to work on, and give me the courage to fight evil and send it off into the darkness.