FINDINGS II

Epiphany V - A - February 6, 2011

Matthew 5: 13-20
 

Matthew 5: 13-20

Jesus said [to his close followers]: you are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is now good for nothing, discarded and trod upon. [Likewise] you are the light of the world. A city built on a hill is difficult to hide. [Furthermore], no one lights a lamp and then puts it under a bushel basket, but on a lampstand so it lights up the whole house. In the same way, let yourselves [as the light of the world] shine in the presence of others so that in it they may see your good works and praise your Father in heaven for them. Do not think that I have come to do away with Torah or the writings of the prophets; my purpose in coming is to fulfill them. For in very truth I tell you that until both the domains of heaven and humanity are gone, not one letter, not on stroke of a letter will disappear from Torah it is all fulfilled. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least under the benign and salvific domain [or governance], but whoever does them and teaches them shall be called great. For I tell you that unless your conformity to divine will exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will be barred from that domain. (Translated and paraphrased by Harry T. Cook)

RUBRIC

Part of what makes some think that Matthew's beatitudes were assembled and stylized into the form we now see them is that other parts of the Sermon on the Mount turn up here in there in Thomas, Mark and Luke. Matthew's "salt of the earth" passage appears in Luke 14:34 as a postscript to a speech on the cost of discipleship. It appears at Mark 9:50 at the end of a passage about cutting off offending members (of a community?) The companion piece to Matthew's "salt" saying - "you are the light of the world" - immediately follows in the same pronouncement format. The Lukan parallel occurs twice: in 8:16 and 11:33 in different contexts than Matthew. The upshot is that the sayings in some original form wafted their way down to the gospel compilers, no doubt by different currents via different oral traditions.

WORKSHOP

Matthew 5:13-14 follows the beatitudes, and it is likely that the compiler was intentional about the succession. He has made Jesus define fortune and fulfillment in 5:3-11, now he has Jesus tell his close-in followers the purpose of that happiness, viz. that it is their equipping for what they must be as more than followers. They are to be seasoning that does not lose its zip. My rudimentary understanding of chemistry suggests that dilution is the most expedient and frequently used method to deal with saltiness. You can't remove it altogether, but you can dilute it sufficiently so as to render less effective. Matthew saw it differently: if you indiscriminately mix salt with enough other substances, it becomes so integrated that it may lose its flavoring purpose. One might as well throw it on the ground and let it be trodden underfoot so that it becomes indistinguishable from what it's in. So those who follow Jesus are to be in the world but not of it, distinguishable enough to be present as the flavor of purpose and intention.

Following the "you are" formula already established, those who are the salt of the earth in 5:13 are now "the light (phōs) of the world ( kosmos)" in 5:14. Whether or not the compiler of Matthew was thinking of Isaiah 49:6b is not clear. ("I will give you as a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.") Matthew may have been thinking of it, but certainly not as a prophecy fulfilled as he was otherwise wont to do. Matthew knew only too well that the late first century C.E. movement of Jesus Judaism had not achieved anything like the kind of visibility Isaiah envisioned for Israel. Isaiah used goyim for nations; Matthew used kosmos for world rather than ethnos. Maybe Matthew was thinking of the gospel in Pauline-like terms as the spiritual counter to worldly agenda.

It is clear that the "light" Jesus' followers are to be is connected to their "good works" (kala erga) which presumably spring from their god-like fortune and happiness as a result of their having guileless hearts, being generous in alms-giving and makers of peace and, because of their persistence in so being and doing, are persecuted for their trouble. One of the elements that commends this passage is its essentially humanistic slant. There is not high-flown philosophical theology here, only counsel as to how to comport oneself among other human beings.

You can depend on Matthew to stay close to the mooring in what must have been an effort to make clear to synagogue Judaism that Jesus Judaism was not abandoning the older tradition, at least not altogether. That is the effect of the declaration: "Do not think that I have come to do away with Torah or the writings of the prophets; my purpose in coming is to fulfill them. For in very truth I tell you that until both the domains of haven and humanity are gone, not one letter, not on stroke of a letter will disappear from Torah it is all fulfilled."

Even if the author(s)/compiler(s) of Matthew were not Jesus Jews but Gentile converts to the movement, nevertheless their understanding of the law (from which neither iota nor dot over it will pass) is that it will continue to apply as fully as ever - as if Paul had not gone out of his way to declare the law past tense. Or perhaps the Matthew crew was operating on the basis of the Pauline concept that it is the spirit rather than the letter, jot or tittle of the law that counts.

HOMILETIC COMMENTARY

The homilist may take the opportunity presented by this text to show how the perceived will of the imagined Hebraic-Christian divinity is considered by many to be expressed in the 613 commandments of Torah, in particular the 10 found in Exodus ch. 20 and Deuteronomy ch. 5. The question of how the terms of Torah were arrived at by the ancient communities of Israel might be explored. Discounting the Cecil B. DeMille extravaganza depicted in the movie "The Ten Commandments," the homilist or members of a study group might try imagining the elders of a nomadic community hunched together around a fire in their temporary encampment trying to map out a future. The wisest among them propose certain basic principles adherence to which would go a long way toward making the community internally secure: the proscription of envy, of theft, of murder and adultery, etc. Such considerations would give the concept of biblical law a quite new meaning.