Last week, on one of the windy days, the air was white with the salt blowing from the salt flats north of town. One person who drove through there said that the blowing salt reduced the visibility to near white-out conditions. While considered to be a problem today, not so many centuries ago the salt in the salt flats would have been harvested and sold at considerable profit.

Our English word, salary, comes from the Latin word that also gives us the word, “salt.” We have forgotten the roots, but it used to be that the pay given to soldiers was called “salt money” because with their pay they could buy salt which was much more valuable then than it is today.

That salt was valuable only makes sense if we consider what life would be like without refrigeration. In years past, farmers, when they butchered a cow or a hog, because they could not eat the meat before it spoiled, would preserve it in layers of salt. If they did not have salt at hand, the valuable meat, food for the winter, would rot, and the farmer and his family would starve. Salt, although not a food source, was valuable for its preserving qualities. Today, this never crosses our minds. In fact, if you read the website of the largest salt mine in the world, located in Goderich, Ontario, a mine that produced nine million tons of salt each year, the main use of that salt is for de-icing roads and, to a lesser extent, in manufacturing processes, but it does not mention salt as a preservative. The salt deposit was discovered in 1866 when oil men were drilling for oil near Lake Huron.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us that we are the salt and light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16). Unless we hear those words in their historical context, we will miss their import. We already know that salt, often in short supply, was valuable for its preserving qualities, but we should also consider the high price people paid for light. In biblical times, long before petroleum was discovered, light was produced by the burning of olive oil. I have not squeezed a fresh olive for its oil, but I cannot imagine that it would produce more than a few drops of oil. Imagine how many olives would have to be harvested and squeezed if we were forced to light our homes with olive oil rather than with efficient LED lighting. I suspect that most rooms in our homes would remain dark, and our ire would be roused at anyone who left a lamp burning for a few seconds longer than needed.

Both salt and light were very valuable commodities, but living in 2026, we give little thought to either as being precious. In fact, salt is considered to be an enemy, for we are warned that too much of it will give us high blood pressure and when we use it on the roads, it eats away at our cars. In some places, light pollution has become so much of a problem that some people never experience true darkness and have never seen the stars.

So, what does Jesus mean that we are the salt and light of the world? It means that Jesus sees his followers as being valuable to the world. It means that without his followers, those who believe in him, the world would rot, and no one would be able to find their way. The claim that Jesus is making is far more than casual; he is making the claim that the world cannot live without the church. This is a fairly audacious claim to be making.

Many people would make the claim that the church is irrelevant, and some would even say that it is dangerous. There are those who say that the church (and more broadly, religion) is destroying the world. Like salty roads and over-lit cities, there is a belief that the church is ruining the world and is causing more harm than good.

Immediately, we want to discredit that claim and point to all the good that the church is doing. We can do that, but we also need to listen carefully to those who raise these objections to determine if there is any validity in them. Is there legitimacy in saying that the church, as it sometimes manifests itself today, is causing more harm than good? Has it lost its value for the world and, instead, become an organization which has become destructive? We would hope not, but Jesus does allude to the possibility that this can be the case.

As soon as he says we are the salt of the world, he warns us that salt that has lost its saltiness is good for nothing except to be tossed into the garbage. Salt, if it had lost its preservative qualities, became worthless. In the same way, someone who lights a lamp containing valuable oil and immediately placing it under a bowl was creating light that was worthless. If salt and light are not used for their intended purpose, they become useless, and, in the same way, if the church does fulfill its intended purpose, it becomes of little value, and, if valueless, then it also becomes a burden to society.

The only way we can discern if the church is fulfilling its intended purpose is to determine what that purpose is. Jesus alludes to that in Matthew 5:16 when he says that when we let our light shine, others may see our good deeds and glorify our Father in heaven. To put it simply, the calling of the church and each person in it is to do good deeds and in so doing be a witness to the goodness and grace of God. As Paul says in Ephesians 4, in speaking to the role of those who have been called and gifted to be church leaders, all believers are to be equipped for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up. Saying it another way, the calling and purpose of the church is to make Jesus known to the world, both in our testimony and in our lifestyles, so that God can gather people to himself and bring to fullness the body of Christ.

If the church loses that understanding and if it becomes self-seeking, self-aggrandizing, self-righteous, and self-centered, it loses sight of its purpose. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are placed here in this world for the singular purpose of revealing God the Father to the world, that the world may know his grace in Jesus Christ. If we, as followers of Jesus Christ do that, we are indeed extremely valuable to the world, just as salt and light were essential to the world in Jesus’ time. But it is only in the fulfilment of our calling that the people of God have value. And, so, we might wonder if those who say that the church is worthless might have a point. If the church is not fulfilling its calling, Jesus might well agree with them, although, unlike them, he would not wish to see the church abolished but, rather, to see it become what God intended it to be.

I am thinking of these things in terms of black and white, and perhaps that is an injustice to the church in general both now and through the ages. Nonetheless, we must pause and ask the question: are we as valuable to the world as we could be, and, if not, how can we provide value to the world which so much needs to know Jesus?