Minnesotans cringed a few years ago when their colorful former governor declared that organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people - a typical stereotype from skeptics in our day. Not a very flattering picture, but if you really think about it, there's not much about human nature as we know it that is very flattering. It makes you wonder at times why God bothers with us at all. Thankfully, he does. In fact, just after Jesus blessed those who are poor and meek, he called his gathered disciples into his most important work on earth, with words recorded in Matthew 5:13-16: "You are the salt of the earth... You are the light of the world."

I doubt that Jesus' Jewish peasant disciples felt like "the light of the world." And who ever said they wanted to grow up to be salt? What was Jesus saying?

I recently asked a group of church leaders and their spouses about their understanding of these words of Jesus. If Jesus said this is what we are, it's probably important that we know what he meant. Here's what I heard from the group: We think of salt as arresting decay, preserving, and flavoring. Salt also makes one thirsty. Light banishes darkness, revealing what we previously did not see. As you think about it, these are effects that Jesus said his poor and meek followers would have on their surroundings.

John Stott, in his book The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, asked, "What possible influence could the people described in the beatitudes exert in this hard, tough world... What can they accomplish whose only weapon is purity of heart? Are not such people too feeble to achieve anything, especially if they are a small minority in the world?" (Stott, John R.W. Downers Grove, Ill: Inter-Varsity Press, 1978. Page 57).

But Stott also pointed out that Jesus did not share in this skepticism; instead he gave his Church a double role: (1) to arrest, or at least hinder, the process of social decay, and (2) to dispel the darkness.

Of course, by his grace God has established other institutions to curb our fallen tendencies, such as the state and the family. But he has willed that his most powerful influence in this fallen world be his own redeemed and righteous people (Stott, page 59). This powerful influence comes not through our launching yet another program, but through our being a contrast community, born out of the cross of Christ, that publicly lives out God's will for the world. ("Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.")

So how did Jesus instruct us to carry out our double role? He continued by saying, "...let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16b). We are not to hide our light, or lose our saltiness. We must not lose the distinction between the Church and the world; salt can be polluted, and light can be hidden away where it does no good.

For believers to be effective in our calling we must be radically different from the environment to which we are applied as salt. Dr. Lloyd-Jones said it well, "The glory of the gospel is that when the Church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first" (Stott, page 60).

Notice here how the message of our life and the message of our words go together, as our shining light must certainly include spoken testimony. (Stott, page 61). God calls us to be a contrast community, where our good deeds serve him in witness, never at the expense of our words, but always in harmony with them. Words and deeds were not in conflict in the mind of Jesus, and they must not be in conflict in our minds either. According to Jesus, our words and our deeds point the unbelieving world to him. "Let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."

Gaylan Mathiesen is Professor of Missions at Lutheran Brethren Seminary, Fergus Falls, MN.

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