As almost everyone here knows by now, I announced at the beginning of this past week that I would be concluding my ministry in Bethlehem at the end of July in order to accept a call to serve as pastor to another congregation. In the Presbyterian Church, pastors are not sent to congregations by bishops or other authorities; it is the congregation itself that calls the pastor to serve. That congregational call has to be affirmed by both the potential pastor and by the presbytery, the local governing council responsible for supervising pastors, among other things, so there are three parties to every pastoral call; it is never up to one person’s discernment alone.
Similarly, we talk in the Presbyterian Church about 
the three-fold nature of any call: the person being called needs to have the spiritual gifts to fulfill the call; they need to have an inward conviction that they are being called to this ministry through the Holy Spirit; and the Church needs to concur with its assessment that both of those dimensions are there. If any of those elements are missing, we believe, it is not a valid spiritual call; if they are, then we should take the question of affirming that call very seriously.
I believe strongly in our method of discerning a call, both theologically and in terms of my own experience. Over the years, I’ve been asked a number of times by people (including many of you!) what led me to accept the call to serve as Senior Pastor here at First Presbyterian of Bethlehem almost seven years ago, at a time when the church was still enduring a bitter schism, which if you weren’t here in that difficult season, is a word for a division or split in a church, usually over theological differences.
I actually was extended three different calls within days of each other at that time, and I turned down the other two, which were to much less uncertain contexts, to accept the call from Bethlehem because I was convinced that this was the call from the Holy Spirit that I should answer, based both on the practicalities of my gifts, skills, and experiences, and on the deep resonance of my heart with the challenges and opportunities here.
Now, that’s all good and well, and pretty much every Presbyterian pastor you will ever meet will have some kind of analogous explanation for the pastoral calls that they have accepted over the years. But there’s also a significant problem with all that: that process and theology has often gotten reduced in people’s minds to being the definition of vocation, of having a calling to ministry from God.
But Presbyterians don’t believe that. We believe that all Christians are called to Christian ministry through their baptism. We ordain people to the offices of Elder, Deacon, and Minister of Word and Sacrament not because those people are the ones who are “really” called; we do so because the church can’t function as a true Christian church without the work entrusted to those three offices. If those who are in need are not cared for (which is why we have Deacons), if the people aren’t led by wise and faithful people to discern God’s will for the congregation (which is why we have Elders), and if the Word isn’t preached and the sacraments aren’t administered faithfully (which is why we have Ministers of Word and Sacrament), then it may be an organization still doing good things, but it isn’t a church.
That’s why Ministers of Word and Sacrament are called that, rather than just “ministers.” It is a particular ministry of Word and Sacrament, not all ministry in general. But there is an almost-limitless range of possibilities for ministry beyond those particular forms. Which is good, because if you are baptized, you are a minister; and if you are a minister, you have a calling, a ministry that God calls you to take up and which you can discern by what particular gifts and skills and experiences you have, by your own sense of inward conviction, and by the invitation or affirmation of the church.
I think our passage for today, taken from early in Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount, helps us to remember and reclaim that important theological conviction. “You are the salt of the earth,” he says; “you are the light of the world.” You, he says to those listening; you, all of you, are salt and light. Now, both predicably and ironically, there’s something of a debate among interpreters about who gets included in “all of you.”
Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount when he sees the crowds following him and he climbs up the mountain and sits down, at which point his disciples come to him. Some argue, then, that the Sermon on the Mount isn’t to the crowds at all, it’s only to the disciples. They interpret this passage to mean Jesus saw the crowds, climbed the mountain to avoid them, and then presented the Sermon on the Mount solely to his disciples after they came to him separately, making it special instructions just to them rather than to anybody who was curious about Jesus.
That interpretation, though, is nonsense. First of all, Matthew has just made a big deal at the end of chapter 4, right before the Sermon on the Mount begins, about the huge crowds coming to see and hear Jesus from every corner of not just Judea, but the surrounding lands as well. It would be weird to dwell on that point only to turn around and say, “but the crowds don’t matter at all, this is just for the disciples.”
More to the point, though, Matthew tells us explicitly at the end of the Sermon of the Mount that the crowds are not only hearing it, but respond with amazement: “Now when Jesus had finished saying these words,” meaning the Sermon on the Mount as a whole, “the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes” (Mat 7:28-29).
So there’s no question that the crowds were present and engaged in the hearing of the Sermon on the Mount. The only questions are why it’s important they are there to hear and respond to it, and why it’s important enough to some people to believe otherwise despite the clear statement of the Scriptural text itself. And the answer is what I meant by saying it’s predictable and ironic that there’s a debate about this. It’s predictable because Jesus’ followers are always arguing about who has special insight or access to Jesus, from the squabbles of the disciples in Scripture right up to conflicts in the Christian church today.
And it’s ironic because the whole point Jesus is making is that his instructions in the Sermon on the Mount of how to live faithfully and well in this world in response to the grace of God are for anybody who wants to do that: not just the spiritual athletes or superheroes, not just the ones with particular offices or titles, but anybody who wants to live, here and now, within the reign of God, what Matthew often calls “the kingdom of heaven.” This is the ministry to which all of us are being invited and called.
And Jesus sums that up in these two metaphors: “you are the salt of the earth…you are the light of the world.” Now, “light of the world” is a fairly obvious metaphor. Living according to God’s will is like a lamp that shines in the darkness; in following Jesus’ teachings ourselves, we help others see and follow the way. “Salt of the earth,” though, is less clear. That phrase has become an idiom to mean people who are particularly kind, honest, or reliable, but in an authentic and humble sort of way. If someone is “the salt of the earth,” they do things that are good and right for others simply because that’s their character.
This probably comes from the use of salt as a preservative. Until the advent of refrigeration in the 20th century, salting meat was a common way of preserving it because the salt dries out the meat and keeps bacteria from forming, so it lasts much longer than raw or even cooked meat. So that might have some of the connotations of being reliable and honest, even good, because salt actually keeps the meat from “going bad,” or becoming rotten. And so it follows that we, as the salt of the earth, are supposed to go out into the world and preserve its goodness; to keep the world from going bad or becoming rotten.
But salt is clearly not simply a preservative; it’s also a seasoning. Even a little bit of it adds spark to the blandest food, but not by making it more salty. When you eat salted meat, where the salt has been added in great quantities as a preservative, the primary taste is the salt itself. But that’s not the case with cooked or fresh food; when you add a little salt there, it actually brings out the inherent flavor of the food. That’s true if it’s mild or bland food, of course, but the impact of salt goes well beyond that. Believe it or not, salt enhances our ability to taste natural sweetness, which is why some people add it to watermelon.
And salt also suppresses bitterness, which is why it’s a much better topping for grapefruit than sugar; a sprinkle of salt is more effective than a pile of sugar if grapefruit is too bitter for you. And sea salt, which would have been common in Judea in Jesus’ day with the Mediterranean Sea and Dead Sea nearby, is an even effective fertilizer of soil for plants and has been used that way since ancient times; it is literally the salt of the earth.
Now, put all those things together. Salt is a common rather than a rare resource, especially for a culture with easy access to the sea. It preserves what is already good and makes it last longer. But salt also makes other things better, enhancing what is already there so that more of its goodness is available. It increases sweetness and decreases bitterness. And it helps new life grow more fully and strongly into being. While preserving what is already good is important, the greatest power of salt is in expanding and generating new goodness rather than preserving what’s already there. And what’s truly amazing is how little salt you need to make a mountain of difference in that work.
That is what it means for us to be the salt of the earth. All of us, all of us, are called and empowered to be the salt of the earth; and together, when are such, we truly exhibit the kingdom of heaven to the world, the nature and reality of God’s reign on earth. That is how we help season this world, to bring out the flavors that are deep within it but are hard to taste without something more, flavors that God imbued it with from the very beginning but so often get boiled away by careless cooks: the rich and nourishing flavors of faith, hope, justice, generosity, forgiveness, reconciliation, peace, and above all love.
We help enhance the sweetness of this world and suppress its bitterness. And we help enrich the earth so that new life can take root and blossom, offering sustenance and shelter and beauty. That is our essence; that is our calling; that is our hope and promise in and through Jesus Christ.
For almost 150 years, it has been the calling of this congregation and those seeking to follow Jesus within it and through and out of it. It has led us through lush fields and dry deserts, through gentle springs and harsh winters, through times of conflict and anxiety, and through times of joy and peace. That calling is bigger than any of us; and yet it claims and empowers each and everyone one of us; it brings us into community and sends us out in service to exhibit the kingdom of heaven to the world in the collective work of this congregation and in our individual lives and ministries.
And that calling will continue to guide us and strengthen us, protect us and push us, through this time of transition just as it has through every other one that we have faced, including those that happened long before we were, and those that will come long after we are gone. But if we are faithful to that calling, we will always taste the sweetness of God’s grace and know that it is good.