This coming Sunday is the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A. Our very short gospel passage includes the well known verse:“You are the salt of the earth.” (Mt 5:13) Why Salt? In the first century, salt was much more than a seasoning. It symbolized preservation (for meat and fish), purification – salt was added to sacrifices (Lev 2:13); Covenant fidelity (cf. Lev 2:13: “you shall not let the salt of the covenant… be lacking”, Num 18:19; Ezra 4:14); Wisdom in Jewish literature (m. Sotah 9:15) as well as Greco-Roman literature; and, value as salt was sometimes used as a form of payment. Jesus’ metaphor would have carried all these resonances for His listeners as the description of the role of a disciple is teased out.

The symbol of salt as a preservative point to the role given to all disciples to prevent moral decay within the community. Many Church Fathers and modern commentators see salt as that which keeps the world from corruption. St. John Chrysostom wrote that Christ’s disciples preserve the world from “rotting in sin” by their teaching, holiness, and example. Thus, Christians living the Beatitudes that precede this verse, are the moral and spiritual agents that keep humanity from sliding into corruption. If they lose their distinctiveness, the world suffers.

Pointing to the role salt has in flavoring food is to be understood as the task to bring out the “flavor” of God’s kingdom by their joy and authenticity giving others a “taste” of God. Christians witness to God’s kingdom by: living the Beatitudes; embodying mercy, justice, and purity of heart; and revealing the joy and freedom of life with God. The idea is that Christian life should make God desirable not bland or burdensome.

As a covenant symbol disciples make God’s covenant present. “All your grain offerings you shall season with salt. Do not let the salt of the covenant… be lacking.” (Leviticus 2:13) In this light Jesus’ followers are the living sign of God’s covenant—a holy people whose presence points to God’s fidelity and holiness, keystones of what it means to be the people of God.

Salt was used medically and ritually. Elisha purified water with salt (2 Kings 2:19–22). Thus, disciples are to be agents of healing, instruments of reconciliation, and purifiers of the “bitter waters of the world” through mercy and truth.

​​In both Jewish and Hellenistic literature, “salt” could symbolize wisdom. St Paul makes the connection explicitly: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt…” (Col 4:6) Writ largers, the Sermon on the Mount itself embodies divine wisdom; disciples who internalize it become a source of true wisdom in society.

St. Augustine held salt to symbolize wisdom and also the sharpness of correction in that disciples teach the world and correct it with the truth. St. Jerome viewed salt as tied to righteousness: “We season the world with the justice of God.” St. Bede understood salt to represent the apostles’ doctrine, preserving the Church from error.

The Catechism echoes these themes: Christians, united to Christ, have a mission to transform the world and witness to the kingdom (cf. CCC 782, 2044–2046). Most Catholic commentators emphasize

• distinctiveness: disciples must stand apart by holiness,
• mission: the Church’s presence prevents moral decay and nurtures life, and
• witness: the life of the gospel gives “flavor” to the world.

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. (Mt 5:13). This is a warning to the disciples

Disciples, if they are true to their calling, make the earth a purer and a more palatable place. But they can do so only as long as they preserve their distinctive character: unsalty salt has no more value. Strictly, pure salt cannot lose its salinity; but the impure ‘salt’ dug from the shores of the Dead Sea could gradually become unsalty as the actual sodium chloride dissolved. In any case, Jesus was not teaching chemistry, but using a proverbial image (it recurs in Bekhoroth 8b). The Rabbis commonly used salt as an image for wisdom (cf. Col. 4:6), which may explain why the Greek word represented by lost its taste actually means ‘become foolish’. (Aramaic tāpēl, which conveys both meanings, was no doubt the word used by Jesus.) A foolish disciple has no influence on the world.

Thus the warning: if disciples compromise the gospel, dilute the faith, or cease living the Beatitudes, they lose their effectiveness. This is just one of Matthew’s Gospel warnings about the danger of discipleship without authenticity.

---

Image credit: Sermon on the Mount (1877) by Carl Heinrich Bloch | Museum of National History | Frederiksborg Castle, Public Domain