And while humankind cannot attempt to act as its own salt, it can recognize the character of death and decay and how it must be combated. A corrective is placed before humanity as a goal to live up to.
Salt can have power only as long as it is different from the surrounding mass and does not fall into decay itself. If it becomes tasteless, it must be spat out. The salt of the earth is where God is, where the justice of the future kingdom is lived out and the powers of the coming order promote organic life and growth. In other words, salt is present where the victorious energy of God’s love is at work. God himself is the creative spirit who overcomes corruption, the living spirit who wakens the dead. He is the God of miracles who can bring forth new birth out of corruption and degeneration, replacing nausea and disgust with joy and well-being.
God’s power, welling up from the depths to flood all of life, surpasses everything that rotten morality and hypocritical social conventions can achieve. God’s word has the strength of salt: the manliness and austere courage that do not swim with the stream and are not infected with corruption. There is simple and concise speech and an unvarnished truthfulness (which, if it lacks love however, is deadly to both the speaker and the one spoken to). There is love that cannot harm, let alone kill, another human being, love that resolves rather to pluck out the evil eye than have it corrupt the whole body. There is loyalty and integrity that never changes, whose word and love stand forever. Finally, there is freedom from everything outward and unessential, a freedom that is ready to sacrifice all possessions and any amount of time, for it is love, love to enemies as well as to friends and brothers and sisters. It is freedom from earthly treasure, freedom from the cares and worries of possessions, a childlike joy in light and color, in God himself and all that he is and gives.
Only this God-given life is the salt that counteracts the spirit of the world, the salt that is death’s mortal enemy. But salt can be nothing else but salt. Whoever has the spirit of Jesus acts spontaneously as salt. Anyone who wants to become salt without being salt from the source, from God, is a fool. When Christ said, “You are the salt of the earth…you are the light of the world,” he was not demanding the impossible but expressing his deepest insight into the very nature of things.
This salt, this life, is the light that can be kindled only in fire. Without fire one cannot expect light. The dark planet Neptune cannot turn into a brilliant sun; neither can the cold light of the moon change into midday heat. Black coal can be ignited and turned into warmth-giving fire, but in order to give off the heat and light it must be burned and reduced to ashes.
A light on a candlestick consumes itself to give light to all in the house. It serves the intimate unity of the household because its life consists in dying. To spare the candle must necessarily mean to go without light. It would be sinful to cover up a burning light. Rob a burning candle of the air it needs to give light, and it goes out.
Light is characteristic of the people of Jesus in its total brightness and warmth. The old life, consumed, turns into life-giving strength. Shameful things can live only in the dark. Brightness leads to clarity and frankness, simplicity and purity, genuineness and truth. Where Jesus’ influence makes people real, their life becomes genuine and pure. It shines into the darkness of the world around, unmasking everything that is spurious and untrue, everything that tries to hide.
The light Jesus kindles is never exhausted in making a situation clear. Cold light has no part in the kingdom of God. Intelligent recognitions, systematic clarity of thought, and sharp discernment – this is not what Jesus is talking about. We cannot try to think as God might through our power of reason. What matters is to live in and from God’s heart. Like the sun, quickening warmth belongs to the brightness of his being. The light he gives creates community and draws people together in joy, with love flowing from the depths of their souls and finding expression in constructive deeds – deeds that build up and never destroy.
Sunlight sparkles with life and generates life on the earth, making it germinate and bear fruit everywhere. Those who live in the light belong to life and find their way in the sunlight. Night is dead because it is cold and dark. Yet even in the life of the light and sun there is a dying. Because our life moves between day and night, we can gain the life of resurrection only by dying.
No light can radiate brightness and warmth without consuming itself. The greatest Man, in giving light, suffered this most violently. The light of the world went forth from the cross of Jesus. Those who experience the world’s suffering and guilt with the crucified Christ – and their own sin and forgiveness – are able to serve the world with the light and strength of the risen Lord. For after Christ rose from the grave, he sent his disciples to bear his light to the ends of the earth.
Christ himself is this light. It is the fire of judgment that comes over us to consume the old, rotten life, to lead us who are crucified with him into a radiant life of resurrection. For there is only one who is the light of the world and who shines on all who come into this world. He himself was all light. He was not entangled in untruthfulness or impurity, lovelessness or greed. It is an illusion to push the false light of our own life into the foreground, trying to shine without being consumed in Christ. No human being can teach us what light is. To give oneself, as the sun gives of itself to the earth, can never be our own doing.
Even the sun directs our gaze away from itself and to the life illumined by it. We speak of “sun” when we see the hills, woods, and fields glowing in the light. A city on the hill shines out for all to see; but no one would notice it unless the sun shone on it. Where the sun casts light and warmth, life is awakened and becomes an organic union of individual living beings. Where there is life there is fellowship.
Just as a light on a candlestick gathers the household, so the city on the hill is the shining image of community – an organic unity in its economy and management, community of work, and faith and joy. The towers of a city on the hill can be seen far and wide – signs of civic freedom, tokens of the city communality, and symbols of fellowship in faith. Such a city is not built to be hidden, to have an isolated life for itself. Its open gates show the joy of hearts open to everyone.
There is nothing hidden about Jesus – he wants nothing furtive. His light is an all-inclusive life force that affects all relationships in life, in the same way that the sun shines upon the just and the unjust. God does good to enemy and friend alike; he is there for everyone and everything. The task of his salt and his light, the task of the city on the hill, is to serve all.
Not a single area of life should remain unaffected by this salt and this light. There is no responsibility in public life, including economics and politics, from which the city on the hill may remain aloof. Nowhere should the poison of decay be allowed to set in without being counteracted by salt. No wickedness must be allowed to lurk in the dark. The light must scare away the horrors of night. The icy, deadly breath of hate or coldness of heart cannot take full possession of this earth so long as the warm love of Christ’s light is not taken from it.
The secret of salt and radiating light lies in their unadulterated truthfulness and clarity. God’s city on the hill has a concern and responsibility for all aspects of life, and for people in the most distant places. This responsibility, however, is quite different from that borne by the people themselves. The city on the hill has a freedom, an essential quality of fellowship, which it cannot forfeit to any kingdom of this world, any government, any church, any political party, or any other organization of this age. It serves the whole of life without letting itself be enslaved. It fights against all suffering and injustice without succumbing to the suffering and becoming unjust itself. It has to remain salt and light, for the seed of the future age lies hidden in it.
■ Published as “Licht und Salz” in the periodical Das neue Werk, 1920.
Happiness
Chapter Four
Jesus
