There is an old English folktale that I have always loved, The Three Sillies. A young man is courting a farmer’s daughter and is invited to their house for dinner. During the meal, the daughter is sent down to the cellar to fetch the beer for supper. As she is drawing the beer she notices a mallet stuck in one of the beams overhead. And she thinks, “Suppose one day he and I get married and we have a son, and our son comes down to the cellar to get the beer and the mallet falls on his head and kills him!” and she is so overcome with grief she can’t move.
Soon her mother comes down to look for her. “What is the matter with you?” she asks. The girl points to the mallet and tells her mother this imagined scenario – and the mother collapses in tears next to the daughter. The father comes down and the scene is repeated.
Finally, the young man wanders down wondering what is keeping everyone. When they tell him what they’re crying over, he pulls the mallet out of the beam. He tells them he’s not sure he wants to marry into such a silly family. He will have to think about it. So he goes wandering through the countryside looking to see if there are bigger fools out there than this family.
Soon he encounters a woman who was trying to get her cow to climb a ladder up to her roof because there was some nice grass growing up there for the cow to eat. He suggested she cut the grass and bring it down to her cow, but the woman thought her method would be easier.
That night, he stopped at an inn where he shared a room with another man. He woke up in the morning to find this man trying to run and leap into his trousers. Apparently, this was the ritual he went through every morning. The young man watched several unsuccessful attempts and then demonstrated for him the method he used for putting on his trousers. The other man was quite appreciative.
Later in his journey, he encountered a group of folks around a pond with rakes and pitchforks. They were trying to pull the moon out of the pond. The young man pointed out to them that the moon was actually up in the sky, but they scoffed and called him a fool, they said that was only a reflection up there. In fact, they got so angry at this young man for contradicting them, they turned their pitchforks on him and he had to hightail it out of there.
Moral of the story, I guess, is that there is no shortage of fools in the world. Sometimes their foolishness will hurt no one but themselves. Occasionally they will listen to reason. And other times, they can become a menace to others – especially anyone who tries to shine the light of truth.
Another story that you probably know is the one about the emperor who was taken in by a couple of swindlers who convinced him that they could make him some clothes that would be exceptionally beautiful to everyone who could see them. But for anyone who was too incompetent, they would be invisible. And so, consequently, everyone who was shown the outfit pretended they could see it, and maybe even convinced themselves they could see it, lest they appear to be incompetent.
When the emperor paraded through the streets to show off his new outfit, everyone praised his fine clothing because they didn’t want any trouble. Only one small boy spoke the truth: the emperor has no clothes on. Which shocked and silenced everyone, because it was the truth. But deciding that it was better to continue the charade, the emperor walked on with his head high, his noblemen behind him, holding his invisible train.
There are many stories like this for children, I suppose because it’s important to teach children the lessons of honesty and integrity. It’s important to teach our children that going along with the crowd is not always the best policy. But maybe they are important lessons for adults too.
In any case, it seems to be a message we hear from Jesus in this sermon on the mount. When he calls his disciples salt of the earth, light to the world, he is anointing them to this rare and sometimes lonely position.
I have often pondered what it means to be called salt. I have listened to and read the wisdom of others on this passage. Salt gives things flavor, so disciples of Jesus give flavor to life. Salt is a preservative, so disciples of Jesus keep and preserve the good news. These are both true but there is something more – an insight that I come to through the practice of baking bread.
I have baked bread for years; it is something I love to do. Bread is beautiful, and it is symbolic of life. Our daily bread is our sustenance. I have learned a few things from my efforts in bread-making, and one is this: there are few ingredients, but every ingredient is essential, no matter how small.
Everyone knows you need yeast to make bread – without just a tiny teaspoon of this stuff, the dough will not rise – not one bit. You will have a brick and nobody will want to eat it. But you may not know, unless you try it, that without salt bread is utterly tasteless.
You might think it wouldn’t make much difference, because most recipes only call for a pinch or so. It looks trivial. But it makes all the difference you can imagine. A little pinch of salt gives flavor to the whole loaf. A little pinch of salt helps to strengthen the gluten. And without that little pinch, nobody will want to eat it.
It only takes a little bit of salt to make a big difference.
And you could say that light is similar. It’s not hard for us to understand Jesus’ meaning when he calls us the light of the world. Light is a much more common image and even permeates our common language. We speak of being enlightened. Of shedding some light on a confusing situation or bringing light into darkness. And we always know what it means.
The same thing that is true of salt is also true of light. It only takes a little bit to make a big difference. One headlamp in a dark cave can make the difference between knowing where you are and being smothered in darkness.
You are the salt of the earth, the light of the world, Jesus tells his disciples. If one of you stands up and claims that identity you can change the world around you.
You don’t have to wait and watch and see what everyone else is doing. You don’t have to follow suit. You don’t have to use popular opinion as your justification for your decisions and actions. You don’t have to adjust your responses in accordance with what someone else tells you is smart or good. In fact, if you do these things, disciples of Jesus, you have wasted your salt. You have hidden your light under a bushel basket. You have forsaken your calling.
For in your baptism you have been called to this life, you have been anointed as Christ’s own. You have been given a new identity, as salt and light.
I remember the pastor of the church I attended in graduate school – we called him PJ. Every Sunday we celebrated the sacrament of communion standing in a circle. But before we were given the bread of life and the cup of salvation, PJ would approach us, one at a time, and offer us a pinch of salt on our tongues, saying the words, “Remember your baptism.”
Remember your baptism. Remember you are the salt of the earth. And even if you feel like you are alone in this, you are enough. Even if you feel like you are only a small pinch, hardly significant, you are enough. Don’t forsake your saltiness.
Remember you are the light of the world. No matter how small your light, one single light can alter the atmosphere.
You are enough to dissuade one fool from his foolishness. You are enough to bring out the truth for all to see.
Now, the world may not be persuaded to follow. The world may choose to ignore the light and persist in their pretense that the emperor has some very fine clothes on, all evidence to the contrary, simply because their pride insists that they do.
The kingdoms of this world may even try to punish you for being different. But remember, beloved: yours is the kingdom of heaven.
To be salt of the earth, light of the world – a rare and sometimes lonely position. But I am reminded of another story, this one from the Old Testament book of Kings. The prophet Elijah has been called by God to stand up to King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, to stand against all the prophets of Baal, to stand for God and righteousness.
But at a point it becomes too much for Elijah and he collapses, lamenting at how alone he is. God says to him, “Elijah, you are not alone. Do you think I would leave you alone? Elijah, I have thousands more in the world like you.”
You might not know just how many pinches of salt and glimmers of light God has in the world, just like you, until you stand up.
Photo: By Olga Ernst - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76234030
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