5TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (A)

You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

Mt 5:13-16

v. 13 - "You are the salt of the earth. 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."

Parallels:
• Mk 9:50 - Salt is good, but if salt becomes insipid, with what will you restore its flavor? Keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another.
• Lk 14:34 - Salt is good, but if salt itself loses its taste, with what can its flavor be restored?

The Church is the new Israel because the old Israel had lost its taste.
Just as salt is useful in cooking, preserving and as fertilizer on the earth, so the Church has a usefulness to God in making the world acceptable to him through its sacrifice and intercession (prayers).

Some consider this to refer to the salt that came from the Dead Sea which was often an unstable combination of salts. This salt was quite capable of deteriorating and going bad. Others take this to refer to even pure salt which could not lose its flavor but could become ritually unclean and thus be unusable and be thrown out.

Jesus compares a disciple who loses his passion for following the Master with salt that has gone bad.

Salt which acts as both a spice and a preservative was also an image of a good teacher who enhanced and preserved the student's life by his teaching.

v. 14 - You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.

Perhaps the city set on a mountain is Jerusalem.

v. 15 - Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house.

Parallel. Mk 4:21 - He said to them, "Is a lamp brought in to be placed under a bushel basket or under a bed, and not to be placed on a lampstand?”

God is lighting a lamp through the teaching of Jesus and which he is giving to his disciples. This light will be displayed for all to see when he sends his disciples to all nations.

v. 16 - Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.

The light will be seen both in their words and in their good works which is doing the will of the heavenly Father.

v. 17 - Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.

Fulfilling the Law and the Prophets may be taken in the sense of fulfilling the prophecies of the OT or in the sense of teaching a righteousness that exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees.

v. 18 - Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.

It may mean that the whole Law is binding until the end of the world or that it will no longer be binding on Christians once Jesus fulfills it demands.