In our Gospel for this upcoming Sunday we hear Jesus preaching the Sermon on the Mount. He calls his disciples "salt of the earth" and "light of the world." On the surface, this seems somewhat perplexing but did you know that salt had a covenant connotation in ancient Near Eastern culture? What about light? Many theologians believe that by calling his followers the “light of the world” Jesus was arguably associating them with the new Jerusalem and therefore the new Israel. What then is our role as the new Israel? It is to bring the nations into God's covenant.