Salt

My father loved salt.  He used to put salt on regular Triscuits.  A friend once gave him a salt lick for his birthday.  While he had lots of medical issues, salt did not cause a one of them (and it is not really salt that is the issue, but sodium; however, I digress).  I can’t say for sure, but I believe my father’s love affair with salt harkens back to his childhood, to food that was rather bland.  He said his mother considered ketchup “spicy.” 

For centuries, salt has not been considered exotic – it is just a basic table condiment that many reach for automatically, sometimes before even tasting the food! Salt is so ubiquitous that it is used to make sure the poor of the world receive enough iodine in their diet to prevent other illnesses.  Yet we also know (many of us through unfortunately experience) that too much salt is awful.  It can make food inedible, corrode metal and sting if it meets an open wound or eye.

All of our experience with salt – good and bad – effects how we interact with it.  Our familiarity with it may make salt seem passé and an odd thing for Jesus to talk about.  However, more people have experience with salt than with fishing or even farming.  So when Jesus says to his disciples, “You are the salt of the earth,” (Matt 5:13) it should pique our interest.

This saying of Jesus’ appears in all three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) using similar words.  When that happens, it is something to pay attention to!  Salt was a bit more exotic during biblical times, but common enough that people would understand Jesus’ metaphor.  There is nothing quite like salt, and while salt can be used for many things, its primary purpose is to enhance the senses, invite people into a different experience, hopefully a better one.  If salt does not do its job, it is considered worthless and thrown away.  That only happens if the mixture is corrupted by something else (like another element or mineral) which dilutes its potency.

Jesus’ instruction to his disciples, his students wanting to learn all they could from Jesus, is about faith.  Faith makes life better.  It enhances our experience and invigorates our senses; but if we are not careful, it can become diluted with cares, worries and fears, to the point where it does us no good. 

This can beg the question of if it is possible to have too much faith, since having too much salt is not good.  I offer that faith that is an end in itself, where one’s faith does not inspire one to act in response to God’s call to love, does not do much good.  That response isn’t necessarily harmful, but it doesn’t reach beyond itself to have a transformative experience that just the right amount of salt (or faithfulness) can have.

It can be a bit intimidating to be called “the salt of the earth” because it calls us to be more than we might want to be – more faithful, more present, more ready to respond by offering ourselves in service to God.  That is what being a disciple is all about – learning how to be “salt” with authenticity and joy, even in difficult times.  Through study and prayer, worship and fellowship, we discover how to offer just the right amount of salt – which might be more than we first thought, kind of like my father’s Triscuits!

We need to make time to discover our saltiness.  Once again, I invite you to participate in the Lenten program “Set our hearts on Fire!”  to learn more about our relationship with God and what might prevent us for fulfilling our salty potential.  Come and learn to be more spicy! J

In Christ,

Rev. Valerie+