When I read
the bible reading for today the first thing I did was googled “can salt lose
its saltiness.
Apart from
the bible reading I’ve never heard of it before – and apparently no one else
had either.
According to
the responses that I read it was said – salt simply can’t lose its saltiness.
So what was
Jesus speaking about when he said that?
Did he have
his understanding of salt wrong?
Well, I
don’t believe so.
I believe
that what Jesus was referring to was when salt was not doing the task it was
intended to do.
Salt has
various applications but the ones that come to mind and which could be seen as
something Jesus would see as applying to the church would include:
Salt a a
purifying agent; a preservative; and providing taste.
Salt as a purifying agent
Salt can be
used for healing.
Some people
gargle salt water when they have a sore throat or infection.
Some people
find that going to the beach can heal cuts and abrasions in their skin with the
salt water.
Likewise the
church can bring healing to a person who is hurting or grieving.
The church
can bring comfort in times of distress.
But salt can
also be used in the wrong way in times of hurt and we are familiar with the
term “rubbing salt into a wound”.
Likewise the
church can also bring hurt during times of difficulty or suffering when it focuses
on blame and judgment as to why that person is suffering.
How often
don’t we hear people say – “I must have done something terrible to be suffering
like this”?
A person who
is hurting doesn’t need to hear the cause of the hurt – they need to hear the
comfort God brings.
A person who
knows that they have done the wrong thing doesn’t need to be reminded of what
they have done wrong – they need to hear the word of forgiveness – that God
loves them.
When Jesus
came and spent time with the “tax collectors and sinners” he was criticised by
the righteous Pharisees because they felt he should be spending time with them
and not those who disobeyed God.
And Jesus
reminded them “"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I
have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17).
Jesus came
to heal the hurting people.
When the
woman was caught in adultery and the righteous people wanted to put her to
death, Jesus told them to look at their own sin while the woman who knew she
had done wrong was forgiven by Jesus.
So often the
church has brought hurt rather than healing which is when the salt of the
church loses its saltiness.
Salt as a preservative.
Salt is used
as a preservative and especially before we had refrigeration it was an
essential preservative.
Today salt
is misused as a preservative.
As we look
at a lot of our refined goods they are laden with salt where nutrients are lost
so that shelf-life can be increased.
And we know
that those salt laden foods are not good for us and the cause of so much
obesity.
Likewise the
church can sometimes preserve too much.
It’s a fine
balance where we don’t want to throw out everything so we can be like the world
but we also don’t want to lose touch with the world.
So the church
has changed some of the older traditional ways – modernising the Lord’s Prayer
while preserving its meaning –
modernising the language of the bible while preserving the accuracy –
modernising its music while preserving its focus on God.
But the church
can sometimes misuse preservation.
So often the
church’s message has been along the lines of – you need to change your ways and
then you can come back to God.
In those
cases the church has preserved its ways and it’s the world that needs to come
back.
But as we
look at Jesus’ ministry – he went out to the people where they were.
He didn’t
change the ways of God but because the people had strayed from God’s ways
didn’t mean that he didn’t go out to them.
Like the
woman caught in adultery.
He went out
to her to bring her grace, love and forgiveness to restore her relationship
with God and only after that he said – go and sin no more.
He didn’t
tell to her go and sin no more before you can experience God’s love and grace
and forgiveness.
And so the
church has often been seen as a relic of the past and the people have not come
back.
People see
the church as being preserved in a time past and that it is no longer relevant.
But we know that’s
not true.
The church
is always relevant because God’s grace always needs to be experienced.
And remember
what Jesus said – he is the same yesterday, today and forever.
We don’t
change our ways as Jesus said –
“Do not
think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to
abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is
accomplished”. (Matthew 5:18)
But what we
do is we apply God’s love into a situation to restore.
Luther used
the term “3rd use of the law” to explain the commandments as a
response of love towards God’s love for us and not to receive God’s love.
Restoring a
person is different to preserving.
Salt providing taste
Salt is an
important ingredient in drawing out or supplementing flavour.
Can you
imagine fish n chips without salt?
Even the
most expensive restaurant with a world class chef as its cook will have salt on
the table.
Salt, used
properly will enhance and draw out flavour.
Salt is
different to tomato sauce which we pour on our food to perhaps disguise or
cover up the taste of food.
Likewise
Jesus calls on the church to be the salt in the world.
And it does
that when it brings flavour to the world by seeing God’s blessings in things.
When the
church goes out into the world and takes God’s love and blessings into people’s
lives.
But salt can
lose its “saltiness” when it is misused.
When we put
too much salt on food it can totally ruin the taste and all you taste is the
salt.
And so too
the church can lose its saltiness when it goes out into the world but fails to
provide a source of blessings in the world.
When the
church divides the world into good and evil.
When it sees
things that it disagrees with as “evil” or works of the devil rather than
seeing it as part of the smorgasbord of God’s creation.
The church
struggles in contemporary ways and can be guilty of condemning rather than
supporting and understanding.
And that’s
why so many of our younger demographic feel estranged from the church.
They feel
that the church is not bringing a message it understands or relates to.
And that’s
when it loses its saltiness.
That’s when
people reject the church’s message because all it sees it as is an organisation
that condemns and rejects and turns people away.
We’ve all
heard criticisms of the church and heard images of the church that do not
resemble what Jesus’ true meaning for the church was.
The Church
was established by Jesus to be his presence in the world – a presence that is
to bring grace into the world to restore people’s relationship with God.
And that
relationship is restored through Jesus Christ and his death on the cross for
our sins not by obedience.
It was “WHILE” we were yet sinners that Christ
died for us (Romans 5:8)
As St Paul
says today:
I did not
come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I
decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
If we are to
be salt in the world that also needs to be our message too – a message of Jesus
Christ and his death for us.
His death
was to bring God grace and love and forgiveness and restoration – true salt.
Let us not
lose that saltiness by bringing something other than salt of Jesus Christ so we
may enhance the flavour of God into the world.
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