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Salty

             You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. (Matthew 5:13)

 

            Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)

 

            A friend of mine heard a sermon once in which the preacher told the congregation that if they didn’t obey God, He might “put them on a shelf” and find someone else to do the work. This sounds a little like what Mordecai told Esther. If she didn’t step up to be used to save Israel, even at the cost of her own life, salvation would come from elsewhere, but she would be lost anyway. But the idea has become a scourge for her. I can’t say I’m any better because I need to be helpful that is ultimately (I suspect) for my glory, not God’s.

            Sometimes, the “salt of the earth” passage is given the same feeling. If you aren’t salty enough, you’ll be trampled underfoot, so get off your lazy backside and salt-up, or else! The good news is that while we may not be able to become salty of our own volition, God can make us so.

            That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take the warning seriously or that we shouldn’t consider what it means to be salty. Usually, people comment on this verse with the use of salt: to preserve, to heal, and to give a good flavor. Some people describe hard or rough language as “salty.” This morning, I’m going to mention another use of salt. From ancient times, salt was used to kill plants so enemies could not farm the land. This salt was also trampled underfoot.

            This might be different from the sense in which Jesus meant the term. I wouldn’t suggest it as a main understanding. But – to what extent have you used your saltiness to make it difficult or impossible for evil to feed itself and spread in your life? In your community? I’m not asking how often you’ve verbally bludgeoned those you think evil. I’m asking how we’ve used our saltiness in our own lives to destroy the evil in our own lives. How have we been useful to slow the growth of evil by applying goodness to the evil (not to the people caught up therein)? Or do we say, “Well, that’s the world, and I’m not part of it!” and walk away? That’s a definite loss of saltiness.

            As I prepare to close this post, the image of Jim Carey from The Mask (I think) comes to mind. We still hear people quote the line of "Smokin'!" What if we lived lives that led others to use the same tones to say, "Salty!"? Yes, I know - silly. But why not make it fun to be salty?

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