Becoming salt for the world
Mark 9:38-50
In my grandmother’s old china cabinet was a collection of salt shakers – souvenirs of places she’d visited and gifts from people she loved. There was one set of a little Dutch boy and girl kissing, another set of Eiffel Towers, and a third of a cow jumping over a moon and dish running away with a spoon.
We rotated using these salt shakers as the mood struck, but for special holiday dinners, each place was set with a salt cellar – a tiny glass bowl with its own tiny silver spoon.
We weren’t normally a fancy family, but these salt cellars were a sign that the meal we were gathering for was special, set aside in time and ritual, and that the table we were gathering around was removed from daily life. After church on Easter Sunday or before church on Christmas Eve, we set out the finest and celebrated God’s presence among us.
Because of these salt shakers and cellars, I seldom look at salt as a mundane element. Unlike the rest of the spices, it’s given an interesting and decorative storage spot. Salt asks for attention.
That’s why when I read the Bible, I particularly note when I run across passages that speak of salt. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its test, how can its saltiness be restored?” And in Mark 9:49-50, Jesus tells us, “For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness; how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
In Jesus’ time, in an age before refrigeration, salt was a preservative. With salt, a family could preserve its meat so that they wouldn’t go hungry. In Acts 1:4 the Greek word sunalizomenos, usually translated “eating together,” literally means “taking salt together.” In the Hebrew tradition, the word “tasteless” also meant foolish, and so salt became associated with wisdom.
For me, salt allows the flavors of foods to be enhanced and brings about opportunities to savor delicious moments.
Christians are called to “be salt,” for the world – preserving, celebrating, acting in wisdom and savoring the goodness of God.
In Christian Century magazine, Christine R. Bartholomew talks about the idea in Mark 49 that “through our pain and suffering we gain our depth, our flavor, our salt.
“My favorite wildflower is Queen Anne’s lace,” she wrote. “Its beautiful big white blossom has a small red dot in the center of it. The rare thing about this flower is that it cannot blossom unless it is first infested with bugs. It cannot become all that the Lord created it to be unless the bugs come and coerce the blossom to open. We are like Queen Anne’s lace. We cannot become all that God has planned for us to be if we do not allow the “bugs” in our life to help us blossom.”
However, when we do blossom, we live in our fullest flavor, bringing delight in God and purpose in Christ to all we encounter.
In calling for full humanity to be brought to all in South Africa, Nelson Mandela demanded, “Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.” The salt is the piece that delivers us beyond the strictly necessary. It’s a demand the church strives to answer. We are, after all, called to be the salt of, and for, the earth. It may be time to spice things up.
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