I wish I could have heard Jesus say these words.  Did he have a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye when he said, “But if 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 by men.”  Was this a tongue in cheek passage, meant to get us thinking?  Or was Jesus saying these words in his sternest voice, his body language commanding, and this is a passage meant to get us moving?  I’m not sure, but either way, I don’t want to be salt that has lost its saltiness!

A few weeks ago I had a little salt crisis.  One of my favorite snack foods is hard pretzels, specifically Snyder’s of Hanover hard pretzels that you can find in a box on the bottom shelf of the grocery store.  I guess they’re not that popular, that’s why they are on the bottom shelf, or maybe only short people like look for them!  I love the crunch, I love the knot in the middle, I love the salt leftover at the bottom of the container.  But in December, I could not find my hard pretzels anywhere.  Supply chain issues.  This happened a few months ago, too, and I tried a couple other brands, but they weren’t the same.  So this time, I decided to just wait for the Snyder’s to come back.  I must have complained about it a lot, though, because Pastor Karen started looking for them when she went shopping, too!  Imagine my delight when she dropped off two boxes of Snyder’s hard pretzels for me at church!

I can picture not being able to find your favorite salty food.  I can picture running out of salt, forgetting to buy salt, or making a mess while trying to refill your saltshaker.  But I can’t picture how salt can lose its saltiness.  You either have salty salt—or you don’t have salt at all!  It’s possible Jesus was referring to an ancient practice of using salt under floor tiles to help keep houses warm.  When the salt got worn down over time and stopped offering any insulation, it got swept up and thrown into the streets, where it became part of the roadbed.  Like how we might rake out the old mulch in our gardens, and replace it with new mulch from time to time.  We can see how, if that is what Jesus was referring to, salt would lose its saltiness.  And once it’s mixed in with the dirt and debris of the roadway, how could it ever be made salty again?

What an interesting metaphor for us!  I think we are all feeling a little worn down these days.  I think we are all feeling a little mixed up by the dirt and debris of life.  Have we lost our saltiness?  That’s probably not something we would want to admit, given how Jesus says that salt cannot be made salty again.  But here’s where I think maybe Jesus had a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face, because nothing is impossible with God.  If God is powerful enough to raise us to new life after death, then certainly God can restore our saltiness and raise us to new life now!

Listen to how this passage is rendered in The Message translation.  Jesus said, “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.”  Again, none of us want to end up in the garbage.  But I don’t think there’s reason to panic.  We know that the God-flavors of this earth include renewal, restoration, grace, compassion, mercy, hope, and peace.  Shouldn’t that all start with us?

When Jesus calls us the salt of the earth, he is telling us that we have special spiritual qualities that are important for the world.  That’s the good news.  The not so good news is, many spiritual qualities are only developed through adversity.  Mark 9:49-50 record Jesus as saying, “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.”  This is part of being a disciple.  We can expect to be salted with fire—to be refined and purified, so we can become stronger.  The key is to not let the difficulties of this life trample us down. But what if they already have?

I was feeling like that this summer.  For twenty years now, my go-to daily devotional practice has been to write in my journal.  I try to spend an hour, usually between 8 and 9 am, with my Bible and my laptop.  I write about what the verses of scripture have sparked in me, I write about my concerns, I write about the things that make me happy and grateful.  I pretty much always have a lot to say!

But this summer, something changed, and writing in my journal no longer was serving me well.  In fact, I stopped even trying to write for a couple months, because instead of bringing me hope and peace, writing was making me feel sad.  This was a salt crisis far worse than not being able to find my hard pretzels in the grocery store.  This was one of the most painful things I have experienced in my spiritual life.  I was salted by fire and didn’t know what to do.

As I confessed this problem to my spiritual director, Susan, tears streamed down my face.  I was afraid I had made some kind of fatal error in my spiritual life.  I had lost my saltiness, and like Jesus says, I was afraid I wouldn’t get it back.  But Susan saw things differently.  Spiritual directors have a lot of experience with people getting their saltiness back.  They know a lot about restoration.  She encouraged me to have salt in myself—to have confidence that God would indeed lead and guide me and would bring me to the devotional practices that would be most meaningful for me in this season.  She also encouraged me to do as many things as possible that would bring me joy.  To play.  To have fun.  To lighten up.

So I made a list, and got cracking.  Phil and I went to some places we’d never been.  We caught up with old friends.  We ate on the patios of restaurants.  I re-read some favorite books.  I drove my car down back roads with the windows open and my left elbow sticking out.  I also found some fun ways to show caring to others, like spending three days counseling at Camp Innabah, and with my sister, planning a birthday party for our mom, and recruiting people for our Help Build Hope event.  I’m not sure if it was the fun things I did for myself, or the fun things I did for others.   But by caring for my soul, I got my salt back.

As I think about all of this, I think caring is at the heart of what it means to be the salt of the earth.  When Phil was growing up, there was a couple in his church that took a special interest in him.  Willis and Edna Sneath were salt of the earth people.  They were retired school teachers. They never had children of their own, which I’m sure was a deep sadness for them.  But they cared about their students, they cared about their church, and most importantly to me, they cared about Phil.  Well, actually, they always called him Philip. They were formal like that.  Phil has wonderful memories of being at their house, where mandarin oranges from the can were served as a snack, books were read, games were played, and crafts were made.  All of that caring helped Phil learn that he was loved and lovable.  And my guess is, all that caring helped Willis and Edna know they were loved and lovable, too.

If you want to be a salt of the earth person, caring is what it’s all about.  But in order to care well for others, we have to care well for our own souls so we don’t lose our saltiness.  Caring for your own soul is tricky—we don’t come with soul owner’s manuals!  So we have to learn to listen to ourselves, and we have to learn to listen to God.  On any given day, caring for your own soul might involve confessing your sin, or making a hard choice so your priorities are reflected in how you spend your time and money, helping a person in need, or doing something fun for yourself!   Being salt of the earth is more art than science!

Thankfully, we are not in this alone.  When Jesus says, “You are salt of the earth” and “You are the light of the world”, He uses the plural form of you—as in, you all, or all y’all.  All of us together, we have a mission to the world, a mission Jesus claimed for himself and commissioned us into:  to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  We have a mission, to partner with God to make earth more like heaven.  To bring hope, peace, joy and love to our little corner of the world, and beyond.  We get to do that for each other!  And we also get to do that with each other.

This week I came across a story that gave me a little more insight into what it means to be the salt of the earth.  It comes from Philip Yancey’s book, Reaching for the Invisible God.  In the aftermath of World War II, there was a Frenchman named Pierre.  Pierre had been raised in the upper class of France, was from a powerful family and became a member of the French Parliament.  But he became disillusioned at how long it took for any kind of change to take place. The streets of Paris were filled with homeless beggars, and all the politicians could do was debate the problem.  One winter, many of the beggars froze to death.  At that point, Pierre could take it no longer, so he resigned his post and became a monk in the Catholic Church to try to do something about this predicament.

Even as a monk with the backing of the Church, he still couldn’t get the government to help, so he got the idea of organizing the beggars themselves.  He divided them into teams to go through the city and collect empty bottles and rags.  He showed them how to build a warehouse out of discarded bricks to store the bottles and then recycle them.  They began to earn enough money to be self-sufficient.

He also gave each beggar the responsibility to find someone poorer than himself to serve.  The small group of beggars grew into an established organization, which they named Emmaus. Within a few years, Emmaus had done so much good, there were no more beggars to serve.  We might call this a huge success.  But for Pierre, this was a crisis.  So he traveled to Vellore, India, and met with Dr. Paul Brand, who ran a leprosy hospital.  “I must find somebody for my beggars to help,” Pierre told Dr. Brand.  “If I don’t find people worse off than my beggars, this movement could turn inward. They’ll become a powerful, rich organization, and the spiritual impact will be lost.  They’ll have no one to serve.”

Dr. Brand had the solution to Pierre’s problem.  The former beggars were mobilized to build a ward for the leprosy patients in a Vellore hospital, to house the Untouchable caste—people in far worse condition than the group from Emmaus. The patients were incredibly grateful.  But Pierre would not accept their gratitude.  “It is you who have saved us,” he told the leprosy patients.  “We must serve or we die.”

Pierre, the French statesman turned monk, was a salt of the earth person, and he understood that caring is at the heart of discipleship.  Without someone to care for, we become like salt that has lost its saltiness.  “Let me tell you why you are here,” Jesus said.  “You’re here to be salt-seasonings that bring out the God-flavors of this earth.”  That’s why we are here today.  To get our salt made salty again, so we can show compassion, offer mercy, work for justice, and do what’s right—to go from feeling trampled down, to being equipped to care.  For it is caring that is at the heart of saltiness.

Some of us, we are in a salt crisis, and it’s not because we can’t find our pretzels in the grocery store.  It’s far more serious than that.  But not to worry.  If you would like to be a salt of the earth person, but you feel like maybe you’ve lost your saltiness, you are right where you need to be!  And if you have saltiness in abundance right now, you are right where you need to be!  We are in this together, so we can bring out the salt-seasonings of God in the world.  We will all be salted with fire.  We will all have times when we feel trampled down.  We might even have times when we feel more fit for the garbage can than we feel worthy of sitting in God’s presence.  But remember, restoration is God’s specialty.  Redemption is God’s bread and butter.  Let the Spirit of God care for your soul today, and give you back some of your saltiness. And then let that experience of salvation be the light that shines from within you.  Amen.

 

 

Benediction:  Jesus said, “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth.”  Whatever it is you need to do to receive the hope, peace, joy and love of God for yourself, do it!  Whatever it is you need to do to share the hope, peace, joy and love of God with others, do it!  Let your light shine bright, for the glory of God.  Amen.