Salt

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 by men.~ Matthew 5:13

I think I've always struggled a little with this verse. Struggled to understand it. The temptation to want the metaphor to hold out as solid doctrine was always too great. I have even wandered if the last part of the verse wasn't some kind of way of saying that you can lose your salvation. I'd like to say that I don't think this is the case. And what is this "saltiness"...what exactly does that mean? 

This is only a short blog today and so I wont go into this element in any depth. I have heard people say that it is significant that it is salt rather than sugar. I like that. We are not here to sweeten the world, to give them a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. Salt does 3 things (at least) that spring immediately to mind. 

First its about flavour. It stops, in part, the blandness of some foods and adds a little something. I think as Christians we ought not to be bland, unsure of what we are or what we think. We ought to be characterised as little Jesus's, making life something to savour. Salt also brings out other flavours, providing contrasts. We ought to be people who bring out the best and the natural goodness in others.

Secondly it is a vital nutrient. The world needs the church like a body needs salt. Too much is also a bad thing. We must know when to speak and when not to speak. When to act, and when not to act.

Thirdly it makes you thirsty. We must, by our lives, leave the world wanting more of him. If he is the living water then our job, rather than giving them sodium poisoning, is to leave them with a thirst for Jesus.

But what really impacted me about this verse is that it is not really about the salt. We can take the "saltiness" to really define a property that a substance possesses. This could be defined as the "parable of the salt" and a parable nearly always has one clear message. The message of this parable is "usefulness".

I heard a sermon recently on the early part of Acts, centring around the story of the healing of the lame man at the gate beautiful (Acts 3). Peters amazing Holy Spirit inspired one liner "Silver and gold have I none" comes from this story. In a nutshell (sorry Bernard) the message was saying that if they'd had silver and gold the temptation would have been to give out of that. If they had given him money, the preacher asked, would he still have been begging the next day? So Peter says "what I have I give you, in the name of Jesus..get up". Peter had to give out of what he had. If you haven't got it, you cant give it. The bit of the message that really impacted me was that the disciples ended up in court over this and after an inspiring impassioned speech, the accusers have nothing to say. We need to be acting in such a way that our actions leave the world with nothing to say because of the amazing things we are doing.

In the same thread in Acts (because of this amazing move of the spirit) people bring their possessions to be sold and the money is used to help the poor. I am always impressed by the bit in Acts 2:47 where it says they were "enjoying the favour of all the people". In other words they were loved as a result of all the good they did.

Back to the saltiness now. Its clear what has happened to the church in our nation. I read this verse as I opened a book by Les Isaac, the founder of the "Street Pastor" movement. And the latter part of that verse hit me again "It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled by men". Is that not what has happened to us. Is the church not thrown away by the world in general as irrelevant, are our beliefs not "trampled" intellectually and publicly?

What is it then that can take away their dismissal. We need the Holy Spirit. We need to understand, and live by, the power of the Holy Spirit, so we can take away all their arguments and leave them speechless like Peter and John did at the Sanhedrin. I would argue also that it is our resources, our "Silver and Gold", our time and money and the good we do with it that will restore the message of Gods love for all people expressed in Jesus Christ, restore our saltiness and give us savour.