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2 Chronicles 13:5 5 Don’t you know that the LORD, the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt?
Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
Salt of the Earth
There is a Peanuts cartoon that shows Peppermint Patty talking to Charlie Brown. She said, “Guess what, Chuck. The first day of school and I got sent to the principal’s office. It was your fault, Chuck.” He said, “My fault? How could it be my fault? Why do you say everything is my fault?” She said, “You’re my friend, aren’t you, Chuck? You should have been a better influence on me.”
Now, that’s just a cartoon but it contains the same idea that Jesus is trying to get us to understand today. When Jesus says we are to be the salt of the earth Jesus means that we are to be a good influence in our world. As members of God’s kingdom we are to be agents for change in our world.
In the summer of 2024 we explored the eight beatitudes that will be characteristics of those who are members of God’s kingdom. We are poor in spirit, merciful, meek, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and all the others, so that, in a sense we may be what Jesus calls the salt of the earth. We shift here from contemplation of the character of kingdom people to considering how we are to function and what our purpose is in the world. Following the beatitudes Jesus gives us two metaphors that teach us how those who live the beatitudes are to live their lives in the world. This week we explore what Jesus means when He says we are to be the salt of the earth.
Now what in the world does salt have to do with the kingdom of God? After all, salt is such a common item, we all have it in our kitchens; there are salt shakers on every table in every restaurant, what’s the big deal? Consider the importance of salt in our lives. Our bodies contain salt: a tear, a drop of blood, a bead of sweat; all contain salt. Salt is necessary for life. It is necessary in the human body to transmit nerve impulses, contract and relax muscles including the heart and to maintain a proper fluid balance. Without salt our hearts would not beat, blood would not flow, and our muscles would not work. Before birth a baby develops in a saline solution. Injured or sick people often are given intravenous fluids that contain salt.
I learned some interesting history about salt in studying for the sermon this week. Salt has been a highly prized substance for thousands of years across all cultures and continents. It has been mined for at least 6,000 years. The word salary comes from the Latin salarium which referred to the money paid to Roman soldiers for the purchase of salt. Salt has even made its way into our language as a metaphor for value: hardworking people are known to be “worth their salt”.
Our Old Testament verse spoke of a covenant of salt. The idea of a covenant of salt is found in three places in the Old Testament. God thought enough of salt to use it as a symbol of His eternal covenant with us and to require it as an offering with sacrifices.
In Jesus’ day salt was a precious commodity. Salt’s ability to act as a preservative was highly prized and necessary since it was the main preservative in the days before refrigeration. Meat quickly spoiled unless it was preserved. The only way to do this prior to refrigeration was to salt the meat down or soak it in a salt solution. That’s still how we make bacon today. As Christians, as kingdom people we are to act as preservatives in our world.
Let me give you an example. I want us today to think of the world as a lovely fresh steak. It’s wonderful out of the refrigerator and onto a good hot grill, cooked to perfection. Yumm! But what happens to that steak without refrigeration, without a preservative? Suppose we just left it out on the counter in our kitchen for a week? It rots. It becomes putrid, rotting, stinking and disgusting. That is our world today without Jesus Christ. Our world is literally rotting away. The world, left to itself, festers and putrefies for the germs of evil are everywhere. From the moment that Adam and Eve fell into sin God’s perfect creation began to decay. Every kingdom member is a preserving element in society until the day when Jesus returns and as Paul put it in Romans: creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay. (Rom 8:21)
Jesus gives us a mighty large task here. He doesn’t say we are the salt of our family or our church. We are not to be just the salt of our community or our country. We are to be the salt of the earth; we are to affect the entire world. The church, as salt for the world, is meant to preserve our disintegrating world. “Jesus was saying in effect, “Humanity without me is a dead body that is rotting and falling apart. And you, my followers, are the salt that must be rubbed into the flesh to halt the decay.” The church must be rubbed into the world— into its rotting flesh and wounds so that it might be preserved. The presence of a salty Christian will retard decay simply because their life is a reproach to the sin of those they are around. It’s been interesting to see how quickly people clean up their language around me when they know I’m a pastor. There are certain people in whose presence a dirty joke is naturally told, and there are others that no one would think of telling such a story to. Now that doesn’t mean a salty Christian is self-righteous or condemning, but simply that their life makes ungodly conversation seem shabby and inappropriate. Such Christians exert an immeasurable influence on society! The presence of such people in education, in business, in the military, in social gatherings can elevate the level of living. And their absence can allow saddening depths of depravity. Believers, salty believers, are the world’s preservative.
The second aspect of salt I want us to consider this morning is that it enhances the flavor of many things. It’s not that we taste the salt itself but that it makes food taste better. When my kids were growing up we would always have a big family breakfast on the weekend. Bacon, eggs and grits. My husband was from the South and he introduced me to grits. I love them and I learned to cook them so they came out creamy and delicious but every once in a while I would get distracted and forget to add salt to the water I cooked the grits in. Blah! What a difference that little bit of salt made. Delicious with it and tasteless without it. As salty Christians do we add flavor, do we improve the lives of those around us?
There’s another effect salt has. It creates thirst. As Christians we can make others thirsty for Christ. When they see us living lives filled with joy they will want that joy for themselves. To live a life that is so salted that others are drawn to God and want to live lives like ours is indeed wonderful!
There’s a warning here in this verse. “but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.” As Christians, we don’t want to lose our saltiness or we will no longer be able to work for God’s kingdom. How could that happen? We talked about how salt can preserve and flavor things. If we lose our ability to preserve and flavor our world than we can no longer be used by God. This could happen if we forget to be kingdom people and become the same as the world. We are to preserve and flavor the world, if instead of doing that we allow the world to overcome us, to pollute and spoil us, if we become the same as the world than we will no longer be salty. Now, that does not mean that we are to withdraw from the world to keep ourselves safe from it. The beatitudes that we studied are internal characteristics of kingdom people but they are not meant to be lived in isolation from the world. We are to be salty individuals and the church is to be a salty church in the world. We are not to withdraw from the world and live isolated lives nor is the church to hide inside the four walls of the building. We are to affect the world around us for good. We are to stand out as examples.
A little salt can make its presence felt. Today’s Christian should be the salt to an increasingly tasteless world. What the world needs is an ever-expanding number of salty kingdom people – salty Christians who stimulate the spiritual appetites of everyone who comes into contact with them. Christians who enrich the lives of others.
I’d like to close with something that may be controversial for some of you. I’m sure we have all seen images of the protests in Minneapolis. I’ve seen clergy praying for both the immigrants and the ICE officers. They were on their knees in front of the ICE officers. The ICE officers arrested them.
First Renee Nicole Gold, a mother of three, was fatally shot by an ICE officer as she was turning her car to leave the scene. Then Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, who was filming the ICE agents was tear gassed, piled on by multiple officers, beaten and then fatally shot by ICE officers. The situation seems to grow worse day by day. Despite appeals from the governor and the mayor and the police chief in Minneapolis the ICE violence has not decreased. I was watching a video of ICE officers who were shooting tear gas at a crowd and you could hear one of them say, “It’s just like Call of Duty”! For anyone who doesn’t know, that’s a violent video game. What kind of law enforcement thinks tear gassing protestors is like a game?
How can anyone be salt in a world like this? Where it is dangerous to be out on the street or driving your car?
I have read that ICE may come to Philadelphia en masse. They are already here but not a large presence. I know they already arrested an Upper Darby man who died two days later while in custody. What are we to do? I ask myself, What will I do? Will I attend a protest? I admit I am beyond scared of ICE and I am terrified of going to a protest. Yet I ask myself, what is God calling me to do? How am I to be salt in the world? I wrestle with this.
. I’d like to close with a question for us to ask ourselves this week. Are we salt? As kingdom people, our role is to work to make our world a realm of God’s blessing for humanity. Such enriching persons are indeed the salt of the earth.
In Minneapolis
First they came for the undocumented immigrants
And I did not speak out
Because I was not an undocumented immigrant
Then they came for immigrants with papers
And I did not speak out
Because I was not an immigrant with papers
Then they came for citizens with accents
And I did not speak out
Because I did not have an accent
Then they came for people of color
And I did not speak out
Because I am not a person of color
Then they came for protestors
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a protestor
Then they shot some citizens
And I did not speak out
Because I was not shot
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
By Christine Callaway
Based on ‘First They Came’ by Martin Niemöller
German theologian and Lutheran pastor