“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. “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:13-20)

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     As our children learned, no one has very much use for salt on its own. If you eat it, it won’t do much except leave a bad taste in your mouth. A couple of years ago when our family went to Florida, Hannah really loved swimming in the Gulf of Mexico – except when the waves came and salt water got into her mouth. It’s nasty stuff! It’s really only useful if you use it in the right way and in the right combinations. So we put it on our food, hoping that it will penetrate the food's natural flavour and improve it or enhance it. So we put it on our roads and walkways, hoping that it will penetrate the snow and ice and make them safer to drive on. Salt can really only be useful if it's used with something else; if it penetrates the surface to get to the essence of what we're using it with. Alone, salt is really just a very unpleasant-tasting mineral. And even if you use it to enhance the flavour of food or to melt the ice on the roads, too much of it is a bad thing. If you eat too much you get high blood pressure among other things. If you put too much on the roads or walkways you kill plants. It’s all a matter of balance – and the balancing act with salt is a very delicate one, which – with our modern knowledge of the problems associated with too much salt – makes today’s Scripture passage an especially challenging one.

     Jesus told his followers that they are to be “the salt of the earth.” The church needs – and Jesus needs - salty Christians who haven't lost their zest for Christ or their excitement for the faith. It's a strange image, but if we take the time to reflect on it, we'll also find that it speaks volumes to us. It speaks to the question that probably every person dwells on at some point in their life: “Am I valuable?” Some people never get beyond that question! In a way, the answer is given by Jesus’ words about salt. Salt was of immense value in Jesus’ day. The Roman Empire used to pay their soldiers with salt (and the word “salary” in fact comes from the same Latin root as “salt.”) Salt – which we take for granted today, and which is so easily available that many of us suffer from too much sodium in our diets – was literally a matter of life and death in Jesus’ time. And if that’s how valuable salt was at the time, then what message is being sent by Jesus when He calls His followers “the salt of the earth?” Are Christians really of any value in and for the world we live in? I know a lot of people who would say that we’re not. I know a lot of people who would say that we’re actually a hindrance. And sometimes there may be truth to that. Salt is essential for life, but – again – it’s all a matter of balance.

     Sometimes we’re not salty enough, and if you don’t get enough salt you have a serious problem. A couple of years ago (and it’s hard to believe it was that long ago!) when Lynn almost died, I remember the first thing that the doctors in Port Colborne noticed but couldn’t figure out or control was that her sodium was way too low, and although it was much more complicated than just that, the low sodium became one of the major issues in all the complications that set in later. Sometimes we’re not salty enough. Too often churches seem to have little if anything to offer to the community or the world around them. The February issue of the United Church Observer has a whole article about “post-theistic” churches. Here’s a few words from the article describing such an entity: “Post-theistic churches use the Bible sparingly, acknowledging its contents as myth — or don’t reference it at all. … Prayers aren’t addressed to God, but to the community and its innate sacredness.” I don’t mean to be judgmental – but I wonder what such a church has to offer to the world that the world can’t find at a tai-chi class or in private meditation? Surely, if we don’t engage in our mission – if we don’t offer the salt of the gospel to the world – we die.

     Sometimes we’re too salty - and that also causes a lot of complications as pretty much everybody knows. I once heard someone say that there are Christians who spread on the salt with all the delicacy of a salt truck! Maybe it’s why Jesus goes from salt and light immediately into a discussion about the Law. The Law has value. It teaches us a lot about what God’s values are and about what God sees as important. The Law can also be overdone. We live, after all, not by law but by grace – by the gracious gift of God, Who comes to us and makes us His own and Who then shines through us. But if we become too salty – too fixated on Law, too legalistic, too bound to ritual, too trapped by tradition – we stop shining and once again, we die - because we become irrelevant; trapped in the past by things that are of no importance. John Calvin – one of the great figures in Presbyterianism and therefore of our own spiritual heritage in the United Church – used to wear a hat when he preached at his church in Geneva. For a long time, Presbyterian ministers would wear hats when they preached, in keeping with the great tradition of Calvin – who was a giant among preachers; an example to be followed. No one knew why Calvin wore a hat, but since Calvin did wear a hat, it came to be a point of faith that it was important for a preacher to wear a hat, and so Presbyterian preachers wore hats for a very long time. Eventually, someone discovered that the reason Calvin wore a hat to preach was because right above the pulpit of his church there were rafters where pigeons nested. I leave it to your imagination to figure out why Calvin wore a hat when he preached. Neither Presbyterian ministers – nor ministers in the Presbyterian tradition - wear hats any longer when they preach. Too many meaningless traditions or rituals or doctrines or beliefs lead to too much salt – and we die. And if we die, we can’t offer the salt of God’s transforming grace to the world around us – because that’s what salt does. It transforms. It changes things. It enhances the flavour; it melts the ice. It does all those wonderful things. That’s what we do as Christians for the world.

     Jesus in this passage, of course, was talking to His disciples, who included a wide range of people including at least a handful of fishermen. Fishermen didn't need to have the value of salt explained to them. Salt was their lifeblood. They layered the fish they caught with salt to preserve it. And that’s another value of salt - it preserves those things that really count. Remember what I just said - that doesn't mean we're museum keepers, guarding the mausoleum of dusty traditions. Too often the church becomes that – a keeper of unimportant traditions that have no relevance – but as salt, we're not called to preserve traditions; we're called to preserve people. Some traditions do have great value. In the early days of the church those being baptized had a pinch of salt placed on their tongues. That tradition was a two-way reminder: it reminded the convert to be active in preserving and sharing the values of the gospel and it reminded the church to preserve the commitment of the convert. It was, in other words, a reminder to the church to be the church. We’re still called to preserve the values of the gospel. That means we have to sometimes take costly and unpopular stands. That means we have to fight forces that would dehumanize others, and salt plays a role in that. One of the great movements in history was the Indian resistance to British rule, and the non-violent policy pursued by Ghandi – the leader of that movement. Ghandi, of course, was the one who said with words that still cut “I admire your Christ, but your Christians are not like your Christ.” Ghandi was the man who tried to go to church as a young man in South Africa, but who was kicked out because he wasn’t white. Ghandi’s “Salt March” in 1930 was a non-violent protest against British control of the salt trade in India, which essentially made it illegal for the poor to produce their own salt from the oceans – those who also couldn’t afford to buy salt because of the taxes the British levied on it. Many poor people in India were very sick and many died because they had no salt. Salt gives life, and so are we called to fight to make sure that the essentials of life are available to all who need them – everything from the life saving and life enhancing message of the gospel to basic needs like shelter, food and health care. That’s how Christians function as “the salt of the earth.”

     The church today seems to live most of its existence in a state of fear or uncertainty. Will we have enough money? Will we be able to attract young people? Will our programs be successful? They may be important questions, but they miss the point. The real danger facing the church today isn't any of those things. The real danger facing the church is that we'll turn in on ourselves and huddle together for protection from the outside forces that sometimes seem arrayed against us, and become preservers of past traditions, rather than creators of God's Kingdom on earth. Or perhaps we’ll be in the world, but we won't penetrate it and we won't witness to Christ - we'll simply be there to mingle and to make friends by being nice. But if we’re to be the church - if we are to be the “salt of the earth” that Jesus calls us to be we have to be more. The salt that penetrates us is of no use unless we then go out and penetrate others. We can't contain salt in the hallowed halls of the church building; neither can we tame the salt or sweeten the salt. If we do it isn't salt, and we're not being what Jesus calls us to be. Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote in his diary, as though he were describing some unknown phenomenon, “I have been to church today, and I am not depressed.” A Christianity that depresses us, or makes us turn inward rather than outward, or that doesn’t penetrate the world in some meaningful way is a useless faith. Jesus calls us to be the “salt of the earth.” The earth will be the better for it – and so will we.