Change Agents Series

How many of you keep a watch on how much salt you eat, buying the low-sodium versions of things like canned soup and cold cuts and avoiding high-sodium treats like pizza and potato chips? It’s an article of faith that salt is hazardous to your health. And it’s very difficult to avoid, since most processed foods need salt for their shelf life, and we’ve all noticed how much better things taste with salt. Even caramel gets sea salt added to it these days. But every slice of bacon, every bite of cheese, and every single peanut comes with a stab of guilt. What most of us don’t realize, though, is that reduced sodium intake is not for everyone. Low sodium levels can be just as harm-ful to your health as high ones. Too little salt can kill you. Nobody nowadays thinks about how absolutely essential sodium is for life.

Our world doesn’t have a clue how important salt was to the people of Jesus’ day. Less than a dollar at any grocery store will buy you enough salt for a year... And that’s just ordinary salt. There’s also kosher salt, Himalayan salt, French gray salt, and dozens of others. You can buy a box of 18 different gourmet salts from Amazon for only $30. So we don’t view salt as the ancients did. The Romans believed that only the sun itself was more essential for life than salt, and Roman soldiers usually received their pay in salt. That’s where the phrase “not worth his salt” originated, and the word salary actually comes from salt.

As I’ve already suggested, salt has two primary functions. First, salt adds flavor. Food without salt is bland and tasteless. But the second function is even more important, especially in Jesus’ day. Remember, they didn’t have refrigerators. They didn’t even have cans. There were only four ways to preserve food for the long term: you could dry it, or pickle it, or smoke it, or salt it. Salt is a preservative. It keeps food stable, keeps it from undergoing the kind of chemical changes which make it not only inedible but even dangerous. That’s why processed foods use so much of it!

So it’s really kind of obvious what Jesus is doing tacking this sentence on after listing the 8 blessed qualities his followers should display. “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 underfoot.” [Mt 5:13]

We as Christians do add a distinctive flavor to society - one that, I might add, does raise some people’s blood pressure! But our more important function is to preserve it from corruption. And as any cook knows, salt has to be added. It has to be stirred in, or at the very least sprinkled on top. And that means that it is impossible to be a Christian in private. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said that “Christianity is essential-ly a social religion; to turn it into a solitary religion, is to destroy it.”

Some people would take issue with that. “My faith is between me and God,” they say, “being in the world distracts me from God.” And, in fact, for much of the history of the church a special sort of admiration was reserved for the holy hermit, those who spent all their time locked away from the temptations of the world, spending their time instead in rapt and silent contemplation of the beauty of our God. Their whole being was dedicated to worship.

Still others point to Paul’s admonition not to associate with sinners, and withdraw from the world to a closed community to keep themselves from being corrupted by the world. From the Benedictines to the Shakers, this has always had a certain attraction.

But think about it. What has Jesus been teaching his followers in the sermon intro we call the Beatitudes? He’s been showing them - and us – what becoming his followers is all about. Of course these qualities do speak to our internal condition. To be poor in spirit, to mourn over the world's brokenness (and our own), to hunger and thirst after righteousness, to be pure in heart... all of these are inward attitudes. But that’s only half the story. All of them are worked out in the world, as we go about our daily lives.

They are all connected, too, in different combinations as we meet different situations. Mercy, for instance, requires recognizing pain and sorrow, and then taking action. How can you do mercy except as you are involved in a world filled with suffering? Of course even within Christian circles there is pain. This year we have grieved the loss of a husband and a mother; watched in prayer over loved ones suffering serious illness and a child born with a broken body, to name only a few. So I suppose we can exercise mercy without exposing ourselves to those nasty sinners out there. But turning our eyes inward, only to people like ourselves, isn’t really mercy, is it. Mercy is tender to all kinds of human frailty. It often involves extending forgiveness, not just sympathy. And forgiveness disarms people. It changes things.