17th Sunday After Pentecost
Mark 9:38-50 “Please . . . Pass the Salt”
[Read text]
1. Ushers, can you help me out this morning. I want you pass something out to the congregation as we begin this morning. [Ushers pass out individual salt packets]. I think there should be enough for every single person to have one so make sure they all get one, please.
2. You never knew you’d get paid if you came to church did you? That’s right. Tell all your friends that you got paid to be in church this morning. This past week I learned when salt was more difficult to come by, “salt rations given early Roman soldiers were known as ‘salarium argentum,’ the forerunner of the English word ‘salary.’” (http://www.saltinstitute.org/38.html) And so I thought I could afford some salt today and I just went ahead and paid you for coming to church, because I thought you were worth your salt. A saying which literally meant that a person was worth their pay. I bought 100 of those this week for $1.00. So I thought it was worth it.
3. I learned a lot about salt this week. Things I never knew before. I learned that there is an organization called the Salt Institute. And here is what they have to say about themselves on their website, “The Salt Institute is the world’s foremost source of authoritative information about salt (sodium chloride) and its more than 14,000 known uses. The Institute is a non-profit association of salt producers (manufacturers) founded in 1914. It provides public information and advocates on behalf of its members, including use of this website. Membership eligibility is limited to companies which both produce and market sodium chloride.” So if you were a salt producer, you could join up with the Salt Institute and have a part of all that they support.
4. I learned salt has more than 14,000 known uses. And you thought you put it on your food with pepper. But the Salt Institute has something to say about that as well. They said, “Salt is used in greater quantities and for more applications than any other mineral. It has more than 14,000 known uses. Everyone uses salt, directly and indirectly. Americans each consume more than 16 tons of salt during their lifetimes, 402 pounds a year for each living American. Only a small percentage of that massive amount is ingested as food.” So next time the doctor tells you to cut back on your salt intake you can tell them, Well, Doc, I don’t eat as much as you might think.”
5. I learned that salt is used in the textile industry to fix and standardize dye batches. That it has been used to “seed” clouds to produce rain in desert areas. Salt is used in the process of making paper from wood, both in creating the pulp from tree bark as well as in bleaching the color.
6. Which is good for a guy by the name of Mark Kurlansky who wrote a book called, Salt: A World History available in either hardback or paperback. Nearly 500 pages dedicated to the history of salt, but one reviewer said it wasn’t nearly as good as his book, Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World. That may or may not be as bad as Bettina Werner an artist who calls herself, “The Queen of Salt” and whose works center around, you guessed it, salt.
7. Did I tell you I learned a lot about salt this week? I also learned that it has connections to the covenant. In Exodus 30.34-36 God speaks to Moses and He says, "Take fragrant spices—gum resin, onycha and galbanum—and pure frankincense, all in equal amounts, 35 and make a fragrant blend of incense, the work of a perfumer. It is to be salted and pure and sacred. 36 Grind some of it to powder and place it in front of the Testimony in the Tent of Meeting, where I will meet with you. It shall be most holy to you.” (NIV)
8. In Leviticus 2.13, the people are told, “13 Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings.” (NIV) and in Numbers 18.19 we read, “19 Whatever is set aside from the holy offerings the Israelites present to the LORD I give to you and your sons and daughters as your regular share. It is an everlasting covenant of salt before the LORD for both you and your offspring." (NIV)
9. These verses underscore the role salt has in terms of the covenantal relationship the nation of Israel was called to have with God. Salt was a sign that all was right between the people and their God. It was a sign of the covenant. It was a symbol of purity and right relationship. A phrase that is still used in some cultures is this one, “There is salt between us”. Meaning that the relationship between two people is good. It is covenantal language.
10. And while at first glance, the last two verses of our text seem out of place, they are really the sum of what Jesus is teaching His disciples throughout this passage of scripture.
11. It all starts as the disciples come to Jesus with the story of how they have confronted a man who is not one of the disciples driving out demons in the name of Christ. He is not one of them and so they feel that he should not be casting out demons. It could be that they are jealous because this guy who is not one of them is doing what they attempted to do but were not able to do so. And so their decision to put a stop to this guy’s work was out of jealousy as opposed to a real concern for the work being accomplished.
12. But Jesus tells them, anyone who does a miracle in my name can not be against me. He says, “whoever is not against us is for us”. If they do a good deed for me than you do not need to worry about them because they are a part of the covenant. He says, “there is salt between us”.
13. And as Jesus continues to teach these disciples He warns anyone who would “cause one of these little ones . . . to sin”. The warning is that no one cause these little ones to break the covenant, or to spill the salt. And in the next several verses, Jesus again teaches His disciples the language of covenant. If your hand causes you to sin which results in a break in covenant, cut it off. If your foot causes you to break covenant, cut it off. If your eye causes you to break covenant, pluck it out. If a part of you causes in you a desire to sin, to break covenant, to spill the salt, than it is better to live without that part of yourself.
14. And our text closes with Jesus making two statements to His disciples and the two verses that seemed out of place now are understood in the context and what He is saying to them is to live in such a way that you can always say, “There is salt between us”. Be able to live a life of covenant, a life of purity, a life pleasing to God. A life where it can be said about you, “you are worth your salt”.
15. Today, on Worldwide Communion Sunday we will participate in an event that unites us as Christians, the act of receiving communion. Of accepting juice and bread as symbols of the blood and body of Christ. And as we do, I want us to reflect this morning on how we are in our spirits. Of how we look to Christ. Not about how we look to those around us, to our spouse, to our family members, to our friends. But think only about how we look to Jesus Christ. Does He look at us and say, “there is salt between us”? In recent days, much has been made about Leonardo Davinci’s painting of the Last Supper. But as I was learning about salt within the context of faith, I learned that in Davinci’s painting, in front of Judas Iscariot is a turned over saltshaker. Consider the state of your saltshaker today as we prepare to worship Christ through communion.
