Being Salty

 

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.  Matthew 5:13

 

I invite you to go get some salt. 

Seriously…don’t worry I will wait for you.  (Insert me humming, “It’s a Small World after all” because I want to make sure that will be stuck in your head all day long.  You are welcome).

Got some salt?  Good.  Put on the tip of your tongue.  What do you taste?  What words awaken within you to describe and define the sensation of tasting salt?  Is the salt a pleasant taste for your or maybe makes you want to reach for a glass of water?

 

Salt is added to increase flavor and zest.  Salt plays and participates with other ingredients.  Salt collaborates.  Salt can be preserved, making something last long.  Too much salt can ruin the soup, or so my grandma used to say.  Rarely do we sit down to a heaping pile of salt for dinner.  Unless we are feasting on McDonald’s French fries, but that is another morning meditation.  Salt is not the main thing but is an important thing.  And too much salt, or salt in the wrong place, can be hurtful.  For example, if you have a sore in your mouth right now and followed my invitation, it probably hurt.  Or, to quote Grandma again, “Don’t pour salt on a wound”.  In the best sense salt adds, plays, preserves, and collaborates. 

 

Jesus calls us to be salt.  To add zest.  To participate and part-take, not seek the spotlight.  And to realize that each of us, as featherless bipeds, hurt and harm one another.  We can all be a drain rather than a fountain to each other.  When we ask, “How can I be salt”, you rewind back to verses 1-12 in chapter 5.  The Beatitudes that we prayed last week are instructive and inspirational to how we seek to be salt. 

 

Today, I invite you to set an intention and attention to one place where you will be salt, seek to bring zest, add flavor, and seek to heal rather than harm.  I am thinking about that meeting on your calendar, that phone call you have been wanting to make, that trip to the store where you will encounter other humans out in the wilderness of life.  One place (not the whole day).  May you find ways to live your saltiness that stirs and swirls and adds Jesus-flavor to these days and those around you.  Amen.