The Salt of the Earth
Epiphany Season: Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, 9 February 2014.
Rev. Bruce Skelton, Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Highlands Ranch, Colorado
Listen to the audio by following this link.
It was stunt night at the rodeo and Rusty Davis was all set to do his famous trick riding. Even though he was getting along in years, Rusty was still pretty exciting to watch. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” bellowed the announcer, “Rusty will now perform his dangerous and breath-taking feat of picking up his bandana off the ground with his teeth, while riding at a full gallop. Let ‘er go Rusty!” The drums rolled, the chute opened, and out came Rusty on his swift Palomino. Nearer and nearer to the handkerchief he came until he was just about to reach it, he quickly swung his legs up in the air and his head down head low holding onto the saddle and Rusty and the horse sped past, but red handkerchief still lay on the ground. There was an embarrassed silence for a moment as Rusty wheeled his horse around and galloped over to the announcer and whispered something to him. The announcer then turned to the microphone and proclaimed: “Ladies and gentlemen, Rusty Davis will now ride back and pick up his bandanna, and his teeth!”
My friends whether we want to admit it or not, sometimes we are a little like Rusty. We get so distracted in our daily lives that we leave behind something important, something even more crucial than our teeth behind - namely, our faith in God. Sometimes we can get so wrapped up in the cares and concerns of this earthly life that we forget why God has put here in this time and place, and that is what Jesus was talking about in our text, when He spoke to the crowds in his famous sermon on the Mount, saying: “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste how shall its saltiness be restored?”
I find it interesting that many experts are telling us that we need to cut way back on the salt in our diets. Such was not the case in the ancient world, in fact salt was seen as something that was very, very good. This idea still comes across today in old expressions like “he’s worth his salt” meaning he is good at what he does or he really knows what he is talking about. The inimitable Roman historian Pliny wrote this about salt:
So essentially necessary is salt that without it human life cannot be preserved: and even the pleasures and endowments of the mind are expressed by it; the delights of life, repose, and the highest mental serenity, are expressed by no other term than sales among the Latins. It has also been applied to designate the honorable rewards given to soldiers, which are called salarii or salaries. But its importance may be further understood by its use in sacred things, as no sacrifice is offered to the gods without salt.
That last part is especially interesting, because salt was also an essential ingredient in the sacrifices to the Lord in the O.T. as it states in Leviticus 2:13: You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt. Salt was so important it was to accompany every offering that was offered on the altar of the Lord. In fact, no sacrifice was acceptable to God without it.
Why was this? Well, in those days the primary use of salt was as a preservative for meat, so that it wouldn’t rot or spoil as quickly. Salt is essentially an acid and as such it has antiseptic qualities, which means that it can kill germs. For that reason it protected meat and preserved it. So, when Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth,” He meant that you and I as faithful Christians act as sort of a preservative for this rotten decaying, sin-fallen world. In other words, we are called to be a positive force within our communities, our church, and our families, in order to stop the spread of spiritual and moral decay.
In the original koine Greek of this text the “you” is emphatic, conveying the idea “You are the only salt of the earth.” That is a powerful statement because basically it says that if it weren’t for us, if it weren’t for believers in Christ (namely, the church) this sin-fallen world would soon rot and perish in its corruption. But it is very important for us to remember, however, that our saltiness is not due to our natural goodness or personal worthiness, but because of the fact that Christ dwells in us by the working of the Holy Spirit in our hearts via Word and sacrament. By faith in Jesus, then, we are the church which St. Peter calls in his 1st epistle: “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.”
As believers in Christ we have an everlasting salt covenant sealed by the one perfect sacrifice acceptable to God, who is Jesus Christ our Lord, the one who came not to abolish the Law or the prophets, but to fulfill them. And fulfill them he did. He lived a perfect life for us as a man under the law and he died a perfect sacrificial death for us upon the cross so that through faith in Him, we could have everlasting life. It is Jesus Christ and him alone who makes Christians the salt of the earth.
That brings to mind the question that I am most often asked about this text which is: “How can salt lose its saltiness or how can salt be made something other than salt?” The simple answer is that it cannot be something else, likewise, it should be unthinkable to us as Christians that we should be anything else. That being said, however,, salt can be tainted and that is the idea Jesus is getting at here. In the Greek text is rendered something like this: “but if the salt be tainted, by what shall it be salted.” While salt is always salt, it can be polluted by being mixed with dirt and other chemicals and made so impure that it is no longer good for anything, except, as Jesus points out, being thrown out on the roads, which was done back then, not for melting ice as we use it for today, but because it was a natural herbicide and prevented grass or other plants from growing on pathways and between the cobblestones on their highways.
With this metaphor Jesus points out to us the grave danger that we as Christians face of returning again to slavery, or of coming under the influence of the devil, the world, and our own sin-fallen flesh, becoming adulterated or mixed up with the things of this world and worldly ways of thinking. If we allow that to happen, it would be like adding dirt to salt. Eventually, we would become unpalatable and worthless to God.
My friends, the bad news is that, that is exactly what is happening to the church at large in our once great nation. As years go by, it is obvious that the God of the Bible is being left behind in our rearview mirror and a new god, which is really no god at all, is being lifted up. This god is no different than the idols of the O.T., which were made by human hands, whom the Israelites followed to their destruction. Our new god of political correctness, is slowly, almost imperceptibly, adulterating the church and our society at large. The worship of this new God begins with an abandonment of Scripture as the inspired and inerrant Word of God.
Jesus is taking aim at such thinking when he says in our text:
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 say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
The modern church in our nation is largely ignoring this passage, as well as many others, particularly those passages that condemn sin. In fact, sin is often no longer called sin and it is almost never condemned. How often are we reluctant or even afraid to speak out against things like abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and drug and alcohol abuse? We all know that these are hot button issues and they are almost guaranteed to offend someone, but if we don’t speak out against them, what happens? Well, you know what happens, because it has happened. These sins have been accepted by the public at large as normal or even, ironically, moral behavior. And if you have a problem with them, then you are the problem. You are one of those Neanderthal Christians, a male chauvinist pig, a homophobe, a bigot, a prude, or whatever other derogatory name that the world can come up with. So we keep our mouths shut, because we are afraid to offend our increasingly godless, neighbors and family members.
Yes, beloved it’s not easy being salt, but salt is what we are and we must tell the truth even if it hurts, not to harm others, but so they might repent of their sin and be saved, for when you stop and think about it, how did we become the salt of the earth? At some point were we not confronted with our own rottenness, were we not stung by the law and told that we were dying in our sin and unbelief? And did that not cause us to realize our desperate need for a Savior, and then, by the grace of God, Jesus Christ and his cross and his resurrection were held before our eyes and we believed and are now being saved? That is what has made and what keeps us salt.
In the forests of Northern Europe lives the Ermine, a small animal known best for its snow-white fur. By instinct this animal will go to any extreme to protect its beautiful glossy coat, so that it won’t get dirty and hunters know this, so instead of setting a mechanical trap to catch the Ermine, they find its den, which is usually in the cleft of a rock, and they daub the entrance with tar or pitch. Then they unleash the hunting dogs and the dogs chase the Ermine back to its hole. But when the Ermine finds the hole covered with filth, it refuses to go in. Rather than soil its white fur, it courageously faces the yelping dogs, who hold it at bay until the hunters capture it. And so, to the Ermine purity is dearer than life! Beloved, by God’s grace and mercy, let it be so with us, so that others might see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven. In Jesus Name.
Amen. 