Written by the Rev. Angela Furlong
Blessed are those who hunger or thirst for justice, the salt of the earth—THEIRS is the kingdom of heaven. And blessed are those who light the Way.
Jesus said: 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.
What exactly does this mean? Can salt really lose its taste? If so, does that really render it useless? Thrown out and trampled underfoot? If we are the salt of the earth, does this mean that when we lose our way or the brokenness of our humanity overwhelms our faith, that we become tasteless? Useless? Trampled underfoot?
It is devastatingly easy to be distracted by the fear of becoming tasteless and useless, of being trampled underfoot when we lose our way. But losing our way is testament to our humanity. And being sought after and found by Christ is testament to our Belovedness. We ARE the salt of the earth, but the focus in this portion of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount is not meant to be upon the salt itself, upon our individuality as Christians. The focus is meant to be upon that which gives us our flavor AS the salt of the earth—that which we savor—and that is God. God gifts us richly and powerfully in so many ways, and God values us so much that God sent Jesus to be with us, to experience the brokenness of our humanity with us, and to save us. Through the challenges and the trials of life, our landscapes and visions may change, but our salt—our worth—never does. God sent Jesus as a sign of hope and promise in the face of adversity, as a sign of unconditional worth and love—of enduring favor. We are precious in God’s sight.
WE are the salt of the earth, and GOD we savor.
To savor something is to find joy in it, to discern and delight in it. The Biblical Greek word used in today’s Gospel message to describe the loss of saltiness is moraino, and it is often translated to mean tasteless, valueless, or foolish. But contextually, the careful consideration of this word highlights a much deeper and more complex meaning. Moraino in the context of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, during which this Gospel message takes place, means specifically to lose the ability to make thirsty for spiritual truth, and to lose the ability to preserve from corruption. To lose this ability is to lose one’s way, and consequently one’s joy. It is to lose savor but not favor. Salt is essential to life, for preservation, for healing, and for sustenance. And it can restore balance by inducing thirst—for water, for truth, and for justice. WE are salt of the earth—for God and for one another. When we lose our way, and we all do, God promises to love us through it and counts on us to love one another through it.
WE are the salt of the earth, and GOD we savor.
Leading up to this portion of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, He delivers the beatitudes. The Beatitudes are a Litany of Justice—God’s justice for us, the salt of the earth, that we might maintain a thirst for spiritual truth and set about preserving those truths from corruption:
The truth that every one of us was intentionally and wonderfully made by God—beautiful and beloved—no matter our color, no matter our culture, no matter our intellect or ability, no matter who we love or where we live. Every one of us was intentionally and wonderfully made by God.
The truth that wisdom originates not from humans, but from God.
The truth that God calls us to loose the bonds of injustice, and to savor God’s love.
The truth that God calls us to thirst for truth and justice, and to quench that thirst for ourselves and for others with the living waters of grace, humility, and service.
The truth that God calls us to LOVE.
To lose our saltiness—to lose our way, however temporarily—means to lose sight of God’s meaning for our life. God means for us to preserve and sustain one another and all of creation—to preserve and sustain beloved community. And we can’t have Beloved Community without LOVE—
Enough love to offer grace to those who neglect or hurt or disappoint us.
Enough love to humbly recognize all of the wonderful gifts our God has afforded us and to share those gifts with others.
Enough love to serve God and one another for the common good—to put our faith into action.
Aside from representing our divine worth and God’s enduring love for us, Biblically, salt also represents covenants—enduring promises made between God and God’s creatures. Because salt is used to preserve, it is the ideal symbol of promise and hope. Salt creates an environment that resists corruption and fosters the healing of wounds. From that perspective, who couldn’t use a little salt in their lives? When life presents its myriad challenges, and hope seems fleeting, the salt of the earth by way of Beloved Community assures us that we are never alone and we are always beloved.
WE are the salt of the earth, and GOD we savor.
This enduring presence of hope and love is also represented Biblically as Light.
You are the light of the world. . . .let your light shine before others,
so that they may see your good works and give glory to God.
Let your light shine, so that others may see. This, too, speaks of God’s enduring love for us, however and whoever and wherever we are—lost or found. God created us, and God loves us—just as we are. And we are never alone, though it may feel so at times.
Add salt to water and it might seem to completely disappear, but as the water evaporates the salt’s endurance is evident in the residue on the glass. And so is God’s love—ever-present in, for, and through us even when it doesn’t appear to be. When all else falls away, or is taken away, and we feel isolated and alone, the salt of the earth remains—God and God’s faithful remain. We are NEVER alone. The same can be said for the Light of the World. Jesus, THE Light of the World, came down to live among us and to show US how to be lights for the world—lights of Christ for the world. And just as the salt remains steadfast, so too does the Light.
No one after lighting a lamp, puts it under a bushel basket…
Even if we did, the light would still be present. The light of Christ is here to stay, and no amount of brokenness or denial will ever change that. Be it under a bushel basket, under scars of brokenness, or under the veils of human power and insecurity, the promise of God’s love for us remains.
Hope can seem elusive at times, particularly when the truths of our Belovedness and our worth are trampled upon or suppressed. But God knows what is in all of our hearts. God assures us of our worth, no matter what. And God speaks to us through scripture and through community—through one another.
God uses the most valuable and precious things in life—YOU—to convey messages. The beatitudes lay this out pretty clearly for us. Blessed are the poor, the meek, the merciful, and the persecuted. Blessed are the peacemakers and the pure in heart, those who shine the light of Christ in the darkness. And blessed are those who hunger or thirst for justice, the SALT of the earth—THEIRS is the kingdom of heaven.
And so, God’s call to us is to uplift and preserve one another, to savor one another’s Belovedness, to truly embody the salt of the earth, and to shine the light of Christ before the world. To be in touch what God created us to be—to be in touch with our divinely gifted souls. A task of such great difficulty at times that poet and activist, Alice Walker, asserts it must be our lodestar. A lodestar is a person or a thing that serves as inspiration. Our lodestar is our faith in action—our embodiment as salt of the earth and how we shine the light of Christ in the world.
She writes:
Here is what I believe
will be the hardest thing
to do:
To remember
that we have
a soul.
It is so quiet,
the soul,
and weighs
almost nothing.
It might flash
across
our dullest days
Only once or twice
in a lifetime.
That it is there:
(JUST THE CERTAINTY
OF KNOWING)
must be
our lodestar.
WE are the salt of the earth.
WE are the light of the world.
We are a lodestar for others.
May we go forth in peace to love and inspire the World.
Amen.
