Evensong, February 4, 2001

Trinity Church, Princeton NJ

Reading: Matthew 5:13

It was on a mountain
that he said it.
The crowds had been following them for days,
traveling from all around, wanting miracle after miracle,
and there had been no peace at all.
Finally, when he saw people beginning to arrive yet again,
instead of collecting together the sick and the needy to be healed,
he headed off up the mountain, sat down with a few of his closest friends,
the ones he had especially called as his disciples,
Peter and Andrew, James and John, and some others,
and began to teach.

What he said
that day up on the mountain,
we know today
as the Sermon on the Mount.
Three long chapters, as Matthew records it,
and near the beginning, just after the section
we know as the Beatitudes,
Jesus says this:
"You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste
how can its saltiness be restored? It is not longer good for anything,
but is thrown out and trampled underfoot."

There are times
when it seems to me
that those of us who are adults
have a real disadvantage
in reading the Bible. We expect things to be complex, we expect them
to be difficult.
And sometimes
we miss the point.

If you read what the scholars have written
about this one little verse
in Matthew chapter 5,
you will discover
all sorts of things
about salt.
Things you never even knew
that you didn't know, and perhaps
that you didn't ever want to know..
Apparently
salt in the time of Jesus
was all too often impure.
It was collected from the Dead Sea,
and could easily be contaminated
by other minerals.
Good salt
could be used to preserve things
as well as to flavor them;
contaminated salt
wasn't much good for anything.
But you can read the commentaries, you can understand all about salt,
and still miss the point of what Jesus is saying.

Because the point of the whole thing is,
if salt isn't salty, then it isn't salt.
If what you've got is salt, then it will be salty, by definition.
If it isn't salty, then,
by a process of deduction,
is can't be salt.

So whether it comes from the Dead Sea,
or from a twentieth century salt refinery,
whether it's the salt you lick from your lips after a swim
or the product of 8th grade chemistry,
salt, by definition, is salty.
Salt can do lots of things,
it can appear in different forms,
but what defines it
is its very essence, its salt-ness. It's to do with its chemical make-up
Salt cannot be otherwise.

What Jesus is saying here
is pretty straightforward.
Being a follower of Jesus
is like being salt.

Being a follower of Jesus, that is, being a Christian,
is not primarily
about externals, but about who we are.
And so being a Christian,
belonging to the group of followers of Jesus which we call the church,
is pretty much different
from any other group we might belong to.
Most groups
require some sort of commitment
to be made -
you make a pledge
or sign a membership form
or something like that,
and usually pay some sort of dues.
And then you're free to participate
as little
or as much
as you want.

But while being a Christian
has some things in common with that -
there's one very big difference.
When we
Like being salt, being a Christian
is not just about externals - it's about the very essence of who we are.
When we are baptized,
we are baptized in the name of God,
we are baptized into the life of God.
We talk about being given new life,
a life which is bound up with Christ;
we invite the Holy Spirit
to live in us.
As Christians, we are, in effect,
God people.
That's how God is known
here on earth,
through us.

And so being a Christian
as different from just joining any group,
because being Christian
is about who we are.
Our lives and God
are all wound together; they can't be pulled apart.
And so this being a Christian thing
is not something we turn on or off,
not something
for Sundays and maybe Tuesday nights as well,
but about how we live the whole of our lives
Monday through Friday
and weekends as well.
Its not about
keeping a list of rules,
but about living as God's person
in this world.

Living as Christians
is about every part
of who we are
and what we do.
It's about discovering our gifts
the things we are good at,
the things we love to do,
and doing them
the very best we can,
because that is what
we were created to do.
It's about discovering our weaknesses,
the things we're not so good at
and learning to live with them,
and even learning how
to use them too.
We're made in the image of God
and that means
that each of us is valuable
each of us has different things to give
to the world
even though
we're all different.
But living as Christians
is also about being who we are
as God-people,
living our lives
so that other people
can find God
through us.
That means things like
getting involved in fighting for justice
when you see someone
being treated badly, being discriminated against
because they look different
or don't speak English so well.
It's about telling the truth
about being honest
in our conversations with other people,
but also telling the truth
about what is going on in the world and in our lives,
not avoiding
the difficult issues.
It's about calling people to account,
expecting them to be responsible
for their actions,
but at the same time
being willing to forgive.
It's about loving people
in everything we think
and say
and do.
It's not always easy,
but that's who we are called to be. As Christians
we cannot
be otherwise.

"You are the salt of the earth."

Raewynne J. Whiteley
4 February 2001