CHILDRENS ADDRESS I’d like to show you a great invention today, that will make our dinner time eating experiences so much better. Have a look at this!
Thankfully we do not need one of these machines if we want some salt on our food! Do you have a saltshaker on your dinner table at home? Do you use salt much on your food? If everyone would like a bit of salt on their meal, people around the table usually ask: “Please pass the salt” and the saltshaker is passed around so that everyone can sprinkle some salt. Look what happens when you shake the saltshaker! The salt doesn’t come out in a block, or one big pile only on one little part of the plate. Where is the salt? It has been sprinkled all over the plate!
Jesus says today: “You are the salt of the earth.” Christians have been sprinkled not on a dinner plate but over the earth—into all the different local areas we live, to share Jesus’ love with all who we meet in our streets and schools and clubs and workplaces.
We are all here because other people have been salt of the earth for us. Through them, God has shown us his love and told us about Jesus and the new life he has given in him.
Lets read the Growing Faith At Home prayer [bulletin insert]
SERMON Jesus continues his sermon on the mount today. He says: “You are the salt of the earth.” I’ve always found this to be an unusual and difficult saying to comprehend. What does Jesus mean? What does it mean to be salt?
In the days that Jesus first preached this sermon, salt had a far more critical function than just enhancing the flavour of fish and chips. There were, of course, no refrigerators and salt preserved food from spoiling and being thrown out. SaIt was also used widely in medical practice, to purge the body from poisoning and infection[1] by cleansing wounds, just as saline solution is used today.
These images are intended to be quite shocking, leading us to see the depth of our human problem. It is as if the world has an infection and is dying. Well it is…but the situation is far worse than an environmental crisis. Since Adam and Eve turned their backs on God and went their own way, the world is, to put it bluntly, going off. In Romans, the Apostle Paul put it this way: that the whole creation is in bondage to decay.
But God has gathered us together with all those in the church to be the salt of the earth—to bring medical intervention as it were, treating the wounds of a world corrupted and infected by sin, by announcing God’s grace, doing good works to those around us to show them his love for all people, and making peace.
Now…how do we do this? It might seem all too hard. But I’d like to contend that this is not too hard at all.
First, Jesus says: “You are the salt of the earth.” Salt doesn’t lose its saltiness. You can dissolve salt in water but salt itself can’t be anything other than salt. Jesus says you are the salt of the earth. He doesn’t say “you will become” or you can be” the salt of the earth. You are. Jesus is speaking to you. This is a part of your identity as a child of God—which is not based on how well you measure up, but on his calling of you. Remember that these words are a part of his sermon on the mount, where Jesus says “Blessed are you.” You have already been blessed, already gathered into the Kingdom. You don’t become the salt of the earth by doing enough good; you already are the salt of the earth.
The ’you’ here is plural. Jesus is addressing all of his people; his church together. I think the image of a saltshaker is a good one. We aren’t a grain of salt in isolation from our sisters and brothers. We are collectively the salt of the earth whom God has called and gathered.
Second, the calling and purpose that Jesus has for you as salt of the earth people is not just to be people of integrity and goodness, but to be Christ’s agents with him in his mission. When we fill a saltshaker, it is for the purpose of using it, at the discretion of the one who holds it, who directs it exactly where it is desired. I think this is one of the best illustrations of the church at work—alive in action through God’s action. God has gathered us together with the Communion of saints of all times and places, and has shaken us exactly where he wants us. You have not been placed accidentally at Glengowrie or Somerton Park or Fulham Gardens. You live in these places because God has sprinkled you exactly where he wants you, for this current time.
Third, we don’t do the good works Jesus calls us to do to be declared good. Have you noticed these days how banks, businesses, the media, and sporting clubs are all competing with one another to do good? It used to be the world that called the church ‘do-gooders’ but now it is secular organisations that are concerned with plans to be charitable and helpful. It is good that businesses have a sense of social responsibility in the midst of our current humanitarian crisis. But that is not the basis for human goodness and righteousness. Is this doing good increasing because, deep down, there is a hungering and thirsting for righteousness…but instead of looking outward to God, people are looking within?
This is nothing new. It was the thinking of the Pharisees whose religious construct was ‘doing good works makes a person good.’ They created 610 of their own rules which they supposed would help them keep God’s commandments—but they had forgotten what was really pleasing to him: “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).
This explains why Jesus says in the second half of today’s reading: “I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” The good works we do as salt and light will never justify us by making us righteous. That’s the religious construct of the world: to do good things so that we can be pronounced good. But that way never works. We can never be good enough.
That is why our Father in heaven sent Jesus into the world as a gracious gift, to redeem all people by his precious blood—an incredible gift we ourselves have received from God. It was when we weren’t doers of good that God was good for us, sending us Jesus to reconcile us to him, as the only way to righteousness before God. Our doing good works is not to be for our own sake, but for the sake of others, that they may come to know the mercy and compassion of the righteous one, Jesus, and share in his righteousness as their own.
In their natural condition, people don’t like to hear the message of the Cross—in fact they hate it—because it is an affront to the world’s message today: that we are all super good people. The thought that some other righteousness apart from our good efforts is needed is offensive. But God has sprinkled us into the world to point them to Christ, by sharing that only he has perfectly kept the Law of God; only by trusting in his righteousness is the door to God’s favour opened to us. It is through faith, despite our sin, that God’s judgment is that you have lived as perfectly as Jesus himself.
Being the salt of the earth means first of all being salt to one another. This verse comes in the context of working for reconciliation: “Blessed are the peacemakers…” In the Gospel according to Mark, Mark records Jesus as saying: “Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other” (Mark 9:50). The church is not made up of perfect people but redeemed sinners. Sometimes the sinful nature is more clearly evident within the church than outside of it, when we hurt one another, intimidating and bullying others to get our own way. We are to be salt that cleanses wounds, bringing healing by flushing out bitterness, malice and unforgiveness, rather than leaving it to fester and spoil, by calling people to repent and speaking words of grace.
That is living as the salt of the earth. Asking for and granting forgiveness and working for peace is the core business of the church and the radically distinct way we live from the culture around us.
Don’t try to justify yourselves by re-labelling sin in more appealing language, because it is God’s job to justify you. Don’t ignore sin by sweeping it under the carpet, because God still sees it, and usually others do too. Don’t rationalise your wrongdoing by saying ‘Everyone’s doing it’ or ‘They started it’, or ‘They deserved it.’ For these are all ways the world deals with sin, (but doesn’t really deal with it at all). These are all ways that hurt and division become entrenched in congregations.
In the end, being honest and realistic about our sin is really the only point of difference we have to the world. We are only in the church because of God’s grace. We need his grace. We will never enter heaven because of the righteous things we have done. That is what the world needs to hear and see in action: children of God being humble and admitting and acknowledging our wrongs to one another and asking for forgiveness. Being ready to listen to a sister or brother when they come to you; hearing hurts, withholding judgement, being willing to comfort and console, so that God’s own mercy and compassion and love comes to others through you. That’s salty stuff! That’s one of the best ways you can live as the salt of the earth, being the saline that cleans the wounds of hurt by announcing God’s grace to others, which is completely counter cultural to the human nature that retaliates and condemns.
Preacher William Wyne once said: “God has created his church that it might be a place where the unlovable can find love, the guilty can find forgiveness, the downtrodden get picked up, the lonely finds comfort. People should not gather at the church and find a spirit of fragmentation, but a spirit of fellowship!”[2]
This might sound too hard for us…but it is not really. God doesn’t expect us to design the saltshaker 5000 like in the video. In fact, its not up to us to create anything. God will do the creating as we relate to one another with grace and care. As we humble ourselves before each other under his mighty hand, he will build us up and reach us out to the world around us. The church has all that it needs to be salt to those who are being ruined, spoiled, being corrupted by sin and separation from the God of life. For Jesus himself is the salt that prevents a person from spoiling; the salt that means we will never be thrown out by God and trampled under foot. Jesus is with his people. He promises he is present even where two or three are gathered. He promises he is with his people always, to the very end of the age. He is the Christ, the holder of the saltshaker. It is him who walks with us, works through us, speaks through us.
God has sprinkled you where you are, just where he wants you to be. Being salt is not up to you it is up to Jesus who is with you and will give you the opportunities to do the good works around you, to be caring and kind. All we need to do is stay close to him. He will give us the words to say and the grace and compassion in our hearts to be his helping hands and words of encouragement and truth. To leave a card in the letter box or take around a meal or even just smile and ask how they are.
The salt we share is not for our sake; so that others will say we’re wonderful. It is for their sake. In his book Instrument of Thy peace Alan Patton wrote: “I have no higher vision of the Church than as the Servant of the world, not withdrawn but participating, not embattled but battling, not condemning but healing the wounds of the hurt and the lost and the lonely, not preoccupied with its survival…but with the needs of mankind.”[3]
Jesus says “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” The world so desperately needs to hear and see this merciful, compassionate, gracious and loving Lord Jesus going to work in our midst, forgiving, reconciling and restoring the people of God to himself to live as his family. May we always be a congregation that is high in sodium, so that the world hears and sees and finds the same living hope and fullness of life that you have already received through Christ from your Father in heaven. Amen.
[1] Science Tribune article of March 1999 ‘A taste for salt in the history of medicine’ Eberhard Wormer
[2] Wyne, William ‘Pass the salt’ https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/pass-the-salt-william-wyne-sermon-on-power-169832?page=2&wc=800 last accessed Feb 3, 2023 at 9:15pm
[3] Cited in Burgess, F (comp) Encyclopaedia of sermon illustrations (St Louis, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House) page 42
