Don't lose your saltiness: to spice, preserve and heal
Jesus said, “You are the salt of the world.”
The very first episode of the original Star Trek TV show aired on September 8th, 1966. Do you remember what it was? I’m talking about the first actual episode with Captain Kirk, not the pilot.
The first episode was called The Man Trap. The Star Ship Enterprise goes to check on an outpost on a distant planet where a husband and wife are both archaeologists who had been researching an ancient civilization together. The plot thickens when we learn that the wife, Nancy, is not only a former girlfriend of Dr. McCoy, but for him “the one that got away.”
You may ask yourself, “What could this possibly have to do with today’s Gospel?” Well, eventually we discover the wife isn’t actually Nancy, she is a shape-shifting creature they come to call the Salt Vampire because she kills several of the Enterprise crew by sucking the salt out of them.
That first episode is memorable because it was first and it came in the middle of the space race, just a few years before we actually went to the moon. But the truth is we cannot live without salt. It is about four-tenths of one percent of our bodies. It can create havoc with hypertension and other problems and even death if it runs too high. But it is also life-threatening if it gets too low.
We have a natural taste for salt because we need it. (How many of us have a ‘salt tooth’?) It is the oldest and most common seasoning there is – running back as far as human history allows. Hunters and herdsmen got enough salt from the animals they’d eat, but gatherers and farmers have always needed to add salt to their food.
The oldest salt gathering facilities on record are about 6,000 years old.
Today, it’s very inexpensive. When we buy salt, the cost of the packaging is more than the salt itself. If anything, we have to watch it because we get exposed to too much of it. Most of our processed foods have a lot of it and many restaurants use a lot of it, but often to our taste it’s barely there. Why?
Because salt wakes up every other flavor. We’ll come back to that in a moment.
Salt is also the oldest and most common preservative. For a millennia it enabled people around the world to pack and preserve meat and fish – it helped them survive.
That’s not the only way it helps people survive. When I was a kid, if I had a scrape or a cut, my mom would have me soak it in salt water. Salt will literally draw the infection out of a wound, which is life-saving.
A couple of weeks ago the preacher at our diocesan convention emphasized that Jesus said, “You are the salt of the world.” Not that you could be if you would just straighten up a bit. Not that you might be, we just need to run a few tests on you to see. He said you are.
There is already an abiding presence of God, Father Son & Holy Spirit in you. Similar to the salt that is in you right now, God is with you by virtue of your creation. We are further empowered by the Holy Spirit at our baptism. The difference is that while we can have too much salt, we cannot have too much of him. Because here’s what he aims to do:
First, God wants to wake up the particular flavor that is you. There is a common misconception that when we surrender ourselves to God we somehow lose ourselves, lose our individuality. The opposite is true. God created you to be you, to be in relationship with you, the real you. He wants to inspire – in-spirit – you to be the very best he ever intended you to be.
You cannot be the real you, the very best you, when you’re not healthy, when you are not well. In our collect this morning, we prayed for God to free us from the bondage of sin. We asked God to draw out any infection, any poison from sin and suffering.
And part of that means he will preserve you, the best you, the real you. Forever.
All of that has to do with what God is doing in you, or intends to do in you. That’s the first step, but just the first step. Today’s Gospel comes right after the Beatitudes, where in 12 verses Jesus describes hearts receptive to God, loving God.
The second is what he intends to do through you, how our salty lives are to look, loving neighbor as ourselves, which is the rest of the Sermon on the Mount.
You are the salt of the world. God wants to work through you to accomplish the very same in the world around you
Spice up the world. Help others to be inspired beyond their day to day lives, to wake up their particular gifts and talents.
Heal. Be that person of prayer and counsel that helps others free from the bondage of sin.
Preserve. Help others see beyond the immediate to recognize the eternal consequence of their actions and their lives as a whole and God’s place in all of it.
The enemy wants to sneak up, maybe in the guise of someone or something that’s familiar and fond, maybe in the guise of old wounds and memories, the very sin that God would heal. Often he comes in the guise of comfort and ease. But however he comes, he wants to suck the saltiness right out of you. If you were to lose your saltiness, where would you be?
Remember that the saltiness comes from The Lord. Attend to your relationship with The Lord day by day, week by week, and see how he will both shape and use you.
AMEN