Worthless salt

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.  – Matthew 5.13

For a good part of my life I would read this verse and try to make it make sense. Of course, I knew what it said and I knew the point, but I would ask myself how can salt lose its saltiness. It’s salt, how does it become unsalt?

I finally got it when I read a book simply titled ‘Salt.’ It was all about, well, salt. It was about the history and importance of salt and the impact it has had on the world. It was about the uses for salt and the processes in getting it to our table. It turns about that what I think of as salt is not what Jesus was talking about. Our table salt is indeed just salt, but the salt that Jesus talked about was impure and mixed with all kinds of compounds. It was, we might say, dirty. It wasn’t that big a deal because it was mostly used to preserving and curing.

What happened was that if piles of this salt were left out in the rain the rain would leech the real salt away leaving on the ‘dirt.’ What was left, when the salt was gone, was worth nothing but to be thrown out and returned to the earth.

When we understand this it really helps us to see the importance of keeping our saltiness in this world today. Once we stop shaking our salt and once we become like the world and once we stop flavouring and seasoning the world around us we are worthless. We don’t reach this world by becoming like it. We are to season the world with the gospel though our changed lives. We are to strive to preserve the world from the rot of sin by being salt to our friends and neighbours and co-workers. If we lose our saltiness we really are going to be worthless witnesses.

Give me the power Lord to shake the salt on this rotting world.