Don Friesen
The lectionary – the three-year cycle of Scripture readings that we follow in worship as well as in the children's Sunday School program – is taking us through the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. One might expect that the most extensive single collection of Jesus' teachings would have played a large role in the life of the Church through the ages, but the truth is that the Sermon on the Mount has been an uncomfortable document for the Church. If the Sermon on the Mount is a manual of citizenship for subjects of God's Kingdom, many Christians have questioned their citizenship in this kingdom. We're ambivalent about whether loving our enemies is the best way to go. We don't want to interrupt our devotional life – once we get into a nice spiritual groove – to sort out messy relationships! We feel constrained by Jesus' emphasis on marital fidelity. And integrity is all fine and good, but when it lends an unfair advantage to our competitor ... well ... we're not so sure.
The Church has been ingeniously creative in trying to establish, as my professor used to say, that in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus didn't really mean what he said – or – that he didn't really say what he meant! G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) lamented the "...habit of quoting and paraphrasing at the same time. When a man is discussing what Jesus meant, let him state first of all what (Jesus) said, not what the man thinks (Jesus) would have said if he had expressed himself more clearly." (Varied Types, 1905, page 120)
Theologians, for example, have said that the Sermon on the Mount reveals an ethic of intention, but that Jesus never intended us to take them too seriously! And other learned ones have said that our inability to realize Jesus' intention was meant to drive us to despair, and from despair to the grace of God. Well, if I believed that Jesus' liked to yank us around like that, it would really drive me to despair!
Evocative Images
Despite theologians' best attempts to keep Jesus' teachings in quarantine, snippets of his sermon have escaped and made a profound difference when put into practise, and that includes the vivid and evocative images in our Gospel text for today – salt and light. After sharing the beatitudes, Jesus told his disciples: "You are the salt of the earth.... You are the light of the world." (Matthew 5:13-14) Simple images, but suggestive of many things, and commentators have exhausted both themselves and their listeners in pointing them all out!
I love salt, so I'm going to focus on that image this morning. When I was about ten my parents owned a general store in a small prairie town, and when I wasn't needed to fetch something or to serve customers, I retreated to a corner of the store, behind the dry goods counter, right next to the salt blocks we sold to farmers for their cattle, and while I read a book I licked on shards of salt that had chipped off the salt blocks. I love salt, but not everyone does. Our own government recommends a low-salt diet. A colleague who does not like salt says that he wishes Jesus had said, "You are the jalapeños of the earth," and then he continues, paraphrasing the rest of the text: "but if the chili has lost it's zest, it's like a bell pepper, good only for compost."
How many Ways Can one Use Salt?
Well, I love salt, and I'm glad that Jesus used this image. What is interesting is that this vivid, easily recognizable and communicable image has given rise to so many different interpretations. It may have to do with the many different kinds of salt. There's unrefined salt, and refined salt. There's iodized salt, kosher salt, sea salt, rock salt, garlic salt, seasoning salt, bath salts, and Epsom salts.
The various kinds of salts have various uses, and some, for example, have pointed out the preservative qualities of salt. Salt has the power to stop decay, suggesting, perhaps, that the role of Christians is to prevent or at least impede society's decomposition. And indeed, the New Testament suggests that Christ sustains our fallen creation (Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:17), a work he would understandably share with his followers.
Some have pointed out the flavouring aspect of salt, and the fact that it takes but a pinch of salt to add flavour to food. This is encouraging to Christians who may feel insignificant and ineffectual. My efforts may be but a trifle, but that's all it takes to add a profound and distinctive flavour to a meal. It suggests, perhaps, that God wants us to bring the spice of life to a bland world.
A corollary to this interpretation suggests that things serve their best purpose when they are mixed in with other things. In other words, Christians are not to hoard or stockpile their saltiness, but are to engage in society so as to ensure maximum permeation. Jesus may well have been making a statement about a group in his day called the Essenes, a group that had withdrawn to the Judean Desert, so that their community could live untouched and untainted by the corruption of Jerusalem.
Some have noted that salt is a purifier and that it is used as a cleanser in many cultures, suggesting, perhaps, that Christians are to have a purifying influence on society. This appeals to Christians who like to rub salt in the wounds of others. In fact, Martin Luther preached a sermon almost five centuries ago (1532) in which he pointed out that one of the purposes of salt is "to bite," and he said that when the people in your congregation sin, you are to rub salt into the wounds of their sins. And then he went on to castigate clergy for refusing to do so because they want to be nice. Such clergy, said Luther, are even more useless than useless salt, and should themselves be thrown on the dung heap!
There were also other uses for salt, uses peculiar to the New Testament world. People, for example, put salt on their cereal offering so that it would not rot or grow mouldy. People in that day would also wash new-borns in salt water for medicinal purposes. Salt was also used to make a contract or covenant with another person. If you and I were entering into an agreement you would bring some salt from your house and I from mine, and then we would throw salt across each other's shoulders. It was called a covenant of salt.
Yet another Use
George Shillington, Professor Emeritus of Biblical and Theological Studies at Canadian Mennonite University, suggests that the salt Jesus had in mind was salt of another kind. Firstly, Jesus said that we are the "salt of the earth". The Greek word for "earth" means "land," or "soil," a sense even stronger in Luke's Gospel (Luke 14:34-35) and suggesting an agricultural use. ("Origin and meaning of ‘salt of the earth,'" a Helium knowledge co-operative article)
Secondly, Jesus refers to salt losing its taste, but salt never loses its taste, even when dissolved – and – the sense of the Greek word used is not so much taste as potency. The salt Jesus was talking about was meant for the "earth" in which plants grow. In other words, Jesus is not talking about sodium chloride, which damages the soil, but about sea salt, which has similarities to potassium chloride, which anyone from Saskatchewan recognizes as potash. That's why you find so many salt-of-the-earth people in and from Saskatchewan!
So when Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth" he meant "You are the potash of the earth" or "You are the fertilizer of the earth," and just as James Bond preferred his martini shaken, not stirred, this kind of salt is best spread – not shaken! The salt whereof Jesus spake has the same effect as spreading manure on the land. It makes vegetation grow. In other words, we are to be life-givers. We are to minister to the soil in which goodness can grow and flourish.
A Salty Story
I want to tell you a story that may illustrate this, particularly the potency of Jesus' words in action. Myron Augsburger, former pastor of a Mennonite church in Washington, and our Days of Worship and Reflection speaker some years ago, has also served as President of the Christian College Coalition in the United States. The Coalition owned a building in Los Angeles when an earthquake hit that city, and the building needed repair. So Augsburger went to Los Angeles to assess the damage and to find someone to do the repairs. His Mennonite contacts in the area recommended a Mr. Herman Riemple. Augsburger returned to Washington, and arranged for the work to be done by Herman Riemple's son, all of the details worked out verbally, over the telephone. ("Quality Above Power," 30 good minutes radio program #3820, February 19, 1995) Augsburger was assured that the man was trustworthy, a sense reinforced by a story he heard.
The story has to do with Herman Riempel's father, Aaron Riempel. Aaron was a very wealthy landowner in Russia. He had a large estate in Gnadenfeldt, and was so well known that the Czar would come to visit and go hunting on the estate. In time the Red and White Armies began battling each other, their battles raging back and forth across Gnadenfeldt. One evening Aaron Riemple was coming home from the market with some groceries when he came to a railroad siding and saw a boxcar full of people about to be shipped off to Siberia. A man called out to Aaron and said, "Sir, we're ...hungry. We've been in here all day with nothing to eat. Can you help us?" And Aaron went over to the boxcar and passed the bologna, bread and cheese he had purchased through the slats of the boxcar. The man said, "Thank you." And Aaron said, "God bless you," and went home.
Sometime later the Red Army overran the whole region, and put a lot of Mennonites in boxcars and shipped them off to Siberia. Aaron Riemple lost his estate, going from wealth to poverty in an instant. He was an irrepressible entrepreneur, however, so he began importing tea from China, and selling it – in Siberia! This did not align well with the new regime's mission statement. Riemple was accused of capitalism, charged, and brought to trial.
Witness was given against Aaron at the trial, and the Commissar asked him to step forward to be sentenced. Aaron stepped forward, expecting this would mean his death. The Commissar looked at him and said, "I believe we have met before."
"I think not, your Honour," replied Aaron.
"Yes," said the Commissar, "I think we have. Have you been to Gnadenfeldt?"
"Yes," said Aaron, "I lived in Gnadenfeldt."
The Commissar asked him, "Do you remember one evening when a man called you from a boxcar and said, ‘Sir, we've been in here all day with nothing to eat. Would you help us?'"
"Ah, yes, I remember," said Aaron.
"And what did you do?"
"Why, I went over and pushed my bologna and bread and other groceries through the slats."
"And what did you say?" asked the Commissar.
I said, "God bless you."
The Commissar said, "We have met before. I was that man." And he added, "I'm not going to sentence you. "If you would like, I will sign papers to allow you and your family to emigrate."
And Riemple, in true entrepreneurial spirit, said, "Sir, if you will sign those papers for all the Riemples, I've got brothers here with their families." And that is how the whole Riemple clan came to California. Little did Aaron Riemple know that when he shared that bologna and bread and cheese with a stranger that it would have far-reaching consequences. A trifling act, perhaps, but a natural one for Riemple, and one with immense potency.
The salt whereof Jesus spake contributes to the soil in which goodness can grow and flourish. We should not underestimate the potency of Jesus' words in action.
Go and spread the good news!