Sand in the Salt Shaker

Meditation May 14, 2020

Matthew 5:13

“You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, with what will it be salted? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot”

You are the salt…  You whom? Those he has just described. All those who are the blessed he has described in the preceding verses. Jesus in the beatitudes has given the characteristics of believers as a class, in the verse preceding this he has narrowed his address from speaking of His followers as a class to apply them personally and not abstractly to a class of people saying “when you, you who are before me, you who profess to be my followers, are persecuted etc.” Now, in v13 he continues with that personal application and expands on our role in the world as believers by which we bring on ourselves persecution. He is speaking to us personally, as an individual, as one he has called by name. I suspect I am not the only one who sits under the preaching of the word and think from time to time, no doubt too often, “Boy, is know some people who need to be hearing this.” Jesus at the point is saying Right, you. You will be persecuted; you are the salt and if the salt is saltless it is you. Well, that is getting a little personal. Yes. That is the intent.

Metaphors are tricky to translate and we must be careful we are not comparing apples to oranges. The salt common in the Mideast and around the Dead Sea was salty to be sure but in varying degrees depending on where it was mined, the degree it was admixed with other minerals and the extent to which it was exposed to the elements. It was not the table salt with which we in the west, and nowadays likely the rest of the world as well, are familiar. The salt they had was harvested, gathered, mined where is was found naturally in areas where the salt waters had receded leaving salt deposits. It was an impure salt being mixed with other minerals in which it was found in various concentrations. Exposure to the elements caused the salt to leech from the other minerals. That process would reach a point at which the salt was no longer useful. It had neither enough flavor nor enough preservative power to make it useful; yet, it was still of enough concentration that it was damaging to plant life. It was no longer potent for flavor or as a preservative but still potent enough that it was damaging where plants might grow (let that thought sink in). Consequently, it was thrown into the streets where it could do no damage and was thus trodden under foot.

Mr. Maundrell, who visited the area of Israel writes “you may see how the veins of it lie (i.e., salt); I brake a piece off it, of which the part that was exposed to the rain, sun, and air, though it had the sparks and particles of salt, yet it had perfectly lost its savour. The innermost part, which had been connected to the rock, retained its savour, as I found by proof.” (One could make a sermon from that bit of information alone) He goes on to say, “There is no place about the house, yard, or garden where it can be tolerated. No man will allow it to be thrown on to his field, and the only place for it is the street, and there it is cast to be trodden underfoot of men." I grew up on the Gulf coast of Florida where the beaches sands are as fine as sugar and as white as snow, The Gulf  waters are as slalty as a box of Morton's but the sands of the beach are tasteless grit and little living but sandburs and sea oats will grow in them. Whether or not those sands were every salty, I have no idea. Perhaps; perhaps they never had more than the appearance of salt. Those beaches always come to mind when I read this verse. .

Whether that salt can really become tasteless and completely lose its essential property, does not seem to me to be the question. It seems to me this is the point Jesus was making is that believers who do not live as believers, believers who do not manifest in their lives the iterated graces with which they are blessed are like salt that had lost its usefulness. In short, they are useless both to the world and to the kingdom. The point, it seems to me, is not on that for which salt may be used but on the uselessness of salt in which the characteristics of salt had become too benign to serve its purpose. Jesus is  simply made reference to a common occurrence, one with which his audience would be familiar, to make a point regarding the uselessness of believers who failed to live as believers.

Salt is obviously distinct. Whether as a flavoring, a preservative or waste ill-advised introduced into the garden, its effect cannot be missed. When salt is absent (or impotent, tasteless) it is distinctly obvious there is no salt. Thus, also the Believer in the world. Read again the eight characteristics of a believer.

Christians, you and I do well to admit it, are all too prone to be profuse with accusations and negative comments about the ungodly condition of the world in which we live. But check this out; the world is only doing what comes natural to the world. It has only its own heart which is only always wicked to guide it. When we see the world rotting around us, we should start asking ourselves where is the church? Why is the church not doing a better job? Have we become so bland we no long have any influence? John Stott asks the appropriate question when he when he observes that “when society does go bad, we Christians tend to throw up our hands in pious horror and reproach the non-Christian world but should we not rather reproach ourselves. One can hardly blame unsalted meat for going bad. It cannot do anything else. The real question is where is the salt?” 

The promise of God still stands; i.e. the land will be healed “when my people….” Father, you have not called us to judge the world but to be examples to the world, to be its salt. When we see the world rotting about us, grant us the grace to humble ourselves before your word, examine ourselves and turn from our wicked ways that you may come and heal the land.