“You are the salt of the earth” – An interesting metaphor and one that does not always seem to make sense to us – Salt, a common mineral which is everywhere – yet Jesus compares his disciples to salt? Most do not consider being salty a desirable adjective – Yet Jesus chooses salt as his metaphor- What is it about salt that says something about what it means to be a disciple of Christ?
So you want to have a nice dinner – and a nice steak sounds good – so you go to a meat market and buy an excellent USDA prime filet mignon – for those that do not know steaks well – that is a very tender – and very expensive – a piece of meat. – This really is going to be a fancy meal.
When you get home, you fire up the grill and put the steak on – a few minutes on each side and the filet mignon is cooked – a perfect medium rare – you plate up the steak and sit down for a lovely dinner - … - and it tastes like nothing - bland as can be – how does such a tender and expensive piece of meat taste so flat? – There is no salt. Salt makes the excellent steak taste good.
Ask any chef, and they will tell you just how essential salt is to make flavorful meals. – Some of what you pay for at a restaurant is not knowing just how much salt the chief has used – it is a lot. – Salt is essential to flavor – no chef wants to cook without salt.
And in the ancient world, salt was essential to many more things beyond just making food taste great. – Salt was also a means of preserving meat before the advent of refrigeration – without salt, meat would spoil quickly. Salt was essential. There are reasons salt was so valuable in the ancient world.
Given salt’s importance, it should be no surprise that it has had significant religious uses. If you have ever heard of kosher salt, also known as koshering salt – it is just salt that is more coarse than regular table salt – salt that is suitable to use in the koshering process when preparing meat in compliance with kosher dietary laws. – Salt was also used to purify meat as part of the sacrifices in the Old Testament. – Salt has a purifying purpose as well.
Salt is used to increase flavor in food, preserve meat, and purify. Jesus says the disciples are the salt of the earth – How does this apply to the disciples?
God created the world, and it was good – but sin and death have entered the world – disorder, and evil exists. The world is harmed by sin and death – corruption runs through it – Yet there is an answer – for Christ came to defeat sin and death – and did so through his death and resurrection – but how does this come and spread throughout the world? The disciples!
In the word in the words of Origen in the 3rd century – “Salt preserves meats from decaying into stench and worms. … So also, Christ’s disciples, standing in the way of the stench that comes from the sins of idolatry and fornication, support and hold together this whole earthly realm.” – The Christian disciple is to preserve the good, standing against evil in the grace of Christ.
However, the Christian is not just stopping evil and preserving, but also promoting the good. God created the world, and it was good – All were made with a proposed – the natural desire to see God – our true happiness is only found in Christ, yet many are looking for fulfillment in things that cannot bring satisfaction – money, pleasure, or power – Their taste for the good and for God has been lost – in the words of St John Chrysostom, “all human nature itself has “lost its taste,” having become rotten through sin.” – but the disciples are the salt of the earth – For the disciple is to spread the good news the gospel – proclaim what Christ has done, and baptizing the nations – which brings grace which restores that taste for the good, for God. The disciple evangelizes leading back to God and what truly brings happiness – bringing flavor to life.
These things allow the world to be purified and led back to God – St Maximus, the Confessor referred to man as the “priest of creation,” leading all creation back to God – which requires purification of the world – something that only happens through Christ. Purification – that 3rd thing salt was salt was used for. The disciples are to preserve, promote a desire for the good, and work to purify – they indeed should be the salt of the earth.
All three of these involve something outward, bringing the kingdom outward - evangelization. If the disciple is to be the salt of the earth – the disciple is to be one who evangelizes. And evangelization is not optional for “If salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Some try and be a Christian who is silent and in the corner - Keep one’s religion private and let no one know. – Yet if we are the salt of the earth, that cannot be. If I love God, it should be evident from my life, from how I act, to how I spend my money and my time. My actions should make this clear to others and have an effect on them – even if it is just by presence. The first act of evangelization is living the gospel.
All of this can seem abstract and sometimes impossible. How can we fulfill the tasks shown by the metaphor of being the salt of the earth? On the one hand, we cannot; it is not in our strength. We are affected by sin as well – but if we are Christians, living in Christ, - Christ can. For it is Christ who does these things – if we truly live the gospel, Christ works through us – if only we let him. So we evangelize, first by example – being the salt of the earth – by living in Christ that Christ might live in us.