Living Lives Seasoned with Salt

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 9/18/11)

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” (Matthew 5:13)

In what has come to be known as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus offers his followers a series of lessons for how they are to live their lives. It is very apparent that those who gathered to hear the Lord were searching for meaning in their lives, and seeking alternatives to the status quo that had become the way of life for their day. These followers of the Lord were hungering and thirsting for something more, yearning for something different in their lives.

Perhaps many of these followers of Christ had been regular attendees in the synagogue, religious people in some way, but now realized that they were in need of a real relationship with God. Maybe, some of them were leaders in their communities, having attained some level of success and notoriety, but now they needed a word that would add new perspective for the living of their day.

Whatever the reasons, the crowd flocked to Jesus. And so, over the course of three chapters, from Matthew chapters 5-7, Jesus gathers the people on the Mount of Olives and he offers them lessons for the living of their lives. Interestingly, throughout the sermon, Jesus uses several everyday, common examples to get his point across as to how the people are to live. Here, he says that you are the salt of the earth, and later he declares that "you are the light of the world."

Even in the Lord’s day, as it is today, salt was an element of the earth that was commonly known to the people. So Jesus uses as his talking point here, salt – something that all the people who had gathered could relate to. He says, “You are the salt of the earth.” What was the Lord really trying to convey?

If we were to evaporate a ton of water from the Pacific Ocean, we would get approximately seventy-nine pounds of salt. A ton of Atlantic Ocean water would yield eighty-one pounds of salt. And from the Dead Sea we would get almost five hundred pounds.

As the statistics demonstrate, the earth’s bodies of water vary greatly in their degree of saltiness. And so do we as Christians have varying degrees of saltiness. Jesus reminded us that we are “the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). But we all have different levels of “salt content.”

In light of this, each of us in beckoned from time-to-time to check our salt content. What is your salt content? How salty are you? Are you the kind of person who adds flavor to the lives of those around you? Is your conversation pure? Do you keep promises? Is your life characterized by goodness?

Having described earlier in the Sermon on the Mount the appropriate lifestyle of disciples, Jesus now explains that true disciples are those who live salty lives. And the Lord warns us against being saltless and tasteless in our walk. Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

We are reminded that – similar to the Lord’s day - an unbelieving and needy world is watching and listening to us as Christians, and even though they might not know it, others are depending on you and me to make a difference in their lives. There are even those who come to church who might be depending you and me to add some flavor – to enhance their lives. We who are Christians are to be the salt of the earth. It is written in Colossians 4:6 that we are to live “lives seasoned with salt.”

One of the saltiest people I’ve encountered in my reading and study is Mohandas k. Gandhi. Gandhi by birth was an East Indian and Hindu. But he sought throughout his life to live out – and help others live out - the principles and teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Gandhi led the nonviolent struggle of the people of India for freedom against British imperialism and oppression. Dr. Martin Luther King wrote that although Gandhi wasn’t a Christian, Gandhi was perhaps the most Christ-like person he had ever read about. Mohandas Gandhi lived a "salty life."

And Gandhi encouraged those of his day, and inspires us today, to be the change that you want to see in the world. Gandhi was encouraging folks to live salty lives.

Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth." May God grant each of us the faith, strength and wisdom to live "salty lives" (lives seasoned salt) in this present age.