Too Salty? Part 2

I love a good challenge. Doug at Coffeeswirls.com posted a comment and then sent an email that he liked “part 1”, but felt I didn’t expand on the theme enough. At first I thought, “what more is there to say”? But throw in a challenge, and wow, there is more. Indulge me for a while here.

In Part 1, I described the large salt crystal that I brought home from Peru. I described its simple beauty, and then went on the make an analogy to the church. In paraphrase, I posed the question, “Is the church too salty to be of any use on earth?”

Salt is so ubiquitous that I had to think hard about it. I actually ran across a website from, of all things, The Salt Institute. This website reminded me of a lot of things. First, salt has impacted world history. Salt has been used as currency in the past and the present. Roman soldiers were paid special salt rations. It has been the cause of many wars and has impacted the outcomes of wars including the Revolutionary War and Civil War here in America. It was a major impetus for exploration during the 17th and 18th centuries. Salt has been important.

Salt has been influential in world history because of its many uses.

In the United States, its number one consumer was the chemical industry. Salt (or sodium chloride) is used as the basis to produce hundreds of chemicals, including chlorine, which is used to keep our water supplies “clean”. Salt is also used by the highway departments to keep our roads safe during icy and snowy weather. And finally it is also used (duh!) in human and animal nutrition. Salt is used not only to improve the taste of foods, but also as a preservative of foods.

Salt improves our lives but it is essential to life. One of the most common and basic medical supplies is “saline”. If the body has too little or too much salt it can cause catastrophic consequences. If the body has too little salt people will suffer from nausea, malaise, and headaches. If the body continues to have too little salt for too long, it will become obtunded and eventually go into seizures and a coma. Death can occur. Similar bad things happen with too much salt. Symptoms can progress through lethargy, weakness, irritability, twitching, seizures, coma, and death.

So what can we learn from this tutorial on salt? How does it apply to the Christian life? What happens if the church huddles together and forms a nice salt crystal that gets let in the mud? First, we can not be used. We no longer can be used holistically in life. We can not become “chlorine” to clean our polluted waters of life. We can not become “road salt” and provide traction for people during the icy storms of life; we will watch our culture (and our own members) crash out of control. We will cease to improve the taste of life. We will not become preservative for the culture. We will be useless.

Also, when we cling together in a concentrated mass, we will become “hypernatremic” – too salty. We will begin to see our churches become lethargic, weak, and irritable. We will begin to see “twitches” of discord, seizures in the body life, which if untreated will lead to coma and death. Not only do we risk becoming too salty, but this high concentration of salt will result in other bodies not having enough salt. We will witness the world become hyponatremic – they will suffer malaise in their worship, headaches from too little help; in the long run, they too will seize and possibly die.

Salt is essential to life. In the form of sodium chloride it has shaped the world as we know it. It has been coveted. It has caused great exploration. It has been one of the most sought after physical commodities known to man. Can we say that about the church? Are we being “salt of the earth” to bring life to the dead? Are we so coveted that people will yearn after the God that makes us salty? Are we impacting world history?

Comments

[Robert Williams]

It is undeniably true that salt must be spread out to preserve and season. I have no disagreement with that, not even a tiny bit. I am not advocating monasticism, even a "de facto" monasticism.

But why didn't Jesus see fit to provide these warnings? Instead, He warned against losing your saltiness, which in context I take to mean personal holiness. Why did Jesus say "stay salty" instead of "get out of the shaker" as the cliche goes?

My belief is that the church has less to fear from turning into a big old salt crystal, and much more to fear from being almost as salty as sand. A salt crystal will have no preservative or flavoring effect on society. But neither will sand, thoroughly mixed in. Christ's warnings indicate to me that the latter is much more of a danger.

I trust God to shake the salt shaker, just like He did with the persecutions recorded in Acts that caused the early Christians to disperse from Jerusalem all over the Roman empire.

[Tim]

Thanks for your comments. I agree that Jesus was very interested in our "staying salty". I also agree that the church is in danger of becoming "almost as salty as sand", as you put it. The watering down (sorry for mixing metaphors) of the gospel message and the rejection of Christian Orthodoxy will be the downfall of the American Church in the 21st century.

God will, in His Divine and Perfect Sovereignty, shake the salt shaker when and where He ordains. Sadly, I am afraid, the American Church (the mostly un-persecuted American Church), will be left on the shelf, as God chooses to confound the wise and spread His Grace through the persecuted church of the "Second and Third Worlds".

[Robert Williams]

Tim, you are the first person EVER to respond to my take on Matthew 5:13-16 in a non-hostile manner. Thank you!

[Tim]

Robert,

Sorry to hear that there is hostility in regards to this scripture. When you look at the context of these verses, you find them smack-dab in the middle of the "Sermon on the Mount". Certainly these chapters speak to personal holiness and piety. And, in fact, Jesus warns of the persecution of believers and calls it "blessed". But right after confounding the wise with the Beatitudes and then calling persecution blessed, He calls for the church to be Salt and Light.

If we follow the logic from verses 14 and 15, we see that just as Light is not to be hidden and put under a bowl, neither is salt to be hidden and huddled. I believe that Jesus is reminding us that the call to His Kingdom involves not an "either or" calling, but a "both and". We are called to "both" personal piety, "AND" cultural witness.

Our hostility to scripture usually comes when we want to "limit" what God is speaking through it. His Kingdom is much bigger than we often suppose. His calling is much bigger. His Grace much bigger. His love much bigger.

Blessings.

[Doug]

I got home from Men's group at church about an hour ago, and want to share a description that one of the guys had for a man of God. The term is saltshaker.

Sounds like a good name for a youth group, if you ask me!