by Fletcher Lowe

I am a salt guy.  I like to salt my food, sometimes even before I taste it, much to the chagrin of my wife.  But I simply tell her, I’m just following doctor’s orders – after all on more than one occasion, as recently as a year ago, a doctor has said I’m salt deficient. I just need more salt!!

Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount has something to say about salt. “You are the salt of the earth.” Notice first of all it is not “of the church” or “of the faith community,” but “of the earth” that we are called to be salt.  We cannot retreat from the world or be neutral; our calling is to be proactive.

That is why, for me, the Dismissal is the most important part of the Liturgy – for of what value are the music or the readings or the prayers or the sermon or the bread and wine if they don’t propel us out from the church to be the church in our “earths,” our daily lives of home and community and work?  Go – that is our calling – and, like the salt, to “salt’ that part of the earth that each of us inhabits. We are called to be salty Christians.

Notice too that salt makes a difference in whatever it touches, be it food or the ocean or as a preservative.  But to make a difference, it must be in touch, in relationship – it has no value standing alone.  So, too, for us as salty Christians.  Our faith must be put into practice – in our earths.  Otherwise, it is of no value. Jesus’ message is clear to his followers – you and me.  As disciples we are called to make a difference, to join with Jesus in our calling expressed in the Lord’ Prayer: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

So, salty Christians, as we put our faith into action, let us Go forth and be the salt of our earths.