You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
Salt - sodium chloride (NaCl) – It is essential for life and saltiness is one of the basic human tastes. Salt is one of the oldest food seasonings, and is an important method of food preservation. (Wikipedia)
Jesus is using the image and symbol of salt as way of talking about our faith. Jesus expects us to live our faithful lives for the salt that is already inside us because if we don’t, we lose the flavor, the taste, and our faith & lives become no longer good for anyone or anything.
"It is not so much that salt ceases to be salt, but it becomes contaminated by additions over time, dirt, stones, etc, so that it becomes useless... In the context salt is an image of integrity and wholeness..." (William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia)
We are live to salty, faithful lives. But we also know that if there is too little salt or too much salt, it will ruin a dish. To live faithful lives, our salt needs to be balanced & whole…
Once there was a small monastery led by a very wise abbot. A young man, who had recently entered the monastery, was having a hard time adjusting to the monastic life. He was constantly complaining and criticizing. The older monks of the community had grown tired of his constant whining and went to the abbot with their concerns about the young novice.
One morning the abbot sent the novice to fetch some salt. When the novice retuned, the abbot instructed the unhappy monk to put the salt in a glass of water and drink it. The novice did as he was instructed. "How does it taste?" the abbot asked. "Bitter!" spit the novice.
The abbot smiled. "Get some more salt and follow me."
The abbot and the novice, clutching another handful of salt, walked to a small lake near the monastery. "Throw the salt into the lake." Again, the novice did as the abbot asked. "Now," Father Abbot said, "take a drink from the lake."
As the water dripped down the young man's chin, the abbot asked, "How does it taste?"
"Sweet and clean," the young man, said wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
"Do you taste the salt?" "No," the novice said.
The abbot sat next to the serious young man - who so reminded the abbot of himself many years before - and explained, "Brother, the pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same. But the bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, when you hurt, when you feel broken, the only thing you can do is enlarge your sense of things. Stop being a glass. Become a lake."
In the Gospel today, Jesus enlarges the disciples understanding of their role in the world. You are salt of the earth. The wise Abbott helps a young novice notice how his salt can be so bitter when it is just himself, his glass, but when his vision is enlarged, it moves away from bitterness, he becomes a lake and his salt is added to others. We must balance our lives so what people taste enhances them and our world.
Molly Birnbaum is editor-in-chief of America’s Test Kitchen Kids and knows that kids cooking can enrich our world. Her company develops recipes and resources to make the kids in the family part of not just the meal but the preparation of the meal. Birnbaum writes in TIME Magazine [December 16, 2019] that cooking is not just an “art form” but a “way of teaching vital 21st century skills, such as critical thinking, creativity and collaboration. It invites kids to make connections to the broader world by asking Where does our food come from? and What is the history of this recipe? And it allows them to apply what they are learning in school in a new context.”
"Cooking also brings science concepts to life. Take mayonnaise, for example. At another recent session, after adding egg yolks, lemon juice, mustard, sugar and salt to the bowl of a food processor, the kids slowly added oil to the running food processor, creating a creamy, smooth mayo. Well, some of them did. Others went rogue and added the oil all at once, leaving behind a broken, greasy mess. It was a perfect opportunity for them to learn that oil and water don’t usually mix and how an emulsion gets the two to play nicely–if you add the oil a little bit at a time. Recipe failures like this matter as much as the successes, as they help kids develop resilience."
But most important of all, Birnbaum believes, cooking enables kids to experience “the joy of sharing the food [they make] with others, from muffins for [your friends] to cookies for [the] soccer team” Cooking “encourages kids to work with others to produce the final result and boost their confidence as they take the lead in packing their own lunches, baking holiday treats or helping to get dinner on the table. It also encourages them to be open to foods they otherwise might not have tried.”
“Cheesy as this might sound,” Molly Birnbaum writes, “it’s the memories you make together in the kitchen.” This past Christmas, Molly and her daughter Olive — who’s only three — did a lot of holiday baking, including Olive’s favorite chocolate-chip cookies. “Yes, it required that I keep an extra set of clothes (for each of us) nearby,” Mom says, “but if [Olive] remembers the moment she realized that sneaking bites of dough is both acceptable and delicious, I will happily forget the mess that accompanied that experience.”
Jesus calls all who would be his disciples to live into their saltiness for our hungry world, how to master the art of bringing out the flavor and richness of compassion, mercy, peace and forgiveness in our lives and the lives of those we love. As Molly Birnbaum writes, it’s a matter of possessing not just the skills of cooking but the attitude of joy and fulfillment in doing for others, of working together, of daring to be messy and willing to try to new things for the sake of bringing the love of God to life.
May we listen to Jesus' challenge to be salt in our world today: to make God's presence and grace realities, to season our own time and place; illuminating the shadows, those hopeless corners of our world with justice and hope. So that all whose lives we touch know that you create us holy and call us to become whole in God’s name. Amen.
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