“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.”
At this point, you might be wondering about the encouragement in that verse. We are the salt, the flavor, the preservative that keeps things from spoiling, the spice that makes all taste better, when we are doing what Jesus called us to do. I love salt, probably more than anyone my age should, but I love it. The only thing that even comes close for taste value in my book is basil but I can’t imagine going to Maine and getting basil water taffy. Doesn’t really work the same, does it?
The scary part about that verse is the idea of losing our saltiness. That makes salt worthless. It can do thing for which it was intended, it brings no joy, it’s just worthless as dirt.
If you have been around a while you probably feel like you are not too salty. Life wears you down. Hurts dilute your sense of being. Injustice, upon injustice followed often by transparent, avoidable stupidity makes cynics of the best of us. You feel more bland or perhaps a bit peppery, but salty is not your overall sense of being. Life can feel like a very long episode of “Spiritual Survivor” where you just want to get to the end without getting voted out of the tribe. (Yes, theologically minded friends, I know that is not possible.) However, I have often felt the last years have been like some kind of extended hazing exercise and it has not done wonders for me. On the contrary, it’s made me less salty.
Today as I read this verse I found myself using Google for something other than flights and maps, my primary uses. I checked to see if salt can be made salty again. What I learned encourages us all. Yes, indeed, salt can regain its original flavor. In fact, salt never changes in it’s composition. It can be diluted, polluted, and hence rendered tasteless but it can also be purified, cleaned out and be every bit as effective as it once was. That process, of getting out the junk that perhaps through no fault of your own, got dumped in your salt pile, or that which diluted what was once an amazing taste, can indeed be removed, and all that was lost, restored. That is the gospel we believe, and no matter how downtrodden you have been, you remain salt. The question that remains is do you desire to be salty again?
We need not do self-repair. We are actually the people who don’t really believe in self-repair. We believe in God repair so we can ask for and be assured that He can and will, restore us in the coming year. So my friends, let’s get salty!
Things You Did Not Learn in Bible College 