Saltless Salt

Why do you need purpose?

I’ve got this old dress shirt at home. My wife loves it. And so it sits. Problem is, I’ve put on a few pounds and a few inches since the last time I fit in that shirt. So it sits in my closet in the back. I keep it there hoping that it will motivate me to get back on track and lose those pounds, lose those inches. But it doesn’t work. that shirt has been sitting there for 8 years and never once have I looked at it and then gotten on a treadmill.

So the shirt really doesn’t have a purpose. I can’t wear it. It doesn’t get me into the gym. Why keep it?

Have you ever kept something long after it became useless to you?

That’ the question Jesus’ hards words lead us to today. except they aren’t about a shirt. They are about salt. Why would you keep saltless salt? Well, he’s teaching something bigger there, but let’s get into the passage:

Mark 9:50

Mark 9:50 NIV

50 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

Salt was a critical component of the first century world. Remember, this is a world without refrigeration, without grocery stores, without year-round access to meat and vegetables from California or Chile. Jesus spoke to an agrarian society dependent on the land and the rhythms of the climate. Salt was critical. So critical, in fact, that in many parts of the world, it was the bases for trade - not coins, currency, or gold - salt.

And the average audience member used salt for three things: flavor, preservation, and purification.

Flavor because salt makes things taste better. Of course it does. Everything from meat to candy to cauliflower. Salt makes it more enjoyable, more palatable. Preservation because salt would dry things out. Some of you are home gardeners and you are busy canning your produce. What do you add into almost jar of pickles? Salt! You can pack meat in salt and it will cure. Salt is the basis for storing food long-term. But it’s also for purification. This was something unique to the Jewish people, Jesus’ first audience. See, the Old Testament law forbid anyone from eating meat with any blood in it. The life of any creature was in its blood (Leviticus 17:11). To eat meat with the blood still in it was to eat something not designed for consumption. So, in order to make sure the meat was acceptable to eat, they packed it with salt to make sure all the blood was gone.

Flavor, preservation, purification. That was the good purpose of salt. That’s your good purpose. How? Take a look

Flavor

We heard an example of how good it is to bring flavor to the world in Daniel 6. Did you catch it? Daniel 6:2

Daniel 6:2 (NIV)

The satraps were made accountable to them so that the king might not suffer loss.

Look, Daniel did his job so well that he protected the king from harm. He made life better, sweeter, easier because of how he lived out his faith. Old Testament Joseph another example. Take a look at Genesis 39-41 to get a sense of just how much better Joseph made life for his bosses, even the unbelieving bosses.

We’ve lost that. Maybe you have, I know I do. Is your neighborhood better because you are in there. Does your friend appreciate life more after talking with you? Does the sunset look more vibrant, art look more insightful, friendships more life-giving because you are around? As salt, we bring flavor to everything around us. Not because we look at a sunset or waterfall vista, and with a heavy sigh we sarcastically comment, “And all of this happened by some unknown accident!’ Salt doesn’t make steak and vegetables and vanilla taste better because it declares itself, “Hey! Its salt here. Just thought you should know that this s’more is going to taste better because I showed up.” Salt make things more flavorful by simply being present. But that’s just one reason “salt is good.”

Preservation

From time to time, somebody will share with me how life is going. And sometimes what I hear is really hard stuff. Hard to hear, harder to have lived through. A job with evil as undercurrents, a family filled with narcissists, a home that is on pins and needles. Maybe that describes where you find yourself today. And as hard as this is to hear, I’m glad you are there. You are salt, a preserving force. By just your presence, you are keeping things from becoming the worst imaginable. The train may have derailed, but it could have been worse. And that’s not nothing. When you are in the midst of agony, suffering, even a glass of cool water can be rejuvenating. That’s what you are, that’s who you are. Your purpose is to relieve in some small way the suffering of people around you. You are a cool glass of water. Suffering has a way of compounding. “I hurt terribly. At least it isn’t all the time.” “I hurt terribly all the time, but at least there is medicine to relieve it” “I hurt terribly all the time and nothing touches it, but at least we’re working toward a solution.” “I hurt terribly all the time and nothing will touch it and nobody seems to know what’s going on.” You get to be the “at least” in somebody’s suffering. “All this is happening, at least I have a friend.” That’s you being salt to preserve. But what about purify?

Purification

Getting a haircut as a pastor is a weird experience. There’s a couple of people I like to get my haircut, but my schedule sometimes means I walk into the place and sit down at a chair with an unfamiliar person. We get chatting, I ask them about their family, how long they’ve been cutting hair, what they like about cutting guys hair (where I go, you don’t see a lot of women getting their hair styled). You know, making small talk. About half way into the haircut, they’ll ask, “Oh, what do you do?” I pause cause I know what’s about to happen. I say, “I’m a pastor.” And depending on how the first half of the conversation went, their blood might drain from their face. It’s happened more than a few times that they’ve stammered an apology for their language or the content of their jokes. You know. I haven’t said a word. I’ve also learned how that conversation goes, so I’ve schooled my face to be very open and generous so that I don’t give off a whiff of judgmentalism. Truth is, I’m glad to get to know them the way they are, not the way they think they should be around a “man of the cloth.” But the second half of that conversation goes very differently.

You do the same thing when you bow your head in prayer before you eat lunch in the cafeteria. Or when you speak about going to church over the weekend in the inevitable “What-did-you-do-over-the-weekend” checkin on Monday morning. You aren’t imposing your viewpoint, you aren’t demanding someone see the world as you do, you are simply being you. The world around you at that point looks different. Gossip is squashed, language is more measured and compassionate, authority is honored, creation marveled at. That’s you bringing purification as salt.

Of the three purposes for salt - flavor, preservation, and purification - which most resonates with you?

Lost Saltiness

Those are the good purposes of salt. But Jesus specifically warns against “losing saltiness.” Historically, that was a pretty common occurence. The source and process for 1st century salt would mean that the salt was not pure Sodium Chloride. It was often polluted with gypsum. When the gypsum was in high enough concentration, salt that first tasted salty would, with a little time, turn into a box of rocks. It wouldn’t accomplish any of its purposes.

How you have been doing at being salty? Have you made this world more vibrant, more real? Have you found yourself in the ugly places and keeping them from getting worse? Or even taking the ugly out of the situation?

I want to talk to the men here today for a minute. Because I think you, we face a special temptation in this. It’s real easy for us men to just drift through life. To clock in, do the bare minimum, to keep your head down, to get home and be there without being present. Maybe that’s all you saw your Dad do, maybe it’s all that culture expects from you. Maybe your phone, your work, your yard, your busyness, all pull at you. Have you lost your saltiness? Do people get done interacting with you and promptly forget you?

Jesus is looking you in the eye. And anyone else who has failed to make your world better. Have you lost your saltiness? His rhetorical should ring in your ear, “How can you make it salty again?”

Purified by the Son of God

You can’t. He can. This is your moment to be made salty, for the first time or another time. Do that by going back to Jesus. Go back to his cross and empty tomb. Jesus lived filled with purpose. He knew exactly what he was here for. To find you. To rescue you. To imprint his name on you. He was such salt that people 2000 years later are still talking about him. People who don’t really trust him, haven’t read a word he said, don’t even like his followers are still patterning their lives after his words. He made the world taste better. He kept the dark places from getting any darker. And he purified. His life lays over yours. Completely covers you. You are not your own, you were bought at a price. (1 Corinthians 6:20) If your old way of life has lost its vibrancy, its efficacy, Jesus has thrown out that old life and given you a new start. You are salty once again. Because you have salt. He purifies you.

1 John 1:7 NIV

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

Jesus didn’t say these words in Mark 9 to give you a goal, to make it so that you could pat yourself on the back. He said them so that you would look to him as the only one who can make you impactful again. That’s the only way you can live at peace.

Over the last three years, the Church, our church has been challenged to live at peace with each other. That’s nothing new. Neither is the importance of peace among Jesus followers. Paul identifies it as a top priority when he writes Romans 12:18.

Romans 12:18 NIV

18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

How do you do that? Jesus is saying it only happens as you learn to be salty. Look, for some of you, your marriage is on the rocks. I’m willing to bet it’s not because you’ve loved each other too sacrificially, or respected too unconditionally. Some of you have wrestled with anxiety and fear. I’m willing to bet its not because you’ve prayed too much. You are uncertain or insecure in your identity, it’s probably not because you’ve turned too much of your life into moments of worship. The anti-peace is not a result of too much Jesus, it’s a result of too little salt.

Let the Holy Spirit remake you. Let him make you salty again. Let that salt pour into the cracks of life. Peace with each other flows from that salt.

We often say here that you matter, and you are dearly loved. That’s true, now as much as any time in the past. But it’s also true that you have a purpose. You have nothing in common with that shirt in the back of my closet. You are salt. Be reminded this hard saying from Jesus every time you salt the pasta water or the steak or the roasted vegetables. You are salt. And your world is better because of it.