“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. Matthew 5:13

Yesterday, I led the Commencement Service for Black River High School. It is a service where new students commit to being good school citizens and all levels of staff renew this commitment. The prefects head boy head girl and their deputies are pinned. A very meaningful ceremony for those who participated. The guest preacher used Matthew 5:13-16 as his text. As he spoke, it dawned on me that being the salt of the earth was not only about going and doing. It was not only about seasoning other persons. But, it was also about experiencing life at a deeper level. Its how we restore our saltiness. It seems all this time I had missed what it could mean for the salt to lose its savour.

Salt is used for so many things, but when you are the salt as you preserve foods, clean wounds, make pigtail, and salt beef nice, how does it feel to be salt. I have to be careful as when Jamaicans say you salt it means something completely different from what I am thinking about.

Lets just take one instance of being salt. As a foodie lets look at seasoning meat. This feeling of being a salt grain, being sprinkled on meat, dissolving in the juices or fluids of the meat, not only changes the meat but the salt itself is changed. It becomes more than it was before. In seasoning the meat it gives itself over to being changed as it changes the taste of the meat. That I think is something I missed in this verse.
It speaks to the change that should occur deep within us. It speaks to our baptismal liturgy where it says our created nature is changed so deeply that is as if we are being born. That is what being the salt of the earth is. It is losing yourself and finding it in the ways of God. It is giving of yourself completely to be used by God to change the world and bring God’s kingdom to reign.

Referring to us as salt, the salt loses its savour when it forgets what its true nature is supposed to be. The salt loses it savour when it tries to do more than it is able and so makes no difference to the taste of the meat. The salt loses its savour when it chooses to stop being salt.

As the salt of the earth, we must never forget our purpose. We must never forget that while we are carrying out this purpose, we too are called to have an inner experience of God. Just as our presence should bring joy, hope, and love to those around us. We are to live in such a way that we live that same joy hope and love. We cannot teach what we don’t know. As our actions and attitudes inspire others to experience the goodness of God. We are called to understand how the experience impacts our relationship with God and that we should be looking at our experience in such a way that we see how it leads us closer to God. Let us not just be busy making others experience our saltiness, but seek to enjoy the experience of being salt.