My daughter sat at the breakfast table complaining about her tasteless hard boiled egg. I handed her the salt shaker and told her to put a little on. She proceeded to turn the shaker upside down and start shaking it as hard as she could. She took a bite of her egg and began gagging, eyes watering. "Its too salty Mommy!"
In the Naval community someone who is "salty" is well experienced and weathered in navy life. Many of the "salty wives" I have met are a wealth of information and good advice. They can be very helpful and encouraging to those of us who are just learning how to navigate this life. They can also be caustic. They have experienced deployments, months of communication black-outs, children struggling with dad being gone for months at a time, commanding officers who are so mission focused they forget about moral and families, moves gone very very wrong, housing that is well under par and many other challenges that come with the military life. They don't put up with a lot of whining and complaining, because they have walked it all and know that the whining isn't helpful. They can be sharp and come across as being unfeeling to many "newbies".
You are the salt of the earth, Matt 5:13a ESV
Salt has wonderful uses. We use it most often to enhance flavor. Just enough can make the difference between a delightful slice of freshly baked bread and a tasteless slab of carbohydrates. Too much leaves us painfully gagging and choking, never wanting to touch it again.
When we look at Christians today, in 21st Century America, what kind of salt do we see?
Too often all the world experiences are the extremes - too much or none at all.
The taste our culture most often gets of our "saltiness" is one that is overwhelming, bitter and painful. We douse people with do's and don'ts, moral-isms and platitudes, never taking the time to really engage in relationships. They see us walking abortion picket lines, protesting gay marriage, preaching against extra-marital sex, censoring Harry Potter, and denouncing science textbooks without an understanding of why. It bites and stings, but since we don't offer the comfort, grace, mercy and assurance that comes with personal relationship, they jerk away and reject what we intend to bring restoration. We dump our saltiness on them instead of letting our speech "always be gracious, seasoned with salt" (Col 4:6 ESV) In order for salt to be effective it must be judiciously sprinkled in. It is worked into the dough, spread through out. Our saltiness is most effective in the context of relationship. When we work and kneed love, grace and compassion into people, our salt spreads through them, enhancing their lives and pointing them to the Bread of Life.
On the other end, many Christians have thrown out their saltiness and focus only on grace, love and mercy. We make excuses for anything that people find objectionable; anything that could challenge attitudes, actions and life-styles. Surely God did not intent for a woman to suffer the sacrifices and physical and emotional trama of an unplanned pregnancy. Isn't it more loving to allow her to rid herself of a troubling medical condition than making her spend her life dealing with a child she doesn't want, can't afford, who has medical issues or will infringe on a career? You can't choose who you love, so shouldn't anyone be allowed to marry? God made them that way! God wants us to enjoy life and be who we are, not reject what makes us happy. It is only a TV show. Everyone knows vampires aren't real. I spend all day struggling in the real world and need a way to escape. Plus, look at all the themes of redemption and salvation - and how hot actors are! Instead of being "salt" and bringing attention to destructive and sinful behavior, urges and entertainment, we water it down to the point where it has no saltiness left. We try to artificially sweeten the pot instead of naturally enhancing God's flavors. We invest in people so that they feel warm and fluffy (like my loaf of bread), but in reality, in the eyes of God, they are bland and tasteless. They lack any real substance because without the salt, the bread is worthless. Matt 5:13 continues with "but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet". When we are no longer salt, when we no longer point to sin and call it sin, we no longer point to Christ. The bread we are offering them is worthless, because it is the salt that drives people to the Living Water.
So how much salt are you sprinkling on your world and into the lives of the people around you? Do you tend to dump it into people? Do you avoid being salty? Or, do you spend the time to carefully form and kneed relationships, being just the right amount of salt at the right time, allowing God to use you to form lives that are a beautiful aroma to Him and nourishing to hungry souls.
