In Matthew 5.13 Jesus tells his disciples that they are they salt of the earth, and that they should not lose their saltiness. If they have lost it, they need to become salty again, or risk being thrown out.
Salt ... well perhaps you remember all about it from school. It's sodium chloride. It's present in seawater with about 35 grams per litre - that's about 3.5 %. Salt is essential for our lives, you find it in our bodies, it's essential for tissues. Salting is used in food preservation. How is salt produced - from salt mines or by the evaporation of seawater.
Salt has important place in religion. The ancient Greeks and Romans invoked their gods with offerings of salt and water. In our own faith, we learn that there are 35 verses which mention salt. Lot's wife was turned to salt as she looked back at the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Paul encourages us to let our conversation be always full of grace and seasoned with salt (Colossians 4.6)
But for us, what may it mean ? I have been thinking about the warming climate. 2016 was the hottest year on record, and so was 2015 and 2014. The climate is warming rapidly. Graphs show the loss of sea ice. It's very worrying.
I have been active in campaigning for governments to act and reduce carbon emissions, but - truth be told - I have rather lost heart. It feels to me that no one is interested, and there are so many areas of life where my time and effort is demanded. But it's no-one's fault except mine.
I think I have lost my saltiness.
When we believe that what we do does not matter, or when we think we do not matter, then we stop trying. When we think that following Jesus is hard, and I do a lot anyway, and surely others are working on this, then we give up.
Rebecca Solnit writes;
Hope is a belief that what we do might matter, an understanding that the future is not yet written. It’s informed, astute open-mindedness about what can happen and what role we may play in it. Hope looks forward, but it draws its energies from the past, from knowing histories, including our victories, and their complexities and imperfections. It means not being the perfect that is the enemy of the good, not snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, not assuming you know what will happen when the future is unwritten, and part of what happens is up to us.
It seems to me that for us followers of Jesus Christ, following him to Jerusalem to the cross, that we are called to be people of hope. Salty people of hope, believing in our God-given power. Jesus trusted in God so we must trust that our following, our love in action, will not be in vain. We can be salty.