Salt of the Earth 6/28/42
Scripture: Matthew 5: 13-20
Text: Matthew 5: 13 -- >“Ye are the salt of the earth.”
Among the well known expressions of the Bible which we frequently use, is the one phrased in the homely words: “salt of the earth.” Occasionally we hear it applied to some person, or people, whose fine, dependable qualities call for warm appreciation.
It is a distinct tribute which we pay when we refer to someone as “salt of the earth.” It was that, when Jesus paid tribute to his followers, saying to them “ye are the salt of the earth.” Here is an expression which grows out of acquaintance, companionship, enjoyable fellowship, admiration.
What are some of the qualities of salt which give force to this figure? Salt is generally used to bring out the flavor of a food, rather than change that flavor. It is not used to dominate a dish, but to enable that dish to be more delightfully its own self. It is a pervasive seasoning.
Salt is a preservative. It checks deterioration. Its job is not to sugar-coat a bitter pill, but to enable a substance to retain its own sweetness.
Jesus did not say, “Ye are the sugar, or the honey, of the world.” He never sugar-coated the bitterness of living. He was much more profound than a Pollyanna.
Jesus knew a world of people whose hopes had gone sour under hardship, oppression and corruption; or whose lives had become insipid. In the face of this, he said to a homely handful of his followers - common folk from common walks of life - that they were to be like salt in that festering world! What tremendous confidence he must have had in them! Is it possible that he may have the same sort of confidence in the multitude of his followers today, living, as Christian folk do, in a world that has some serious festers?
I believe, with Ralph Sockman, that the Church of Jesus Christ (the divinely ordained fellowship of Christians) has proved to be salt of the earth in the realm of (1) personal living. I know numbers of people, and you do too, for whom living would lose its tang and flavor, were it not for the atmosphere, the ideals and the fellowship of the church.
It is possible to live for a time, with zest, a secular kind of life, living only for its thrills, its excitement, its “kick.” But a life unflavored by a sense of the sacred, sooner or later grows stale and loses its tang.
How “merrily we roll along!” Then one day darkness falls; some great anxiety or perhaps the death of a loved one; and how empty all the worldliness seems! Then perhaps we become aware that we are starved for salt, and start searching, like a young wild deer headed for a salt lick, which the experience of others in the herd, and his own instinctive urges, tell him must be there. A splendid Christian woman, mother of five fine children, wife of a happy and devoted husband, friend of everyone in the community who knew her, was suddenly and unexpectedly stricken, and died within a few short days. A sister-in-law, to whom the church had not meant very much cried out in anguish and rebellion, “Where is the justice of God in this?” But the husband and the sons clung more closely to the church and its God than ever before. Week by week, they were found more faithfully than ever in their places at worship of Sunday. They knew that renewal of their crushed spirits lay near the altar of God, and there they sought strength for their souls, and found it.
2) The Spirit of Christ is salt of the earth to family life. Christianity has no monopoly on splendid home life, of course. A family may be made finer by the thoughtful ministrations of a Buddhist serving maid.
Yet, broadly speaking, the Hebrew-Christian tradition has begotten a home life superior to that of other religions. Mohammedenism begets the harem, where a woman is a plaything while beauty lasts and a drudge when bloom fades. A distinguished Japanese woman pointed out a pathetic part of much Japanese culture in which the non-Christian man expects, as a matter of course, to find his recreation and amusement outside the family circle.
The Hindu woman is often considered little more than the beasts in importance. One of the cruelest tragedies of Nazi-controlled areas of Europe is the closing of the schools to women and girls.
Good homes can’t be built on such shallow, perverted notions of the place of womanhood. Good homes are built on the mutual respect and understanding of a husband and wife, trained and willing to meet life’s demands together for themselves and their children and their community. No other tradition fosters this advanced relationship in the home as does Christianity.
3) The followers of Christ have proved salt of the earth in the realm of art and the appreciation of the beautiful. Of course there are many who seem to find in fine art a substitute for religion. But only a few moments of reflection over history will reveal the truth that the finest of painting and music originated in the Church. Many of the finest masterpieces deal with religious subjects of the Christian tradition. And the church itself has lately been rediscovering the kinship of fine art to religion.
4) Christ’s preserving savor is discovered in the civic and national realm. The churches, big and small, urban and rural, have made a tremendous contribution to the life of our communities and our nation. They are still more vital than ever. For they deal with the spirit that may make mankind worthy to be man in the image of God.
In areas where man has sunken in indignity beneath the heel of totalitarian idealism or the unbridled determination of imperialism to rule, the church is a chief hope of the return of man to his proper sphere. The renaissance of a brutal and ruthless kind of paganism is nauseatingly rotten! The salt of Christian idealism is a nation’s chief hope. And it is needed everywhere. Was it not a British scientist who, while discussing the tremendous, unharnessed energy latent in a single lump of coal, remarked that man is not yet ready handle such power!
Arthur Compton was asked whether it would be possible to perfect rays that would intercept bombing planes and thus protect cities from invasion. He is reported to have replied that it was quite conceivable that such a ray might be discovered and used; but that if discovered, someone would find something else to counteract it. Thus science would continue to be used in the blows and counter-blows of a warring society. Professor Compton said that there is only one thing that can prevent bombing raids, and that is the cultivation of good will.
Friends, this world, near and far, needs a tremendous sprinkling of Jesus’ kind of salt to freshen and preserve all that is worthwhile in it.
It is very much the business of Christian people to be that kind of salt. To lose savor in a day like this would be a dreadful calamity. What we have lost (God forgive us!) we must regain to save the whole, unseasoned world from being trampled underfoot by the powers of evil and darkness.
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dates and places delivered:
Wisconsin Rapids, June 28, 1942
Wisconsin Rapids, May 15, 1955
C.W.M.A., October 10, 1961