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| Essential 100 -- The Practical Application of Sodium Chloride in Diverse Societies | | Date Created: Mar 28, 2005, 08:27 AM |
56 — Monday March 28 — Matthew 5:1 - 6:4
It's tempting to think of salt on our own terms. We use it as a seasoning. On my popcorn last night, I was interested in the taste of salt itself. But the half-a-dash of salt that's my secret ingredient in hot chocolate is there to bring out and enhance the taste of the chocolate rather than to add a salty taste.
It's a nice analogy of the kind of thing that a Christian should be able to do in counselling and in society: in some contexts, it's right for the saltiness to be the message and in others it's right for us to work behind the scenes, but we're to be active, changing the taste of everything we touch for the better.
Nice sermon; now rip it up. That is almost certainly NOT what Jesus will have been saying. In his day, salt's primary role was not as a seasoning but as a preservative. These are not people obsessed with making their food taste better. These are people working hard to find enough to keep themselves alive.
The difference Christians are meant to make is not that between chocolate and chocolately-chocolate. The difference we're to make to is between nourishing protein and putrid rotten flesh. We don't fight against mediocre taste, we fight against the corruption and the rot.
There will be gourmets, even among us, who will look at what we do and say "Oooh... too salty... too Christiany!" You know what? Tough. It ain't really about short-term flavour and fashion. We don't do what we do to give things a marginally superior tang or zip; what we do keeps them from stinking to hell.
If it ain't salty-tasting, it ain't working, fit only to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. |
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