September 29, 2024 Pentecost XIX
September 29, 2024 Pentecost XIX
“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.” Salt is a necessity of life. We live in an age where people are told they need to have less salt; an age of salt substitutes, low salt or no salt diets. In antiquity, salt was labor-intensive and expensive. Salt was such a luxury that it was often used as currency. As coins came into use, some were stamped with their equivalent weight in salt. Roman legionnaires were paid in salt. Their wages, their “salarium” is the Latin origin of our word “salary.”
Ancient Greek slave traders bartered bodies for salt, giving rise to the expression that a person was “not worth his salt.” Even as late as the nineteenth century in America, the marvel of the Erie Canal was called “the ditch that salt built” because tax revenues from salt paid for half the cost of the canal. There are many expressions, both positive and negative, about salt – an old salt, rub salt in the wound, back to the salt mines, we salt things away, we salt things down, and we take things with a grain of salt. Salt is necessary, but it also can add zest to our life, and to the lives of others.
Of all of the properties of salt, the one central to understanding what the Bible has to say about salt is that salt preserves. On the one hand, St. Paul’s words in Colossians sound like we should always have a kind word for everyone – but how does the salt fit in? It means that there is something more than simply saying nice things to everyone – our speech needs to have an element of preservation. In Mark, John comes to Jesus and tells him, “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not forbid him; for one who does a mighty work in my name will not be able soon after to speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is for us.”
Jesus goes on to explain that even simple kindnesses shown to His followers will be efforts towards the reward for the person showing the kindness. Turning away from them and causing others to sin because of the rejection of kindness, might be a sin that would hinder a disciple’s entrance into the Kingdom. Jesus tells them, “Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its saltness, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
Refrain from selfish aims to preserve the peace. Give recognition to a kindness without offering a qualifier. Loving one another does not require loving everything about the other person. Loving others can be challenging. Tears are salty, too. Feeling loved is always a preservative, always endurable, again and again.
Pax,
jbt
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