Sermon for March 27

Salt.

I know you all know what salt is. I bet all of you have seen a salt shaker and used one. You probably are even aware of the many uses of salt. Salt was and is so common, that Jesus could use it in a single sentence and let his disciples know, in the Sermon on the Mount, what and who they were to be.

Salt.

Wikipedia says of it, “Salt, also known as table salt, or rock salt, is a mineral that is composed primarily of sodium chloride. It is essential for animal life in small quantities, but is harmful to animals and plants in excess. Salt is one of the oldest, most ubiquitous food seasonings and salting is an important method of food preservation.

“The taste of salt (saltiness) is one of the basic human tastes. Salt for human consumption is produced in different forms: unrefined salt (such as sea salt), refined salt (table salt), and iodized salt. It is a crystalline solid, white, pale pink or light gray in color, normally obtained from sea water or rock deposits. Edible rock salts may be slightly grayish in color because of mineral content.

“Chloride and sodium ions, the two major components of salt, are needed by all known living creatures in small quantities. Salt is involved in regulating the water content (fluid balance) of the body. The sodium ion itself is used for electrical signaling in the nervous system. However, too much salt increases the risk of health problems, including high blood pressure. Therefore health authorities have recommended limitations of dietary sodium”

Salt.

As noted above, salt mainly comes from either sodium chloride dissolved in sea water and then removed by dehydration or from rock deposits, by taking the rock pulverizing it and soaking it in water to dissolve the sodium chloride and then running off the water and letting it dehydrate so that salt crystals form. The excess rock minus the salt is thrown away.

You are like Salt.

Sitting here in the salt shaker, you are wonderful but pretty much inert. Why? Because salt in too high a concentration doesn't work well; in fact it can be deadly. Put a live object in a container of salt and the salt will draw out all the moisture in it until it is dehydrated and dead, just like a church that is no longer doing anything to spice up the world around it.

Salt does its best stuff when it is scattered, when the salt shaker get tipped over and a little is sprinkled over the area needing flavor or preserving. Too little salt is ineffective as well.

You are like salt.

So to make a difference in this world those who are followers of Jesus have to get out of the church and start salting it up, bringing flavor, do preserving, fighting off the negative elements of decay, sin, and melting the layers of ice that often hold back a culture and a people that are made in the image of God, gifted and talented, but terribly misdirected in their pursuits in this world!

And you are like light.

Not dim bulbs as in the picture, but people who have in you the power to change the world from a place of darkness into a place filled with God’s marvelous light! Of course, not connected to a source of power, not firmly attached to an electrically charged receptacle, you are just a $.99 piece of glass and wire, but firmly connected to Jesus the source of power, and firmly set in a faith community that holds you firmly to the base, you my friend have the ability to light up the world.

Remember what Jesus said, “I am the light of the world!” connected to Jesus, you come with the Holy Spirit’s ability to bring good news to all situations, able to bring God’s presence into every relationship, able to be God’s ambassador in situations that need to see and feel God’s love in a hug, a kiss, a gift, or a helping hand.

Jesus reminds us right after his teaching of the beatitudes in verse 1-12 that we are essential to his mission and ministry in the world. We are not on our own, but neither are we to think that what we do doesn’t matter. In fact Jesus makes clear that what we do, how we live, what we say, how we care is essential if this world is to understand how much God loves it.

You are like light.

So don’t hide and don’t be afraid. Instead shine with every color of the rainbow so that like just after Noah’s ark, the whole world can see that God is here. Amen? Amen.