The week began with what was hoped to be a special Sunday service as we had invited well over fifty people to join us for a ‘Let’s all go to church’ Sunday. It was an opportunity for people to set aside something else perhaps and join us for worship. Well … let’s be blunt; it didn’t work.
It was in a fairly sombre and hopefully reflective mood that I turned to the Scriptures for inspiration this week and for some reason I found myself in Leviticus – as you do! I got stuck in a strange place: reason all your grain offerings with salt.
Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings. Leviticus 2:13
I know, it isn’t doing much for you is it? For me it got me thinking about salt and probably more specifically the place in Matthew five where Jesus reminds us that we are the salt of the earth.
Salt of the earth? In ancient times – and even today – a covenant will be ratified and celebrated by a formal meal. Any old enmities are set aside and we sit down and share food and drink together. In Biblical times salt was shared between parties as a key part of the covenant ceremony. Salt was in those days a very important preservative and at this important occasion it was symbolic of preserving the particular agreement from corruption.
The instruction in the Leviticus reading that caught my notice was that the people were to make sure that every offering made to God was to have salt added to it. It is powerful stuff this salt. It is one of the things on this earth that we have plenty of and there is little likelihood of it running out. In these days of lack rejoice in the plentitude of salt!
For the people of Israel – for Jesus – salt was a reminder of an eternal covenant with God. No matter what our circumstance at any given time God’s abiding love is a constant that will never run out. There is no use by date on God’s love. The covenant of salt should remind us all that we have an abiding and eternal relationship with God. Nothing will change that. But wait; there’s more!
Ancient covenants were usually offered by a dominant king to a less powerful people and therefore we had an imbalance from the very beginning. The Covenant of salt that God offers is clearly unbalanced – there is no bigger King than God – but the terms of the covenant is astonishing. We are offered a part in the care and nurture of all of creation!
‘You are the salt of the earth’ said Jesus. He also said; ‘you are the light of the world’. But over time the salt seems to have lost its taste and the light has been too often hidden under a basket.
Funny stuff salt; you can put into or onto stuff and it dissolves really quickly. You can be cooking up a meal and ask your partner to taste and see what they think. For me, a salt lover, my most common words are; ‘I think it needs more salt.’
In these days where our political leaders are offering us lots of toys to seduce our vote and when materialism appears to have won the war. When you are wondering just what the next ingredient needs to be; it is good to be reminded by a quiet word from the Spirit of God – ‘I think it needs more salt.’
