27 September 2009

Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29
Psalm 19:7-14 (8)
James 5:13-20
Mark 9:38-50

“Salt is good,” says Jesus. Unless, of course, you have issues with high-blood pressure. But let’s forget about hypertension for now and focus instead on some other aspects of salt. Salt – both in our time and in the time of the Gospels – has been used to season food and is an important element in the chemistry of baking bread. For eons, salt has always been used as a preservative and in the curing of all sorts of meat and fish. As well, meat or fish that’s been encrusted with salt and then roasted turns out exceptionally tender and juicy. And even though it stings like the dickens, salt has long been poured on wounds to clean and purify them.

But there are other uses for salt that aren’t so familiar today, but that were part and parcel of how people employed salt in biblical times. Often a conquering army would sow the lands of the conquered with salt – immense quantities of salt – to ensure that their fields would be barren for a good long time to come. In Scripture, we read that the incense used in the temple was to be mixed with a bit of salt. Salt was also used in the various sacrificial rites that took place in the temple to emphasize that the covenant made by God with the people were permanent and ever-lasting – like salt that could neither be made nor destroyed. Salt, a sign signifying that, as St. Paul puts it in Romans 11, “the gifts and the calling from God are irrevocable.”

In this morning’s Gospel we hear Jesus proclaim that everyone (not just a select and worthy few, but everyone) will be “salted with fire.” And wherever you have fire in the Scriptures, you’ve got the Holy Spirit of God giving voice to the gifts and call of God, to the promises of our gracious God. This is why, in some traditions of the Church, a grain of salt is placed upon the tongues of those being baptized: the promises made by God to us in Holy Baptism – they are everlasting, eternal, irrevocable, and can’t be made to go away – not even by us. Even if someone disavows or tries to reject her or his baptism – hah!! No go!! God will not be deterred – because if God could be made by us and our actions to annul the promise of baptism – well, that would make us stronger than God – and that just isn’t so and never will be. So when Jesus says, “Have salt in yourselves,” Jesus isn’t talking to us about increasing the sodium content of our diets; rather, Jesus is declaring a promise: “You do, in truth, have salt in yourselves, but not by something you do, but because I, in this instant, as in the creation, declare that it is so and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. So there!!” And it follows, Jesus again declares, that since God has made and will forever be making peace with us, we are going to be at peace with one another. If the Most Holy can forgive us all our sins (which are far greater than anyone can guess, but are known by the Almighty) – if the Most Holy can forgive ALL our myriad sins each day – then who are we not to do the same? Jesus proclaims: “Hey, in God’s eyes you are at peace with one another. So – be as you are.” It’s as St. James says in the second reading for this day: “Anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. So pray for each other – in order that you remember within yourselves that your neighbor is, in heavenly fact, forgiven all her or his sins.” As Luther says – “all sins are forgiven, not just those we remember or confess – for, as the Psalm says, ‘who can know the depth or breadth of one’s own sin’?”

It’s only been in the last decade or so that I became aware that there is a whole slug of different sorts of salt. Yeah, I knew about Kosher salt and regular old table salt. But then somewhere along the way, I became aware that you can buy sea salt. A few years later, thanks I think to Martha Stewart, I found out that there are different colors of salt: pink, red, black, brown, and salts that come from different regions of the globe – each with its own unique texture and taste. The one thing I did not discover, however, is the kind of salt mentioned in St. Mark: “salt that has lost its saltiness.” Now, as some of you have heard me tell, the cupboards and refrigerator at our house have harbored some might old, odd, and nasty stuff; I find out the hard way that Spritz cookies made with flour that’s over a year (or so) old just don’t taste the way they’re supposed to (over twelve dozen, into the trash). But salt – no matter how dusty, old, ragged, and stained the salt carton is, the salt is still salty. So what’s up with Jesus referring to “unsalty salt”?

After years of puzzle, I decided to do the obvious and spend some time in research – and sure enough, in Jesus’ time there was indeed a particular type of salt that was known as “salt that has lost its saltiness” – unsalty salt. It was salt from particular area of the Dead Sea; it wasn’t so much that the salt had lost anything as it was the true taste of the salt was overpowered by an alkali taste – it was bitter, very, very bitter. And of course everyone knew exactly why this particular salt was so very bitter: Lot’s wife. Legend had it that when God had had enough of Sodom and Gomorrah’s stinginess and lack of hospitality God decided to destroy these wealthy cities whose people wouldn’t share their wealth. But since there were a few people who did know how to practice good stewardship, God gave them a chance to escape – among them, Lot and his wife (who according to the times must not have had her own name, so we’ll call her Mrs. Lot). Anyway, Lot and Mrs. Lot were given the opportunity to head for the high hills before the fire and brimstone came raining down. The one condition was that Lot and “the missus” not look back. God says, “Fu’gged about the coulda, woulda, shoulda. Don’t hang on to the sins and offenses of the past – not your own, not anyone’s. Dwelling in the past will only make you bitter. Look to the future. Look to the promises I make you.” But Mrs. Lot – well, she preferred looking backward, preferred holding on to the past – and so she turned into a pillar of salt – and not the good kind either – but salt that was so bitter, you couldn’t taste the good there. Looking backward – dwelling in coulda, woulda, shoulda, holding on to the slights and sins of the past – our own and others’ – that’s going to result in one thing only: bitterness and ugliness. But remember that you’ve been salted with fire; remember the eternal promise of the One Holy Baptism; remember that in that covenant, in that sacrament, God promises the forgiveness of all your sin – and all the sin of everyone in this room – well then, you will be at peace.

This morning, Cora and Matthias will receive the promise of Holy Baptism: that they are forever forgiven – even those sins not yet committed – and that they forever belong to God and that there’s nothing in all creation that can separate them from God’s love. Or as it is said in Scripture: they will be salted with fire, and so as a part of their baptism, in light of this morning’s Gospel, I will place a grain of salt on their lips and repeat Jesus’ proclamation: “You do have salt in yourself and will be at peace with one another.” And as I sprinkle you with the water of the font in remembrance of your own Holy Baptism, the Altar Server will follow me, flinging grains of salt. And the salt to be used – it will be good salt – the salt of God’s promise: “All your sins are forgiven: all your sins are forgotten! So – be at peace with one another. Forgive and don’t look back. Forgive and forget.”

And because that goes against all our tendencies – yet again this week, another gift – Christ’s body and blood – once more to become a part of our body and blood – that we be who God sees us to be – each of us saying to one another: “What is past . . . aw, forget about it. I forgive and I’ve already forgotten.”

Thanks be to God who makes it so, in the name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN