Salting the Community
“Ye are the salt of the earth.” — matt. v. 13.
Among all the other new things which our Lord gave to His disciples He must have given them a new material environment. That is to say, He must have given them a new relationship to the things round about; and to be given a new relationship to anything makes that thing new. I remember being very much impressed by a sentence, spoken by one of his congregation, concerning the Rev. Alfred Norris, of Tynemouth. Alfred Norris was a man of the rarest gifts, and of an exquisitely refined spirit. He was a passionate lover of truth and beauty. He had the vision splendid and the poet’s dream. His thoughts spontaneously ran into moulds of imagery, and every lovely thing became his willing servant. And this friend of his, speaking of one side of Alfred Norris’s influence and ministry, said to me: “He has spiritualized the whole Tynemouth shore.” His poetic spirit had taken up one familiar thing, and another familiar thing, and made them the vehicles of spiritual truth, until the entire coast-line had become a sort of mystic literature carrying divine significance. Alfred Norris gave my friend a new environment; the material thing became his schoolmaster to bring him to Christ.
And is not this like the Lord Himself? He touched material things, and they became transparencies, unveiling spiritual things. Nay, the material became sacramental; the familiar chalice was filled with heavenly wine. He converted common things into spiritual messengers bearing the mind and will of God, until no disciple of His could move about the house, or along the shore, or across the fields, or up the hill, without encountering God, and beholding the mystic light of His Presence.
And here, in this immediate teaching, the Master brings common salt into this mystic fellowship, and no disciple would ever handle salt again without passing through its material portal into a secret of the Spirit. Who were these men and women to whom the Master was speaking? They were men and women who had become His companions and friends. They had accepted Him as the Lord of their life, and by a living faith they are now receiving the vital things of His own Spirit. And so they are really changed and changing folk; the eternal God has made His home in them, and they are being transformed. They are rising into a new way of thinking about life, and into a new way of living it, for this divine Nazarene has mixed Himself with their own personality, and they are renewed in the very springs of their being. They are new creations in Christ Jesus.
And what part have they now to play in the world? The Lord looked round about over the restless society of mankind. He surveyed the corporate life of the community as it was being lived by the Galilean lake and beyond it; He noted all its subtle intimacies, and all the vital interdependencies which could not possibly be escaped. He saw the manifold mixings of innumerable lives, and all the countless possibilities for good or ill; and turning to His disciples He said, “Ye are the salt in all this! Ye are the salt of the earth.” Every man and woman in the company caught the significance of the word. Salt was used by these fishermen in sending their fish from the lake to the market in Jerusalem. Salt was used by these farmers on their land. These shopkeepers and traders handled it every day. It was the house-wife’s commonplace. And they all knew the part it played in their life. And now they were told that their part was to be as salt in the world! And all who are sealed with the name of Jesus are to be as salt in the world! Their life is to be like salt in the life of the community. Their thoughts and ideals are to be like salt amid the mass of current thought and judgment. Their purpose is to be like salt in the jumbled purposes of work and play. Their speech is to be like salt in the daily intercourse. Their dispositions are to be like salt in all the conflicting feelings and passions of mankind. “Ye are the salt of the earth.” It is the word of Jesus to His first disciples. “Ye are the salt of the earth.” It is the word of Jesus to all His disciples to-day.
And now let us get quite close to the Master’s metaphor, and let us examine the material thing in our search for some corresponding spiritual thing. What, then, shall we say about salt?
What are its qualities? What are its uses? Let us begin with this commonplace: Salt keeps things from going rotten. And they had great need of salt in the region of Galilee. The Galilean lake is 680 feet below the level of the Mediterranean Sea. It is sunk like a deep, half-filled cup, with a piece of the cup broken out where the waters escape in the river Jordan. The heat of the cup is intense; the mean temperature is 77 °, and half the year it exceeds 900, and on nearly fifty days it goes beyond ioo°. It is extremely difficult to keep things fresh and sweet. Sweet things soon turn sour, and fresh things speedily become rancid. These housewives who were listening to the Master had daily difficulties in their larder, and these fishermen in His fellowship needed to have all their wits about them if their fish was to be saleable when it reached the markets of Samaria and Jerusalem. “What should we do without salt?” whispered one house-wife to another. “We should be helpless without salt,” said one fisherman to another. Salt was their splendid ally, it was the strong, pungent antagonist of rottenness. It was the aggressive resister of swift and cunning disease.
And salt gave the Master His metaphor. “My disciples are to be like salt; they are to be the salt of the earth.” They are to be the custodians of moral health. They are to be the natural enemies of moral disease. Whenever anything in the life of the community is in danger of becoming rancid the Master’s salt must be there to stop the foul invasion. The very presence of the Master’s salt must be the pledge of stout resistance. The salt of Jesus Christ must ever engage itself in conflict with rottenness, and it must confront surprise with a better surprise. The lists must ever be set for these combatants — the spirit of salt versus the spirit of rottenness, and the salt must always conquer. “Ye are the salt of the earth.”
Well, what sort of rottenness is there in the body corporate? Let us take a swift glance at the rottenness whose destructive power is to be opposed and destroyed. The rottenness has many forms. It appears here in one guise, and there in another. For instance, I am just old enough to remember what were called “rotten boroughs.” It was a corruption of the franchise. Earlier still the rottenness was of an even more deadly character. The voting power of a constituency rested entirely in the hands of a single man, and if he wished he could sell its representation in Parliament for an old hat or a pair of shoes. The Reform Bill of 1832 abolished fifty-six of these rotten boroughs; that is to say, the rottenness was fought and cleansed by strong and healthy legislation. In later years, which I can well remember, the corruption was of another order. It was the rottenness of bribery. A man would sell his political birthright for a mess of pottage. He would sell his vote to the highest bidder. Anybody could have it for a shilling, or sometimes he would let it go for a glass of beer. There was rottenness in the franchise. There was corruption in politics. Tammany was in the Government. Things were rancid and diseased. There was certainly a crying need for strong salt. “Ye are My salt! Ye are the salt of the earth.”
What sort of rottenness is in the community? I saw a phrase the other day in a sporting article which was discussing what one might call comparative sport-values of football and cricket. And the phrase which arrested me was this — “Football has become rotten.” The judgment suggests that a fresh and healthy thing has become
129 rancid. And that indeed was the charge. What has happened to football? This healthy-minded sportsman declares that its extreme professionalism has become corrupt and corrupting, and that the sport itself has been almost entirely lost in the feverish haze of the gambler’s lust of gold. The “bet” has become far more than the game; indeed, the bet is everything. The spectators are not fascinated by the delightful skill of expert athletes; they do not follow the game with mental or aesthetic interest; they are only possessed with the delirious thought that a defeat means so much money lost, and that victory means so much money won. The end of it all is not in a sportsman’s garland, but in the gambler’s purse. “Football has become rotten.”... Rotten! That is the peril of the house-wife’s butter. That is the peril of the fisherman’s fish. There is evidently a clamant call for salt.... “Ye are the salt of the earth.”
I have heard of other rotten things. I have heard of the rotting tyranny of unfair and unjust laws. I have heard of rottenness in a man’s relationship to his daily task, rottenness in laziness and indolence. Miss Lena Ashwell is reported to have said a week or two ago, “It is a rotten thing in life when people grudge and hate their work.” I have heard of rotten dealings in business. Indeed, there is a colloquial phrase which displays its own significance, “He is a perfect rotter!” It suggests the corruptness of cunning, the putidity of falsehood.
What’s gained by falsehood? There they stand Whose trade it is, whose life it is. How vain To gild such rottenness!
I have heard of rottenness in literature and art. I have known them described as “decadent;” forces of decay get hold of these vital lovely things, and they begin to decompose, and to be ill-smelling and foetid. “Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.” I have sometimes heard of rottenness in theatres. I have heard of rottenness in common intercourse, where cynical thought and word can be as sour as sour milk, and where theme and judgment are as corrupt as putrid fish.
Well, all these things are just glimpses of various sorts of rottenness which may infest our corporate life. There was plenty of it about in the time of our Lord, and there is plenty of it about in the world to-day. How is it to be met and resisted? This is the Master’s way: “Ye are the salt of the earth.” The disciples of Jesus are to be vital enough, and healthy enough, and pungent enough to encounter the corruption and destroy it. They are to confront rottenness in politics, they are to meet it in the realm of business, they are to make for it in the field of sport, they are to be its enemies in the crowded streets of common intercourse, they are to defeat it in the quiet and sequestered ways of art and literature; everywhere they are to provide the antidote to corruption and they are to overcome and destroy it. “Ye are the salt of the earth.”
But, mark you, if the salt of Jesus is to be the defence of the community against encroaching rottenness, the salt must not withdraw itself from the common relations of men. It is no good having the fish in one basket and the salt in another, and sending them off to Jerusalem in separate compartments. It is no good having politics here, and religion there, or athletics here, and piety there, and business here and devotion there. The salt must be well mixed with the fish, and Christian discipleship must be well mixed in the general life of the community. The better and the more perfect the mixing the more summary and complete will be the cleansing. “I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from evil.” That is the word of the Lord. His salt must mix itself in vital influence with all the movements of the common life, and every sort of rottenness must be encountered and destroyed. “Ye are the salt of the earth.” It is ours to keep things from going rotten.
But there are other significances in the metaphor which was used by our Lord. Recall another familiar use of salt. Salt is a wonderful thing for bringing out the flavours in other things. Everybody who stood in the little company with our Lord knew this delightful ministry. Many a thing remains insipid until salt comes along and awakes and reveals its sleeping flavours. Somebody asks in the book of Job, “Is there any taste in the white of an egg?” Well, no, there is no taste, but a pinch of salt works wonders. And so it is with other things. They do not seem to come to themselves until they are wedded to the salt. It is only when the salt arrives that they become attractive. They were very flat before salt came on the scene, but salt touches them and they reveal a wonderful freshness. Yes, it is only in the fellowship of the salt that they really and truly awake.
“Ye are the salt of the earth!” Thus spake the Lord to the men and women who believed in Him. “Ye are the salt of the earth!” Then are there some stale things, which need to be freshened by the presence of Christian men and women? Are there some insipid things which they could make tasty? Have they the power to awake and elicit hidden flavours that are somehow sleeping in common life? That, I think, is the suggestion of Jesus. Somehow or other the believers in Christ are to be the enemies of insipidity. We are to revive the stale things. The Christian is to move about with a spiritually magical influence which can awake fairies who are secretly sleeping in dingy places, or which can touch a chip of wood and it is transformed into a chariot for the carriage of a king. Wherever the Christain comes things are to revive and reveal their hidden powers.
Just glance at one or two of these insipid things. There is the insipidity of home life. There are some homes that are frightfully insipid. There is nothing tasty about them, no fine flavour. Things are stale and dull. When they want life’s flavour the indwellers go away from home. Well, it is Christ’s will that when an intimate friend of His is in any home, he or she should be as salt to fetch out the buried flavours. The very presence of a believer ought to elicit them. Surely we are poor friends of Christ if we cannot share this much in the work of resurrection.
And then there is the staleness of the daily living. There is the drudgery of the common round and the daily task. How often we hear the phrase, “Things have become a bit stale!” That seems a call for the use of the salt! And Christ Jesus says that when one of His disciples comes where work is stale and tasteless his very presence should recover some of the lost flavour. Do you not know people who, when they come into a room, dispel every suggestion of staleness, and everything begins to revive? And especially is this true when life has been trodden very bare and hard by a round of daily cares. Tramp, tramp, tramp! Until everything has become very flat, and every beautiful thing has gone. It is just there we need somebody whose coming in will recover the lost sanctities. It is just there that we need some presence whose very fellowship will bring back lost savours and lost flavours, and release simple and shy delights which, perhaps, have never yet been found.
Do you remember what happened when Dinah Morris, the saintly Methodist in George Eliot’s story of “Adam Bede,” came into the home, of Lisbeth, Adam Bede’s old mother? Lisbeth was in sore trouble; she was rocking herself in grief. She had lost her husband. She was giving a low moan with every forward movement of her body, when Dinah Morris came in. “Slowly Lisbeth drew down her apron, and timidly she opened her dim, dark eyes. She saw nothing at first but a face — a pure, pale face, with loving grey eyes, and it was quite unknown to her. Her wonder increased; perhaps it was an angel. But in the same instant Dinah had laid her hand on Lisbeth’s again, and the old woman looked down at it.” It was the hand of a working woman. “‘Yes, I am Dinah Morris, and I work in the cotton mill when I am at home.” Ah,’ said Lisbeth slowly, still wondering, ’ ye corned in so light, like the shadow on the wall, an’ spoke i’ my ear, as I thought ye might be a sperrit.’.... ‘I’d be glad to ha’ ye wi’ me to speak to i’ th’ night, for ye’ve got a nice way o’ talkin’. It puts me i’ mind o’ the swallows as was under the thack last ‘ear, when they fust begun to sing low and soft-like i’ th’ mornin’. ‘” Yes, that is it. Dinah Morris was a vital presence who awoke the savours and flavours in the insipid lives of others.
This only must be added about this delicate sort of influence. If you put too much salt into a tasteless dish it does not entice the flavours; it destroys them. The salt must not be too aggressive, or the flavours are buried. “Rather too much salt,” we say; which means that some things are hidden. And there is a brusque and self-assertive piety which is no good in the presence of insipidity. It is piety without tact. It is devotion without wisdom. It is sanctity without sense. It is zeal without knowledge. “Too much salt!” The flavours of life do not steal out when it draws near. The flavours are afraid of it, and the tasteless life remains in dullness and insipidity. And so we have this word of the apostle Paul, “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt.” In the presence of such a vital union, salt and grace, life’s hidden essences venture out, and the tasteless days are filled with unfamiliar delights.
I will only add one further word. Common salt neutralizes many a bitter acid. Yes, in the presence of healthy salt many an injurious acid is subdued. And so it is with acids in human life. And what a lot of acids there are about! Acid in irony! Acid in satire! Acid in much so-called wit and humour! Acid in criticism and judgment! Acid in anger and resentment! Plenty of acids about! And if salt is a neutralizer, some of it, and much of it, is greatly needed here.
And that, too, is to be one of the ministries and influences of the followers of Christ in the common life of the world. They are to antagonize the bitterness of human fellowship, they are to neutralize it, they are to destroy it. “Let all bitterness,” says the word of God, “let all bitterness be put away.” And blessed be God, there are folk whose very presence subdues our bitterness, and changes the acid into sweetness. I think Barnabas of Jerusalem was one of these people. I think Ananias of Damascus was another. I think Lydia of Philippi was another. I think Priscilla of Corinth was another. And such is to be the mission of all who vitally believe in Jesus Christ and share His life. Their salt is to counteract the prevalent acids and change a destructive bitterness into genial sweetness.
But, “if the salt have lost its savour!” Aye, indeed, and what then? If the salt have lost its power, what then? When saltless salt touches rotten things, how then? When saltless salt touches insipid things, how then? When saltless salt touches bitter things, how then? “If the salt is saltless,” says the Master, “it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.”
“Have salt in yourselves!” So speaks the word of God. Aye, but how and whence? “Have salt in yourselves.” The vital salt is Christ’s own life. It is His very Spirit. It is His very Self. And only as the very salt of Christ dwells in us are we able to salt society. Apart from Him we can do nothing. In Him we have the very salt of life, and only as we abide in Him are we able to salt mankind.