Every Sunday morning, millions of Christians across the globe gather together to celebrate the event which changed the course of human history.  No other event in history has garnered such an extensive and continual gathering of its supporters.  And yet, in all of our church going, it is far too easy to lose our grasp on our church being.  What are we called to be as a church?  What purpose to we serve in this world?

Jesus provides us the answer to this question in a small excerpt from his sermon on the mount in Matthew 5:

13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

 

But what does this mean?  I'd like to focus this time specifically on what it means to be the salt of the earth.

 

The primary function of salt in ancient times was to preserve meat from rotting.  Thus, Jesus is suggesting that we as the church ought to preserve something.  But what is that?  The passage immediately before this one is the Beatitudes, which provides a picture of a community flipped by grace.  It is precisely that counter-culture of grace that Jesus is telling the church to preserve.

 

But here was the problem - this counter-culture of grace in many ways was at odds with the society which surrounded it.  This counter-culture of grace was to value the poor as the blessed of God, while the society at large commanded exploitation of them for personal gains.  Similarly, this subversive community was to treat the meek as honorable and esteemed, while the society at large encouraged domination of them in a "dog eat dog" world.

 

Salt in ancient times was in danger of being so mixed with impurities in the Sea from which it was obtained, so influenced by its surroundings that it looked like salt, perhaps even tasted like salt, but ceased to work like it.  This was precisely the same danger the church then, and today, finds itself in.  But Jesus is telling his community to preserve the counter-culture of grace - to preserve a positive difference and a warm distinction that runs precisely counter the culture.  

 

But perhaps salt's gravest danger was not to become so compromised as to be useless, but to be used so improperly as to be fatal.  This is precisely the gravest danger of the church as well.  For in all of its efforts to preserve difference and distinction - this counter-culture of grace - the danger that this subversive community faces is the temptation to do violence to the society which runs counter to it.  Miroslav Volf in his article Soft Difference writes, “There is no doubt that [the Bible] stresses the church’s difference from its social environment.  [But it] is significant [that it does so] positively, not negatively.  [For] when [difference] is forged primarily through the negative process of the rejection of others, violence is unavoidable.  [For we find that] we have to push others away from ourselves and keep them at a distance [through either] subdued resentment [or] aggressive and destructive behavior.  But [the church’s call] is instead to encounter this violence with an embrace.” 

 

It is true that the church is to be a community that is distinct, that is different.  But the purpose of this difference is not to reject world, but to embrace it, not to distance self from world, but to draw the world in.  This is what it means to be the salt of the earth.  Nothing more, nothing less.