SALT WATER TAFFY

Matthew 5: 13-16

Old beachside communities from New Jersey to Florida often had candy shops near the shore or the boardwalk with the great taffy machines working the salt water taffy! It would come in many different colors but the most interesting thing about it to a child is how pliable it is! The taffy never breaks in the machine, it just keeps stretching! In my research I found it that it has just a pinch of salt in the taffy, leading me to believe that it got its name from the close proximity to the ocean. Today we want to examine what Jesus meant by calling his followers “the salt of the earth” and why, I fear, too many Christians are not like salt that can preserve, flavor, or protect that to which it is applied; too many Christians are like salt water taffy: pliable and colorful, taking the shape of whatever molds us in the world.

Back in Jesus’ day salt was more than a seasoning; it was a preservative in the days before refrigeration. “In New Testament times the main industry at Magdala, on the Sea of Galilee, was the salting of fish.” [Encyclopedia of the Bible]. So Jesus knew what he was saying, and knew what he was meaning, when he used his famous metaphorical language: “You are the salt of the earth.” Although that phrase today is in the dictionary as meaning “a very kind, honest, and reliable person”, in Jesus’ usage he meant even more than that. Salt changes things: for one thing it flavors; for another it preserves what is good and protects it from going bad. How did Jesus mean his followers were, first of all, to flavor the world? Can you tell how much advertising wants to change and bend us? From the beginning of the world, enticers and tempters have tried to get us to take a bite of forbidden fruit. The voice in our head, or on the lips of friends, or even on the lips of strangers, can coax us into going over to, as George Lucas put it in “Star Wars,” “the dark side.” The dark side has negative characteristics, like being domineering, predatory, cruel, and deceptive. Nowhere in Jesus’ life was he any of those things. And although the world has plenty of good people, and had good people even in Jesus’ day, bad people continue to have full reign in many corners of our world. To use Reinhold Neibuhr’s phrase, they are the “children of darkness.” Jesus was about creating “children of light,” ones who, by seasoning the world with the fruits of the Spirit and living faithfully, could change the world. In identifying his followers then as salt, he was not saying, you “could be” change agents, nor was he saying “if you want to I will give you the power to change others.” No; he said “you are the salt of the earth.” That power is in us right now! Of course, if you have salt on your dinner table but never sprinkle it over your green vegetables or your potatoes or your steak or chicken, then it has no effect! Having salt in the vicinity of food does not change it one bit! (And for now we are not addressing low salt diets because that was not in issue for Jesus!) But only if salt is applied to food does it change it. Only if Christians apply themselves to the problems of the world can we begin to change them. It does not happen if you are a Christian and just live next to a bad person, or just sit on a plane next to a bad person or just sit in class next to a bad person. If all you do is sit there and do not try to make changes, the world, like a cancer of dark and aggressive cells, will grow in its rottenness. So it takes us-salt- to flavor or change the world; and it takes us- salt- to preserve what is good in the world. The world was created good according to Genesis. When it started to rot with the whisper of a tempter, God still gave people the full resources to resist the darkness. Some resisted; some succumbed; and it is happening even today. Jesus is interested in naming the world’s change agents; he did not say “I am the salt of the earth” he said to that congregation standing and sitting on the banks of the Sea of Galilee “YOU; you are the salt of the earth!” And I believe with everything in me that Jesus preaches that message from the pages of Scripture so that it reaches your ears today too. The Lord Jesus says to his congregation even in 2011: “You are the salt of the earth.” Being in the proximity of what you want to change won’t change it; being good salt next to decaying meat won’t stop the decay; you have to apply yourself-salt-to preserve values, protect the weak, and flavor the blandness of the status quo.

The second point in that section of his sermon said this: “but if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out.” Jesus had perfect illustration of polluted salt at the end of the Jordan River. Because high concentrations of salt in the ground allowed nothing to grow in the Dead Sea, it contained no sea life or plant life. Polluted salt, like the salt mixed with sand and dirt that I showed the children today, would be thrown on roads in ancient days to keep grass from growing there. So how does salt loose its saltness? Mostly by either being so diluted that other flavors over power the salt, or so polluted that the compromised mixture cannot be applied to anything to bring health or life. Jesus wants us to be salt for the earth- a mineral of change, protection, and preservation of the public good- but instead we are more like salt water taffy. Salt water taffy contains salt, but it is in such a small quantity that almost no one notices the salt, they notice the sugar, and the flavors. Salt makes virtually no change to the taste or the consistency of salt water taffy; it is a trace ingredient. And one more thing: notice how pliable and how moldable salt water taffy is. To Jesus’ chagrin, Christians who have not taken the message of his Sermon on the Mount to heart are more tempted to fit in to the world instead of change it; and the world has very little problem with just a touch of Christianity in its public assemblies. Like salt water taffy, a touch of saltness goes unnoticed in our world; it does not change, it does not preserve, it does not protect. And when other ingredients dilute it, as in taffy, it loses its power to flavor, preserve, and protect. And when other ingredients polute it, salt becomes good for nothing, and actually can take life instead of preserve it. In Jesus’ day, polluted salt was poured out on the on the lanes and byways, to kill the vegetation in the city run by children of darkness. I fear that the salt-like power Jesus placed in each one of us is getting either too diluted or too polluted by the world. We have let that happen. But we can stop it; the children of light can draw on their Christ-named power to effect change even now! We have the power! Jesus has given us a name and purpose. But Jesus cannot lift the salt shaker and salt the world; that is for us to do. In Egypt today Christians are in such a small minority that even banded together they have little effect in their troubled land. The brotherhood and sisterhood of Christians need our hands, and hearts, and actions and prayers not just in your neighbor, but in our nation, and across the globe. How will you show your Savior that you “get it?” How will you acknowledge the power he has placed in you, not alone, but with others so that, with a larger percentage of potency, the world cannot dilute us enough or pollute us enough to make us tepid, bland, or useless? When the Titanic was sinking, there was no need for officers to straighten the deck chairs. They were needed to man lifeboats and to save souls! The time to rescue the perishing in our world is upon us again, here; now, in Feb. 2011.

Jeffrey A. Sumner February 6, 2011