Salt of the Earth
The text for my sermon is from Matthew 5 v 13"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
Salt is very useful, it is used as a preservative, to give flavour to food.When Jesus is commanding us to be the salt of the earth he is also commanding us to be useful and to give flavour to life. How do we all measure up to this command of Jesus?
There is the story of a man who lives in Athens, Greece. What is special about this man is that he was an invalid who was condemned to execution by the Nazis during the occupation of Greece in World War II. Seven bullets went through his body and he was left for dead, but he escaped the ordeal alive. Through this experience, and the personal witness of a servant of Christ, he found Christ as his Saviour. After becoming blessed in the Lord through the new birth, he did not want to keep the good news to himself but was anxious to share it with others. Although he suffered eighty percent incapacitation and constant excruciating pain (When he moved) so that he had to remain in bed most of the time.
We could ask the question how could he be useful in his life when he couldn’t work and was bedridden most of the time? How could he be useful and bring flavour to life after the command of Jesus? Now God works in mysterious ways!
His great rejoicing in the midst of affliction attracted attention. A radio announcer came to visit him and told his story over the air in Athens, inviting suffering people to write to this invalid who knew the secret of being joyful in the midst of affliction. The same thing happened with respect to one of the leading newspapers in Athens.
As a result, this man now has a congregation of about nine thousand people all over the world who write to him asking the secret of his joy. He has written about thirty-eight thousand letters to individuals thus far as he glories in his tribulation.
It is surprising how failure can bring forth something useful. This sounds like a contradiction of terms.
The March 13 issue of Coin World carries exciting news for coin collectors. The Philadelphia mint struck a number of 1995 pennies with a faulty die. What's so exciting about a "boo-boo" at the mint? It makes those coins with the out-of-focus words "Liberty" and "In God" valuable items for collectors. Early estimates are that the penny could be worth somewhere between $175 and $225. That amounts to quite a return on a paltry one-cent investment! The story that has excited coin collectors everywhere made me think of the way God views you and me.
The hard thing is getting anyone to see these flaws and failings as having positive value. How can pain bring a reward? How can embarrassment be good? How can doing something outside the will of God have a positive outcome?
One of the most spiritual and committed Christians I know will tell you in a heartbeat that he owes it all to alcoholism! He explained how it was hitting bottom on account of the bottle that got his attention, broke through his barrier of lies, and forced him to seek God. Now that makes sense, doesn't it?
If you have ever had your heart broken, you can never laugh at another person's pain. If you have failed miserably at something that was incredibly important to you, you can never be happy over a disaster in someone else's life.
If you have ever been wrong about anything, you realise you have no right to gloat about an error you see in someone else's theology. If you have ever taken your personal sin seriously, you will about another's transgression of God's will. And if you have received and been grateful of God's grace, you will learn to be gracious with people around you.
There's a key ingredient in all this, of course. Since not every life crisis has a positive outcome, it must be that only those persons who react in faith witness a happy ending to what started as a near-certain disaster. Otherwise there is only grief, bitterness and anger. Surrendering all to the Lord is the only way to transform lead into gold, pain into joy, and defeat into victory. Your most glaring flaw is God's most likely opportunity for your redemption.
It remains to be noted that sometimes the early Church made a very strange use of this text. In the synagogue, among the Jews, there was a custom that, if a Jew became an apostate and then returned to the faith, before he was received back into the synagogue, he must in penitence lie across the door of the synagogue and invite people to trample upon him as they entered. In certain places the Christian Church took over that custom, and a Christian who had been ejected by discipline from the Church, was compelled, before he was received back, to lie at the door of the Church and to invite people as they entered, .. Trample upon me who am the salt which has lost its flavour.'