Reading in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘You are the salt of the earth….but if the salt has lost its savour…….it fails to be salt.
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In a culture that celebrates, even adulates, success, it can be devastating to fail. Young people aiming for University, or a career opportunity, have their life chances calculated on unforgiving exam grades. Hard working people, in all kinds of jobs, are evaluated, assessed, reviewed, all on the basis of ‘development’, or efficiency, or value for money to the organisation. Elderly people whose lives have been spent believing that National Insurance contributions and income tax would ensure a modest but sufficient income for everyone in later years, face means tested supplements. Schools fail, companies fail, social services fail, football teams fail. Fail. The word is loaded with negativity, unrelentingly judgemental, betraying a view of life that majors on performance and function, rather than on human growth and fulfilment.
One of the temptations the church faces at a time when it is seeming to lack presence and impact on the lives of ordinary people, is to try to be what it isn’t, in order to succeed, in order not to be seen to fail. The irony is, when the church buys into the values and attitudes of the surrounding culture in the search for success, it is the more likely to fail where and when it matters most; in its mission as the body of Christ in the world. Core values of the Christian community such as peacemaking, forgiveness, loving acceptance, justice-seeking and identity with the vulnerable, each provide correctives, alternatives, reminders, and yes even counter-arguments, to the assumptions and values of our success addicted society.
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Salt is now regarded as a health risk. Too much of it in our food and we are asking for trouble. But when it comes to human community, the cultural and social world in which we all live, the problem isn’t too much salt, it’s too little, far too little. ‘You are the salt of the earth’, Jesus told his followers. Salt used medically in past days to cleanse open wounds, causes pain as it cleans. It is astringent, it hurts so much that part of us might prefer to take our chances with infection. Salt as a seasoning or preservative stops food from going off. In the absence of freezers, vacuum packing, and tins, people of Jesus’ day knew the importance of salt. Whether used medically or in the kitchen, salt only works if it hangs on to it’s saltness, its essential character and flavour.
Likewise the church. ‘If the salt has lost its savour it is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out’. Amongst the most reported performance indicators demonstrating the failure of the church are falling attendances, closing down buildings, mounting deficits, shortage of ministers and leaders, a burgeoning supermarket of spiritual alternatives. Who knows what the future holds in the light of such signs of institutional failure.
That such crisis indicators need radical thinking and even more radical action is obvious. Perhaps the most radical response of all, though, is for the Christian community to recover its saltiness, its astringent quality of creative critique. In a society that worships success and condemns failure, to go back to the core truth of the faith, Christ crucified, is to regain saltiness. The idea that the power of God was revealed in suffering love, in the shame of public failure, in order to demonstrate once and for all God’s love for the powerless, the vulnerable, the people who struggle with the cost and failures of their lives, is unbelievable, incredible, and for Christians, true. In the power of that truth, whatever the future for the institutional church, Jesus still calls his followers to be the salt of the earth, those for whom failure is not final, and whose judgement of others is not performance related, but on the dignity of each human being as a child of God.
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The picture is of an antique saltshaker – (one description of the church in a success driven world – antique saltshaker? Hmmm?) You can see more of these over here at the atique saltshaker site
There’s something vaguely biblical in a creation stewardship kind of way, about that story. (Excuse me, but the ox and ass were to enjoy the Sabbath just as much as humans, according to the 4th commandment!) Made me wonder about the working conditions and working hours of millions of children and women in the developing world, and in the burgeoning economies of China, India and elsewhere. Microchips to ensure people aren’t overworked…. hmm. Not going to happen, but somehow or other that’s another scandal needing fixed. 
