Sunday September 26, 2021

Reflection:  "How's Your Salt Level Going?"

Psalm 124

Esther 7:1-6

Mark 9:38-50

James 5:13-20

In our reading from the Gospel of Mark this week, we observe Jesus continuing to teach his disciples about how to live their lives when he’s no longer with them.
The disciple John came to Jesus with a worrying story of a man, who wasn’t one of their close knit group, who appeared to be driving out demons – and using the name of Jesus to accomplish it.

This didn’t seem right to the disciples and so they mentioned it to Jesus, expecting their master to be as angry as they were. 
But Jesus surprised them by pointing out that it’s better for people to do these things in his name, rather than their own, because then they weren’t acting against him, as some of the religious leaders constantly were.

Jesus was being really hard on people whose actions caused the little children to sin and suggested that there would be some quite dire consequence for these sorts of people, like drownings with millstones around their necks, hands and feet cut off, being thrown into hell, where the fires never go out, etc.
In his ministry, Jesus had been using salt as a very important illustration of influential Christian life in the world.
In this passage he now compares purification by fire with the method of salting the sacrifices made at the temple.

Salt is an element that dissolves in water and when it dissolves, it grows weaker.
When the amount of water exceeds the amount of salt used, that salt loses both its saltiness and its identity.
We notice this in saltwater swimming pools after a lot of rain.

By resisting the dilution of their saltiness from the world’s wateriness (that is sin), Jesus was encouraging his listeners to stay strong in their convictions.

Many people probably think of salt as simply a granular, tasty, food seasoning, but only about 6% of all salt manufactured today goes into food.
Of the remainder, 12% is used in water conditioning processes, 8% goes for de-icing highways in frozen lands and 6% is used in agriculture and the majority is used in manufacturing and industrial chemicals.
Apparently, we use salt in more than 14,000 different ways from the making of products as varied as plastic, paper, glass, polyester, rubber and fertilisers to household bleach, soaps, detergents and dyes.

I think Jesus was referring to salt in a different way, so let me describe the world in the time when Jesus was ministering.

When Jesus came into this world, human life had lost its way and had fallen from the original glory that God has designed for it.

Sin had entered the world and people were becoming enslaved to it, controlled by its power.

Therefore, Jesus saw that the entire human species was needing restoration, renewal and transformation.
To restore humanity as a whole to the original status granted by God, Christ declared in John 10:10 that “I came to give life and life in abundance.”
This was an overt act of restoration and Jesus came to restore our life graciously and very generously.
One of the many great acts and actions of this good shepherd is the restoration of our souls.
The soul is the essence of human life and when it is restored, the essence of humanity is restored - regaining value, wisdom, character, dignity and hope.

To achieve renewal, the old has to pass away so that the new may come.
God has been constantly renewing the covenant with his people.
This message has been echoing all the way from the days of the prophet Isaiah, through John the Baptist, Jesus Christ and it was even stated as an apocalyptic hope in the Book of Revelation.
The new life brought into the world, through Christ's plan of restoration, can never be put into an old container.

Jesus used the metaphor of putting a new wine into an old wineskin, which ends up producing a disastrous result both for the wine (which goes sour) and the wineskin (which breaks).

Thus, we see that renewal is at the heart of Christ's mission.
He renewed humanity by killing his old self and rising up with a newly resurrected identity of hope and future.

And that brings us to the process of transformation, which means going beyond the current state of being or format.
​This process of transformation happens through a transforming agent, which we call the Holy Spirit.
Jesus talked of the Holy Spirit as being a teacher, counsellor, companion, guide, leader, encourager and purifier. 

It was the Holy Spirit that Jesus was referring to, when he was talking about the fire that transforms.
As restored, renewed, and transformed human beings, we get our new identity from this Spirit.

The renewed Christian life, which was granted a salty identity to enable it to be influential, was made into what it currently is through the fire of the Holy Spirit.

Becoming salty means:
1. Becoming a symbol of value.
    In the days of Jesus, salt was a valuable element of transaction and commerce.
2. Becoming an element of therapy and healing.
    For nearly 8,000 years, salt has been used as a means of healing diseases and infirmities.
3. Salt has also been used as a substance of preservation through the ages to maintain and keep.
    Foods last longer when they’ve been salted.
4. Salt is now used to melt snow on very slippery roads, allowing people to still drive safely.
5. Salt brings out flavours and improves the taste of foods.
    It brings taste to the tasteless and flavour to something that doesn’t necessarily have any flavour of its own.
6. It’s used in making soap and chlorine.
    These elements are cleansing and purifying elements.

So, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life transforms us into becoming the salt to the world.
This then makes us agents of purification and cleansing to society and the community.
These uses are all very symbolic when it comes to being restored, renewed, and transformed in our lives as Christians.
In this process of becoming and being salt to the world, the role of the fire of the Holy Spirit is very highly significant.

So, as I asked at the beginning, how do you feel that your level of saltiness is going?

And I’m not talking about the level of Sodium Chloride in your blood stream.
We all know that too much of that can cause cardio-vascular problems.Instead, I’m talking about the kind of saltiness that heals, protects, preserves, clears the way and improves things.

This is what Jesus wants us to be – strong, salty people.

Do you think that you’re the sort of people that Jesus would want to be his representatives in the Kingdom?
You know, the strong & salty kind?

As you travel through this sinful world that we live in, don’t let it dilute or weaken you and your resolve to live your life the way God has always intended you to.

I’m encouraging you to be the sort of strong, salty people that Jesus can be proud of.

​Pastor Rick