Salty

Helen Spires is 97 years old.  I went to see her in the hospital this week.  I am here to report to you that she is quite… salty.  Even from her bed, she encourages those she encounters more than they encourage her.  She shares her hope in God with anybody who dares to listen.  She is in pain, yet she thanks God for every moment of her life.  Her health is not good, but she holds fast to a very real hope that this life is not the end, and what is to come is glorious.  She has learned to see out her window and behold the majesty of creation, and she finds herself immersed and embraced and inhabited by her Creator.

I’m telling you: she’s salty.

Remember those hot air popcorn poppers that saved our lives by eliminating hot oil from the process of making a delicious snack?  Does anybody use those anymore?  My hunch is that sales of those units plummeted, primarily because the appliance robbed the popcorn of taste.  The popped corn would get so dry that it wouldn’t hold salt.  So you were left with plain corn.  Maybe better for you, but who wants it?  The popcorn those make is so bad, Goodwill has stopped accepting them as donations.  The CIA has even been reported to sending these poppers as Christmas gifts to Al Qaeda headquarters as a counter-terror initiative, and has been known to make prisoners eat the stuff during interrogations to gather sensitive information.  By the way, the CIA neither confirms or denies these allegations (as far as I know).

Last week I went home after church and heated up some chicken noodle soup.  It was a rainy day, so I was looking forward to it.  But this soup was the Healthy Choice brand.  Technically, it contained broth, chunks of chicken, and noodles.  But I was remembering another brand I had made earlier that week for my wife as she fought the flu.  And I remembered with even greater fondness homemade soup by a saint in my church, who also supplied decadent sour cream biscuits.  As soon as I took a bit of the Healthy Choice, I knew it was going to be a really disappointing lunch.  Any guess what was missing?

When we think of salt, we think of a seasoning.  In the right amount, it makes popcorn pop with taste and soup soar to a new level.  We were with friends a few years back for dinner.  They were experimenting with different types of salt.  We just stared in ignorance at what they were saying.  So, they brought out four different salts for us to try.  Plain old iodized Morton’s, some sea salt, some rock salt from somewhere in the Middle East, and what they called “crack” salt.  We tasted a pinch of each, and much to our surprise we discovered that the taste was different with each one.  And we didn’t need to wonder why they called the last one “crack salt” – it was laced with black truffles.  OMG.  That’s some tasty stuff.

If you reside in the Midwest, especially this winter, you know salt provides another use: it melts ice on roads, sidewalks, and driveways.  It also has this other property that managed to eat away the fenders of my first car in Michigan.

Salt in Jesus’ day brought seasoning to mind, for sure, but it was also used as a preservative, for purification, and for fertilizing.  It was used for wages and trade as well.  And, because of its lasting qualities, it was viewed as a metaphor for wisdom, for sacrifice, covenants, and morality.  So, when Jesus told the disciples that they were the salt of the earth, it was a significant statement with great depth (Matthew 5:13-20).

Being the salt of the earth meant that in some way they were to add flavor, preserve, purify, and fertilize the world.  That somehow what they were learning from Jesus was going to bring wisdom that would inform how they thought about sacrifice, covenants, and morality.  And the pressure was on, it seems, as Jesus essentially commanded that the disciples’ righteousness had to be better than the Pharisees, who were known for living nearly blameless lives – they prided themselves for it.

So what do we get out of Jesus’ instruction here?  Is this merely the command of a dictator or is there something for us in his words?  We all bring a “what’s in this for me” mentality, so, what is it?  We need to be careful with all this saltiness business, right?  Or wasn’t Jesus aware of the risks of a high sodium lifestyle?

First, let’s cover the righteousness better than the Pharisees comment.  In fact, nobody was more interested in living by the letter of the law than were the religious leaders of Jesus’ day.  They were well known for their strict attention to obeying the letter of the law, which was why they had problems with Jesus.  It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t care about the Law of Moses so much as he seemed to care more about something else – the spirit of the Law.  He was more interested in wondering about the intent behind the Law – which was to foster a healthy relationship with each other and God and the whole world.  The Pharisees, according to the witness of the Gospel writers, missed the forest for the trees, as it were, in their legalistic approach to living the law.  So we are not called to be better legalists.  We are called to discover and live out the spirit of God in the instruction we have been given.  We are called to boldly live out our relationship with God, other people, and the world, which will in turn act as salt in all of its wonderful qualities.

In short, following in the footsteps of Jesus leads to a radically different kind of life that truly impacts the world for the better.  Gives it flavor.  Acts as a preservative for what needs preserving.  Purifies what needs to be cleaned up.  And serves to promote growth as a nutrient.

So, what does this look like?

You don’t know Bill Moreland.  But you wish you did.  He’s salty.  Not like the proverbial sailor who can’t get through a sentence without dropping an F-bomb, but salty like Jesus.  I’ve known Bill for almost 20 years now.  I was his pastor when I served a church in northern Illinois.  I spoke to him recently, and got salted.

Bill and his wife, Oneida, were farmers before they retired.  They grew up in the faith, and are an example of people who chose to follow Jesus proactively instead of reactively.  In other words, their decision to follow Jesus was not due to horrible decisions that finally caught up with them once they hit rock bottom.  Their decision to devote their lives to living in the way of Jesus was based on clear thinking and common sense – why wouldn’t they follow Jesus?  What possible reason could they come up with to choose a lesser way?  So they committed early in life, and stuck to it.

Be certain of this: they met many challenges along the way.  But as they did, they just kept moving forward, salting everything and everyone with their faith along the way.  And they served where they could, while they worked the farm, and after they retired.  They were quick to help anybody who needed it.  They would come by the church and dedicate themselves to deep cleaning the bathrooms when they needed it.  Bill could fix anything.  Farmers have to be able to do that.  They were wonderfully hospitable, too, inviting people to their home for a meal.  When you were with them, you were family.

Bill told me that he went to the doctor and was told that he had prostate cancer that had spread into his hip, and also to his pancreas.  Pancreatic cancer is lethal and painful and fast.  Bill was told he had eleven months to live.  He went the Mayo Clinic for a second opinion and they concurred.  But Bill’s faith wasn’t shaken.  He told his doctor, “I’m going to live every day I have.”  His salt was still salty.  Given his prognosis and his age, he decided not to pursue aggressive treatment.

Months went by, and Bill did not experience any pain, which is weird for someone with pancreatic cancer.  Then, fifteen months into his death sentence, having lived longer than expected already, he was helping down at the church during a clean-up day when all of a sudden he experienced pain that doubled him over.  He just told some folks that he needed to go home and rest.  But John Albrecht, a younger guy in the church who had experienced the power of prayer, helped him to the pastor’s office where he and a few others prayed for him.  The pain left.

A couple of years later, Bill went to the doctor for a check-up.  His doctor had retired, and his new doctor came and told him there was a mistake in his file.  Apparently, somebody thought Bill had pancreatic cancer, which was obviously wrong since Bill was still alive.  Bill explained to him that it was no mistake.  He had a second opinion to confirm it.  He told the doctor plainly that God had healed him, but not for his sake, but rather his wife’s.

“You mean to tell me that God didn’t heal you for you, but for somebody else?”

“That’s right, Doc.”

A few years after he was told he wouldn’t live another year, Oneida started to show signs of dementia.  When I spoke to Bill this week, she was still struggling with it, but, as he told me, “she is as beautiful as ever.  We’ve been married 65 years and never had a quarrel.  God gave me Oneida – who else could live with me that long?  I was healed so that I could serve her.”

Don’t get distracted by the small miracle of cancer being healed.  Be blown away by the miracle of saltiness that still pours out from this 88 year old man and his 87 year old wife.  Wherever Bill and Oneida walk, life tastes better for everyone.  The sacred way of Jesus is preserved.  People are made more whole.  And the world grows brighter.  This is the kind of salt to which Jesus referred.

How is your sodium level?  Do you realize that when we walk with Jesus, life comes on line not just for us, but for everyone we touch?  How is your sodium level?  Are you salty?  How seasoned are your most significant relationships?  How salty is your relationship with your children?  Your coworkers?  The people you meet while waiting in line?  Strangers who need your help?

May you choose the way of Jesus and find yourself continually covered with salt.  May you choose to shake yourself all over the place.  May you have the capacity to see the beauty that results when you do – a more beautiful experience of life for you, and a more lovely life experience for everyone your life touches, too.