Scott Freeman

Salt

Jesus said “you are the salt of the earth.” (Matthew 5:13)

In the ancient world salt was a valuable commodity. Fortunes were made on this precious substance. It was integral in bartering for the finer things in life.

If you had access to salt then you were somebody.

So much of Matthew has to do with the concepts of honor and shame.

The listing of the beatitudes can be rightly read as “honor is given to the poor, the meek, the peacemakers, etc.” These are precisely the people who were shamed and marginalized in the first century Roman world. Jesus had a habit of inverting the social order of the day.

When Jesus follows the beatitudes up with “you are the salt of the earth” I must imagine that the same concept of honor and shame applies. The forgotten did not have ready access to an abundance of salt. Salt was often used as an equivalence for money.

And so the idea that His followers were the salt of the earth had implications beyond just seasoning, preservation and tasting good. It also embodied bringing good to those the empire had forgotten. It was being the active and ever-present Shalom in and among the marginalized. And the emphatic “the earth” implies that, somehow, that could be enough. If the followers of Jesus truly were in the providing business, if they brought the economic well-being and security to the least of these then the world could be changed.

What would the equivalent be for us today?

You are the gas of the earth?

You are the rice of the earth?

The same concept applies. Hording, worrying only about our economic well-being in times of (potential) crisis misses the call of the Christ: to bring honor to the shamed, hope to the hopeless and light in a darkened world.