Notice the ability of Jesus to illustrate his teaching by using the simplest of terms—sowing seeds, making bread, dealing with family.  Clarity emerges from the use of these everyday and familiar images.  One common element that Jesus uses as a basis for his lesson is salt.  He speaks about salt and its value as a seasoning and he reminds us that we can also be salty.

We know something about salt.  For the people of an earlier age, salt had at least three purposes: it flavored, it preserved, and it purified.  (We might add “melts snow,” particularly in these winter days.)

As a taste, one does not use salt to draw profound attention to itself, but to emphasize the flavor of another food.  To draw out the flavor in popcorn or French fries or steak or cashews.  Too much salt, and the food is ruined, but just the correct amount makes a real difference in taste.  It draws out the best flavor in the food.  We would agree that salt should not principally draw attention to itself, but to the substance that it touches.

As regards the salt that Christians are called to be: it carries out its purpose when it influences others.  This is the Christian attitude: to give of oneself, to give flavor to the lives of others, to give zest to many things with the message of the Gospel.  Salt is something to be used, not to keep for oneself, but to share. Salt is not meant to flavor itself (just as light is not meant to illumine itself).  It directs a person outward to community, to family, to friends and coworkers.

What about you as salt?  Do you enhance the situations with which you are connected?  Do you know people like that (the so-called “salt of the earth”)?  In the Bible, this is the character of Barnabas.  He draws the gifts out of others and enables them to gather attention. I love being around individuals like this.  They find the upside, the humor, the possibility in a difficult situation.  When they are around, there is a joyful and hope-filled atmosphere.  Gospel values and commitments receive their full expression and value.  We need to be those kinds of people.  It is the role of a committed Christian.  We—you—are the “salt of the earth.”

We might find, however, that this attitude wearies us.  It takes a lot of energy to stand up in a difficult context, to turn a group towards the right path.  Sometimes we can lose our ability or desire to make a difference.  That is a sad situation.  We surrender our responsibility to influence for the better.  We become that tasteless salt that only deserves to be cast out, to be ignored, to be trampled underfoot—and that is how it will be.  The Gospel summons us to stand firm in our commitment to being strong and solid persons who live and speak out who we are and what we believe.

Along those same lines, salt carries out the purpose of a preservative.  We are called to preserve that which is best in the human heart and the human condition.  We help preserve virtue in the world and in the society in which we exist.  We do not allow the majority or the current political or social condition to color our thinking or living more than the Gospel.  We cannot surrender.  By our service and candor, we preserve a Christian society despite the effort, resistance and cost.  We keep the needs of others—particularly the poor and the marginalized—at the top of our agenda. In this and parallel ways, we must be the salt of the earth.