Epiphany 5

In Europe, salt lamps are popular art pieces for the home. The lamp is a bowl filled with rock salt from mines in Poland and the Punjab area of Pakistan. Underneath is a candle or bulb. Health gurus claim that these lamps have significant health benefits due to the release of negative ions when the flame heats the salt.

Not only does the salt increase the intensity of the heat, as all salt will, but salt also has “hygroscopic” properties. That means the salt attracts water molecules from the environment around it. The idea is that any pollutants or contaminants in the air will bind to the salt, creating a cleaner, purified atmosphere. Health benefits of salt lamps are said to include clearing of allergies, easier breathing, easing of asthma, increased energy levels, and improved mood.

Whether or not this is all true, salt has been used for thousands of years (since about 6,000 BC) for seasoning, healing, preserving, and cooking.

You all know that salt makes ice turn to water, not because it makes it hotter, but because it breaks down the molecules and turns the ice to water. It’s still just as cold, but it lowers the freezing point. In the same way, adding salt to hot water makes the water hotter even though it hasn’t reached the boiling point. We add salt to vaporizers to induce better steam, for example.

In the same way, salt, when added to other substances, will make that substance burn better and more vigorously. For this reason, folks in the first century and before used salt not only in purification, healing, and religious rituals, but they also used it for cooking.

The Jewish people cooked their food in Jesus’ day in roundish clay ovens.  In order to bake or cook their food, the women would need a portion of salt. Not the kind of salt we use today, but the kind evaporated from the Dead Sea. This kind of crude rock salt was created by dumping water from the Dead Sea into large pits and then allowing it to evaporate. The result was a kind of rock salt, filled not just with sodium chloride, but with many other kinds of minerals and metals from the seawater.

For cooking purposes, the salt was packed into cakes and mixed with animal dung to form briquettes. These dung briquettes were lighted in order to cook food and bake bread. Or you could layer a solid salt slab with the dung layer. That would work too.

Why salt? Because salt is a catalyst. Salt makes the fire hotter. Salt makes the fire burn longer and more evenly. In fact, many people still put salt into the wax of candles to make them burn brighter and last longer.

But here’s the thing. Once the salt was used for a period of time, it would break down. The minerals would be depleted, and the salt would lose its catalytic ability. It would then be tossed out to be trampled. It had lost its “saltiness,” the mineral content needed to stoke the fire.

Once salt lost its ability to purify, preserve, cook, or taste, it had no more value.

In our culture, cars lose value the moment you buy them. After a year or two, the value has already dropped thousands of dollars. That’s called “depreciation.” Cars are not an appreciating asset, but a depreciating asset.

In a sense, salt was like that in the first century. Salt was hugely valued. In fact, Roman soldiers often were paid in a “salarium” –a salt ration (hence our word “salary”). It was a highly desirable commodity. And it was a strange mineral. When entirely dry, it could be immovable as stone. When wet, it could dissolve completely in water. It had mysterious properties. It was used to heal as well as to heat and create fire. And salt was the object of superstition as well as a highly important metaphor in the Hebrew scriptures.

Salt was a symbol of purity for the Jewish people, so much so that a bit of salt was needed for each sacrifice, perhaps because it would make the fire flame up, similar to the way God’s Spirit seared Elijah’s offering. Salt was also the “nature” of God’s covenant with humanity (Numbers 18:19).

To have “salt” in the covenant meant purity, loyalty, durability, fidelity, allegiance, faithfulness, trust, healing, but most of all, to have integrity in one’s relationship with God – all descriptors for the way salt is used. You had salt on the altar because one had salt in the covenant.

We see salt added to incense in the Temple and to sacrifices. In fact, the rabbis were not allowed to eat it. But it was used in purification and fire, for lighting and for a reminder of the covenant, for the baking of ritual meals. And to remind people of the covenant – using one of the most prominent metaphors for God in scripture – the smoke-pot or furnace/oven.

Why does Jesus mention salt and light in the very same teaching? Because for Jesus, they are intrinsically connected. Salt fuels light. The covenant with God, faith, and the visible signs of God within you that others can see, are necessarily bound. Salt and light are twinned concepts.

We are not only called to be faithful. Our faith must be lived out in ways that reveal God’s light! To engage in relationship with God, to be faithful and true, means we have “salt” within us. And that “salt” fuels our ability to shine God’s light far into the world, so that others can see God’s divine presence within us. Salt is a catalyst. We are to be “catalysts” for change in the world. This Jesus says, is part of what it means to be a disciple, what it means to have “salt” in our covenant with God. It is the salt that fuels the light.

Salt for the Jewish people and for Jesus in today’s Gospel didn’t just mean to be a “spicy” disciple – full of seasoning and spunk. It didn’t just mean to be faithful and kind and loving. It also meant you were to be a catalyst for others. Your life would need to shine, because the “saltiness” within you can’t help but to shine God’s light with an uncanny brightness into the world and into other peoples’ lives. The light is the sign that your life is burning bright with a covenant catalyzed with “salt.”

This is so important, because of what this means for us as disciples of Jesus. Being a disciple is not only about YOU. It’s about other people too. It’s about how your life impacts the world, and not just the good parts of the world, but the not-so-good parts of the world as well.

Jesus tells us in Matthew’s gospel, YOU are the light of the world. Did you hear that? It’s not just Jesus who is the light of the world. You are! When you build God’s “altar” of fire and light on a hill where you can be seen by everyone around you, that light cannot be hidden. When you put that light on a stand, it lights everyone in your household – in the “house” of God.

YOU are the light of God on fire for the world. And don’t forget the salt. For the salt within you will make it burn brighter and brighter.