Jesus said on one occasion, "Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake."
I doubt that many of us are very offensive to other folks because of our religion. Indeed, it is the norm to be a "Christian" in our society today. We have gained the favor of men, but in gaining favor, have we lost our flavor?
That is in our text for the day. Jesus said, "Salt is good but if salt has lost its saltness wherewith will ye season it," or if salt has lost its flavor what good is it?
Jesus was talking to his disciples and he was paying them a high compliment when he called them salt.
An ancient king once asked his three daughters how much they loved him. One daughter said she loved him more than all the gold in the world. One said she loved him more than all the silver in the world. The youngest daughter said she loved him more than salt. The king was not pleased with this answer. But the cook overheard the conversation, so the next day he prepared a good meal for the king, but left out the salt. The food was so insipid that the king couldn't eat it. Then he understood what his daughter meant. He understood the value of salt.
In the ancient world salt was a valuable and scarce commodity. It was used as currency in some countries even into modern times. During an invasion of Ethiopia, in the late 19th century, Italian soldiers found blocks of salt stored in bank vaults along with other familiar forms of currency. Jesus was paying his disciples a compliment when he called them salt.
But then he asked, "What good is salt if it has lost its flavor, if it no longer seasons food?" You don't put salt in food for any other reason except as a preservative. There's no particular food value to salt. Indeed, too much salt is destructive doctors tell us. Of what value is salt if it has lost its flavor.?
Jesus is saying to his followers, both those of 2000 years ago as well as to us, "What good is it to be a follower of mine if there is nothing distinctive about your life? If by following me you make no real contribution to the life of the world, if there is no redemptive power flowing through your life and actions, what's the use of calling yourself my disciples?" Have we gained favor and lost our flavor?
FOR EXAMPLE, IF OUR VALUES ARE NO BETTER THAN OUR NEIGHBOR'S, OF WHAT VALUE IS OUR FAITH? There is more and more a blurring of lifestyles.
Lloyd Ogilvie tells about a good friend, Johnny Grant, a popular television and radio host who is also an outstanding community leader and a committed Christian. Johnny Grant used a oneliner that Ogilvie says is worth remembering. Many of you remember a popular movie of a year or so ago entitled, CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD. Johnny Grant said that the problem today is that too many Christians want to be "children of a looser God." (1) Well put.
As a sign said on a church door recently: "The Ten Commandments are not multiple choice!" But that's our preference. If you think I'm overstating the case, read the verses that precede those concerning our saltness. "If your hand offends you; cut it off. If your eye offends you; pluck it out. It's better go into heaven with one eye and one hand than into hell with both hands intact and both eyes intact."
Jesus did not give us a looser God. Indeed, He taught his disciples that the righteousness to which he called them was a righteousness that exceeded that of the Pharisees.
Winston Churchill once said the flame of Christian ethics is still our highest guide. I wonder if Churchill would say that today? We have gained favor but we have lost our flavor.
One pastor tells about listening to his father tell a story about a neighbor whose barn had burned down. The entire community gathered to help rebuild it. His father and some other men were told to saw the rafters. They first cut a rafter and then traced around it with a pencil and cut another one. They based the third rafter on the second the fourth on the third and so on. What they didn't take into account was the width of the pencil mark. Each rafter was one pencil mark wider than the one before. After a while, this can add up to quite a difference. By lunch time they looked at the barn and discovered it was going up at a very strange angle because they had deviated from the original standard. (2) Do you not sense that our barn is a little askew today, too?
Chuck Swindoll tells about a wife who went to lunch with eleven other women who were taking a French course together since their children were all in school. One rather bold type asked, "How many of you have been faithful throughout your marriage?" Only one lady raised her hand.
That evening one of the ladies related the incident to her husband. When she admitted she was not the one who had raised her hand, her husband looked crestfallen. "But I've been faithful to you," she quickly reassured him. He asked, "Then why didn't you raise your hand?" and she answered. "I was ashamed." (3)
Ashamed of being faithful? Do you see what's happened to us? Do you see how we've deviated from the standard? Do you see how we've accommodated ourselves to the world and lost our flavor? Of what value is our faith if our values are no better than our neighbors?
IN THE SECOND PLACE, OF WHAT VALUE IS OUR FAITH IF OUR CAPACITY FOR LOVE IS NO GREATER THAN OUR NEIGHBOR'S?
I read somewhere that a new Guiness Record had been set for the shortest sermon. One Episcopal priest stood up one Sunday morning, walked to his pulpit, stood there for a moment, said one word, LOVE, and then sat down. I know, some of you would like for me to attempt a sermon like that some day. But he did say what is at the heart of our faith. The whole purpose of the Christian faith is to reveal to the world the love of God for the world and to invite people to receive that love and to share it with others.
Dr. E.V. Hill is a beloved pastor serving a church in the Watts area of Los Angeles. During the burnings, lootings, and community riotings there in the 1960s Dr. Hill did a very painful thing. He denounced his neighbors who were destroying property and stealing from area merchants.
During the worst part of the rioting, this kind of preaching brought threats to him and his church. However, the worse the rioting became the more he publicly comdemned the rioters.
One night his telephone rang and his wife noticed how serious and solemn he was after the caller hung up.
"What was that all about?" she asked.
"Oh nothing," replied Dr. Hill.
His answer caused his wife to keep pressing him until he told her, "They have threatened to blow up our car with me in it."
Late in the night they discussed how impossible it would be to protect their car from wire bombings 24 hours a day.
Next morning, Dr. Hill went into the kitchen and noted that his wife was not in the house. Neither was his automobile in the carport. He became alarmed; but a few minutes later he saw his car roll into the driveway with his wife at the wheel. She had driven the car around the block to make sure it would be safe for her husband to drive later that morning.
"From that day," said Dr. Hill, "I have never asked my wife if she loves me."(4)
He saw her love in action, and that's what the world needs from us. There is a time honored story about a pastor who was supposedly a great lover of children. One day he looked at the sidewalk leading up to his house that had been freshly poured. Some youngsters were playing in it and leaving footprints in the fresh cement. He rushed out and yelled at the children.
Someone said to him; "Well pastor, we thought you liked children."
He said, "Yes, I love them in the abstract but not in the concrete."
The world is looking for concrete demonstrations of Christian love in action.
John Killinger, in a sermon entitled, THE GREAT IMPORTANCE OF LITTLE DEEDS, concluded by saying, "It's an exciting thought that when we die and come into the presence of God and all its fullness, it will not be our major achievements that speak for us, `He was president of a bank. She was the first woman senator from her state. He was the author of 22 books,' but the small apparently inconsequential things that we long ago forgot. `He mowed my lawn when I was sick. She cared for my child when I went to the market. He sent me flowers when I needed them most. She washed and mended my socks.' These are the little things that hold the world together. They are the small stones that comprise the great cathedrals where God is worshipped. They shall be remembered," says Killinger, "like stars in the crown of the saints." (5)
The world desperately needs to see our love in action. Of what value is our faith if our love isn't stronger: our love for one another and our love for the world? Our love needs to be big enough to take in the whole world.
I never cease thrilling at the heart of Abraham Lincoln. There is a story of two women relatives of General Lou Wallace who came to the White House when Lincoln was president asking about General Wallace. He had been involved in a vicious battle and they wanted to make sure he had survived.
After learning he had survived they spoke rather glibly of their gladness. There had been a casualty in the battle named Wallace but they were thankful that it was not "our Wallace."
Lincoln responded soberly, "Yes, but it was somebody's Wallace, wasn't it?"
Love can be so petty and so selfcentered. If our love is not stronger than the world's love of what value is our Christian faith?
FINALLY, OF WHAT VALUE IS OUR CHRISTIAN FAITH IF THE SALT STAYS IN THE SALT SHAKER?
Here we are in the salt shaker this morning. All of us here to worship God, and that's wonderful, but unless we take the gospel to the world outside of what value is it?
Salt does not exist for its own good. Salt exists to season.
This is an exciting time to be a follower of Jesus Christ. It's an exciting time to reach out to the world.
According to Arthur Westing, an ecologist and natural scientist, about 50 billion people have walked the earth since the beginning of time. The present population is 4.4 billion and growing very, very fast. This means that 9 percent of everyone who has ever lived is alive right now. What an opportunity to be salt, to be leaven, to be light.
You notice how each of those are penetrators. Salt penetrates the meat, leaven penetrates the loaf, light penetrates the darkness. We are called to penetrate the world in which we are set. If we do not, of what value are we?
Frank Sosienski was a postman in Louisville, Kentucky, who didn't want to deliver some of his mail. Over a six year period he stashed away 15 tons of it in 1200 bags in the attic. When the mail was finally discovered, Sosienski was charged with delaying mail intended for delivery. A mailcarrier's job is to see that the mail gets through. What good is a mailman who doesn't deliver the mail? What good is salt if it doesn't season? What good is a Christian who keeps his Christianity within the safe confines of these walls?
Most of us remind me of Rudyard Kipling's famous poem MULHALLEN'S VOW. Mulhallen had a job handling cattle on a large ship. One night out at sea a storm broke out and knocked the ship around so fiercely that the steers broke loose and began stampeding all over the ship's deck. Fearing for his life, Mulhallen made a bargain with God that if he would save him from the horns and hooves he would serve God from then on. God kept his part of the bargain and when Mulhallen got safely to land he began to keep his partpledging to serve God by preaching in a land where nobody knew him.
God had other plans and commanded the sailor, "Back you go to the cattle boats to preach my gospel there." Mulhallen's witness was to be to those he knew and who knew him.
That's God's call to most of us: to be salt where we are, with a higher standard FOR living not a higher standard OF living. It's nice if you can afford a high standard of living, but a higher standard for living is much more important. Even better is a high standard for loving. Then we will not have to worry that the salt will never get out of the shaker.
1 Lloyd Olgivie, 12 STEPS TO LIVING WITHOUT FEAR (Waco: Word Books, 1987).
2 Jay Kesler, FAMILY FORUM (Wheaton: Victor Press, 1984).
3 COME BEFORE WINTER
4 Wade T. Burton, Coronaca, S.C.
5 FUNDAMENTALS OF PREACHING (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985).