“You are the salt of the earth.” – Matthew 5:13a NIV
There is nothing better on a cool Fall evening than to have pork chops and sauerkraut for dinner, especially if the sauerkraut is homemade. Fortunately, homemade sauerkraut is the easiest thing in the world to make. It has just two ingredients: cabbage and salt. Mix 3 tablespoons of pickling salt into 5 pounds of shredded cabbage. Pack into a crock or jars and let it ferment for a couple of weeks or longer. The end result is a deliciously tangy treat that is oh-so-good for you. The secret is the salt.
If you put five pounds of plain shredded cabbage in a crock by itself and let it sit for a couple of weeks, what you would have is five pounds of a putrid mess. But the salt preserves the cabbage and does even more. It allows the fermentation to take place that turns plain cabbage into wonderful kraut.
I don’t know if Jesus had sauerkraut in mind when he said his followers are “the salt of the earth.”But I do know he expects our presence to make a difference in the world. It doesn’t take much salt to transform a whole crock of cabbage. And it doesn’t take many Christians to transform the world – if we will actually be “the salt of the earth.” But if we lose our “saltiness”, our distinctive way of being as followers of Jesus, then we leave the world unchanged and (to continue our analogy) things get rotten.
So, be salt this week, wherever you go. Make the world a better place for your being here.
Pastor Mark