Americans
like salt. The Centers for Disease Control claims 2,300 milligrams as the
absolute top-end of a healthy daily dose; the average American gobbles down
3,436. For those keeping score at home, that's roughly half again as much. We
also like light; after all - despite what Fox News says - we get way more sun
than, say, Germany.
But
is that the kind of salt and light Jesus demands his church to be?
The
Cure de Torcy, the wise old pastor in George Bernanos' Diary of a Country Priest, tells a young protege, "Our
Heavenly Father said mankind was the salt of the earth, son, not the honey. . .
.Salt stings on an open wound, but saves you from gangrene."
And
then there's light. Lady Jane Wilde, mother of the famous Oscar Wilde, liked to
give dinner parties but hated housework, couldn't afford a maid, and disliked
showing her age. Her solution: draw the curtains at 3 PM, muffle the gas jets
in crimson shades, and keep the candles few and far between. Light reveals, and
sometimes we're more comfortable hiding the dirt than dealing with it.
Salt
actually can't cease being salty, any more than one can hide a hilltop
metropolis - and that's just the point. Our Lord himself becomes the fulfillment
of his own mandate: the hill from which he hangs exposed is a place of
execution, and the salt from his sweat stings his own open wounds. Yet two
thousand years later that sight still heals and illuminates the sickness and
darkness of sin.
That's
what Jesus really means about out-Phariseeing the Pharisees - not just being
righteous for our own good, but suffering unrighteousness for the good of
others. Being salty and bright won't make the church popular, but it will allow
her to offer salvation to a dark and tasteless world.
Please Pass the Salt,
Doug
