SALTSHAKERS

Somewhere in one of our cupboards we have a saltshaker just in case any guest would like to sprinkle some salt on the entrée being served. The only time I use it is when I may be baking some cookies and the recipe calls for it and usually no more than a quarter of a teaspoon: so little and yet so powerful a spice! That is also why we don’t have potato chips around: we would open the bag only once. All that is on the mundane level.

On the theological level we are all saltshakers: we are the salt and we are the shaker of the salt as in “You are the salt of the earth,” says Jesus in Matthew 5:13. It’s our job if you will, to bring life to everyone and everything around us. And it doesn’t take much, usually just a pinch of salt here or a dash there is all that is needed.

Sometimes I think we think that being a Christian, bringing Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness is a daunting and difficult task. And at times it may seem like it, especially in this world in which we are now living. But I suspect every generation has thought the same. Sin and selfishness have been there from the beginning, as the parable of The Garden of Eden so pointedly teaches.

We are not called, you and I, to change the world. Jesus wasn’t either. All we are called to do is effect a change in the world around us as best we can. We do that by salting that world with our living example of what it means to be a Christian. That is what Jesus did. By his life he showed those around him what life is to be about, what real life truly is. He was met with opposition and, yes, got killed in the process. That is always a possibility, make no mistake about that.

The reality is that there will be opposition. There always is. No one, including you and I, likes to be reminded that what we are saying or doing is sinful and selfish. When that is the message that we/they are hearing, the tendency is to lash out and find fault with the messenger. The salt, if you will, is just a little too much to take at the moment. And yet, if we/they allow ourselves to be honest with ourselves, we will sooner or later, hopefully sooner, admit that what we needed was that pinch of salt. It conveyed the message and that was all that was needed a that time.

No change happens overnight. Any and all change take time and it all begins very slowly and almost imperceptibly: one person at a time, one moment at a time, one day at a time: in us, in others, in the world. It is frustrating and often infuriating, both when we see needed changes in others, and even more, in ourselves.

The impetus for that change is the salt that we have shaken on others and the salt others have shaken on us simply by the example that has been given by the life of the saltshaker. We are indeed the salt and the saltshaker of our world today. A pinch here, a dash there is all we can do, is all we need do. Sprinkle some today.