Tastes salty

Mark 9:42-50

          My husband says that some of my best reflections are ones in which I bring in real life stories. When I make it personal and 'real' I succeed in bringing my message across. Every writer, every preacher succeeds only to the extent that they can transport the reader or listener into the scene they are creating.  Imagery is often employed but most often you have to use material the people are already  familiar with. Jesus used parables using references the people of the day could understand, fishing, bread, dirt, disease, death.

           One of the images in today's passage is salt. Salt was probably one of the first preservatives and a flavour enhancer.  To this day, while we have an array of preservatives used in our foods, it is salt that is added as a final touch. "Salt to taste", the last step in any recipe. Salt is the essence of who we are, a stabilizer of life. The beginnings of life as we know it here on earth started in a 'normal saline' (salty) stew of sorts.  So salt is an intimate part of our lives and if you don't have salt, things are bland at best, worthless, tasteless and without any pizazz.

             Our lives and faith are like that too. What is the salt of our life? What makes us tick? What makes each one of us in our own unique way, salty, maybe even peppery so to speak? It is our life goal to find our own salt. The challenge I have placed before us in Lent as believers in Jesus Christ is to find how we relate to everyone and find ourselves fulfilled (saltiness) as humans. The challenge is not so much in how we express our faith, I presume we are faithful people. The challenge is to find out how we are salty by ourselves, in how God created us in our own unique and special way as a human. Everyone is different. Our faith hopefully encourages us to find our answers and helps give ritual thanks for the gifts we know we have and have been graced with. Religion, our faith, should always cooperate with our own personal journey while enriching everyone as a community.  We say thank you and we enrich everyone by our presence, our own saltiness.

               If we don't find our own unique brand of saltiness and offer that freely to the community to which we belong, life will just be a bland and tasteless journey. We need to seriously season our lives with the saltiness that is each and every one of us. 

           

‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell.^, And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.

‘For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.’