ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
August 7, 2026
There are these gluten-free crackers that I can eat, and I really do like them. The other day, I bought my usual, which is sea salt. Sometimes I wonder whether the cracker is really just the delivery device for the salt. Boy was I disappointed to find out that there was absolutely no salt on those crackers. One after another, and I had to try a lot of them, left my taste buds saddened by the lack of sodium chloride. In Matthew 5:13, Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot.” Whether salt has lost its taste or it was forgotten altogether, we recognize very quickly that something is missing. Salt, in the days of Jesus, was a necessary commodity, but it did not exist for itself. It helped to give life to what was life-giving. Without it, meat and fish would rot much more quickly. Salt allowed that for which the body hungered to actually last long enough to be what the body actually needed. So much of what Jesus gave to this world came in the form of story, yet story without someone to tell or embody it is nothing… especially in the ancient world when 90-95% of the people could not read. If you were called to be the salt of the earth, one of the ways of thinking about it might be that you are the necessary ingredient in making sure the sustenance for which the world hungers can actually get to the people who need it. Just a thought…
When thinking about that which is life and hope and joy, I pray I can be one of the tools you utilize, O God of Life-giving Love, to animate and put on display that for which so many yearn. Amen.
