When Salt is Not Sodium Chloride

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus/Yeshua says to us, You are the salt of the earth...

Obviously he did not mean that literally. So as is said of late, let's unpack salt, open it up, consider it.

I ask my students to tell me what salt is. The usual answers include: a preservative, a seasoning, a mineral. 

I add that it also enhances flavor, it's used in sweet and savory foods to bring out the flavor. And that back 2,000 years ago it was precious. Roman soldiers were partially paid in sa!t. It was scarce and valuable.

Jesus called his followers salt. So let's add all we know about salt and apply to us, his followers.

We are to enhance everyone and every situation, be lifters. We are precious in God's Eyes, one of a kind masterpieces, and need to live as such and realize the truth of this for each and every person. We are valuable just as we are and as we strive to be, for we are all in process. We are to preserve the brilliant teachings and understandings presented to us without biases and distortions. We are to season our lives with Love, unconditional Love. We are to remember that our bodies are made of earth minerals and belong to earth, while our souls are of Spirit and belong to eternity.

Salt in this brief statement is more than salt. One question comes to mind, if Jesus is issuing the challenge to be full fledged salt, are we ready to accept His challenge and step up and be all that and more?

Jesus Spoke to Me

As  I shared, I've been teaching the Sermon on the Mount from the point of view of it being Jesus' guidance to us for how he expects us to act to be his disciple.

This morning, during my prayer time I heard something new. A voice said:

It is more. I've thrown down the gauntlet. You say you want to follow me and be part of my kingdom. I challenge you to live what you call the Sermon on the Mount. I issue this challenge to you. Will you do it? I tell you, it is oh so simple, and yet it is not easy. Because of this, few have taken up the challenge I fling across all ages to all people. Few hear. Fewer still listen. A tiny fraction try, and less succeed. Yet this is an exceptionally crucial time. Listen with your deepest self and follow me.

 I was shaking. Had I heard right?  Jesus was challenging not only me but everyone who said they wanted to be his discipline, and maybe also those who never thought about following him.

Will we listen and act as asked?

The Shelter Is My Teacher

For six weeks now, I've been leading a Bible Study at the emergency homeless shelter. We've been going through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' teaching on how we should live as his followers. I didn't know what to expect when I told the director I would do it. 

What I have found are dear people, who, because of various life situations, have hit bottom. They are at first sort of shell-shocked. Then they are grateful for the faith-based group that is helping them. They find jobs sooner or later or leave the program because they aren't trying. Some come back weeks later, tired of living in their cars or on park benches, ready to try again.

They come open and wounded. They tell their stories. We apply the ideas in the Sermon on the Mount to their lives. And things happen. They start to heal. They begin to move forward.  They inspire me. And I know God has led me to this place and these people. It is a God thing for sure.

Second Birth

The union of the soul with God is its second birth.

Spinoza, 1632-1677 CE, father of modern philosophy

At my meditation workshop Saturday, I gave the choice of several quotes and scriptures to learn and practice Lectio Divina, Divine Reading.

The focus of Lectio Divina is not a theological analysis of biblical passages but viewing them with Christ as the key to their meaning. For example, given Jesus' statement in John 14:27: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you", an analytical approach would focus on the reason for the statement during the Last Supper, the biblical context, etc. In Lectio Divina, however, the practitioner "enters" and shares the peace of Christ rather than "dissecting" it. In some Christian teachings, this form of meditative prayer is understood as leading to an increased knowledge of Christ.

I selected the above quote from Spinoza for me to contemplate that day. I want to share with you some of the thoughts that came to me while contemplating it.

In those moments of conscious union with God, I am made new, lifted, restored, yet I am me. I see a rose. It is a rose, but it is made new. It speaks to me of its beauty, and I know it in a new way.. I see a rock, it speaks to me of its strength and endurance, and the rock, being still a rock, makes itself known to me in a new way. My second birth changes me, yet I am who I have always been. I remember more of who I have always been, of who you have always been. The second birth opens new sight, new hearing, new understanding, new questions and on and on. It is a shift, a paradigm shift or two, and an epiphany and things beyond words. I cannot pour its full meaning into words. I can only hint and point. And by the way, it happens many times, each with its new gift of meaning and deepening and union.

Trust me, there is more than we have so far even imagined. May God stir that second birth in you.

What Do They Have to Do With One Another?

 Matthew 5:3

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

 Philippians 2:3-4 (New International Version)

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

I was preparing my weekly Bible lesson for a homeless shelter. We're on the Sermon on the Mount, and the verse from Matthew above is one we will be discussing this week. Then the one in Philippians popped up for me in my reading. I saw them together.

Salt is what enhances other things. It's added in small amounts to most foods to enhance other flavors, in everything from soups to cakes. So Jesus is asking us to enhance whatever or whoever comes to us. Encourage, lift, comfort others and don't try to be the big deal, the main thing. Quietly, without ego, go about softly enhancing. Be like the salt.

Then Paul tells us something similar. Don't do anything from ego. Be humble. Don't put yourself above others. 

Let's consider the importance of being salt and discover the sweet ways we can enhance all those who come in our lives.

The Gospel of Phillip

The Gospel of Phillip is one of the Gospels found in the 1945 discovery at Nag Hammadi. The quote below was fascinating to me.

 Light and darkness, life and death, and right and left are siblings of one another, and inseparable. For this reason the good are not good, the bad are not bad, life is not life, death is not death. Each will dissolve into its original nature, but what is superior to the world cannot be dissolved, for it is eternal.

The first thing I thought of was the yin yang symbol that was introduced to me by my sociology professor back in 1960. It was thought- provoking to me, a newbie at the time to such things. The idea that in all darkness is a little light and in all light there is some darkness sparked a cavalcade of thought.Nothing is purely anything. Life is not cut and dried, either this or that, but some of each. The goal, of course, is to keep as little darkness in one's light as possible and to shine as much light in the darkness as possible.

The writer of the Gospel of Phillip expressed that idea with the concept of siblings that are inseparable. The way he put it makes so much sense to me.  But there is that which is superior, that which is eternal, and It does not dissolve into Itself, for it is Divine. 

I hope you contemplate this little quote and allow your own cavalcade of though to flow.

All for God

 After having given myself wholly to God, to make all the satisfaction I could for my sins, I renounced, for the love of Him, everything that was not He, and I began to live as if there was none but He and I in the world. – Letter 1 -  Brother Lawrence

Brother Lawrence always inspires me via his words. This little quote reminded me of the process of our spiritual awakening. First we start out - it's all about me; then it's mostly about me and a little about God; then it's about me and about God; then it's more about God than about me; and finally, it's all about God.

Imagine living life from the vantage point that this life is all about God, and definitely not about my ego. Imagine eliminating everything, every thought, word and deed, that is unGod-like. Imagine living with agape/unconditional love as the constant goal. 

Brother Lawrence practiced the Presence of God all day, everyday - while doing dishes, while weeding the garden, while walking, while participating in life in little ways and bigger ways. He became an enlightened person, sought out by others for his divine understanding and deep connectedness to God.

In the turmoil of life, it is still possible to keep our minds attuned to God, to hear Guidance, to serve others without expectation of return, to give unconditional love and encouragement, to live aware that everything is done in the Presence of God. 

May God bless you as you journey to ever more awareness of The Presence. May your day be blessed, your mind and heart lifted, and your burdens lifted.