'You are the salt of the earth'

As recorded in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, Jesus declares to his listeners during the Sermon on the Mount: “You are the salt of the earth.” (Matthew Chapters 5-7; 5:13). This is the first adjective Jesus uses for his disciples in the Gospel of Matthew. This is very significant that Jesus would use salt as an epithet for his disciples. In ancient times, salt was a very precious and practically useful matter for all human beings in day-to-day life.
The English word ‘salary’ comes from the Latin word 'salarium', which means salary. During long-time wars among or between nations in Europe in ancient times, the soldiers were paid a salary in terms of salt. This was because they had to preserve their meat or some other food items for a long time, for which purpose they needed to use salt.
The Bible mentions ancient people of Israel were commanded by God through Moses to use salt for all their offerings. Because of its preservative quality, salt was used as a symbol of the sustainability of the good relationship between God and man. We read in the book of Leviticus this command of God to the people: “Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings.” (Leviticus 2:13).
Jesus called them 'salt'. It should be noticed that he did not tell them ‘you should be like salt’ or ‘you are like salt’. For him, the disciples are the salt of the earth. What does salt do? Salt has several qualities. Firstly, salt is a preservative and antibiotic. Jesus means that those who follow him are to work to fight corruption and moral decay in society. They are to sustain the originality of the goodness in Man. The followers of Jesus Christ are to have the characteristics of preservation of human values of truthfulness, honesty and integrity; of justice, love, compassion and human dignity. Just as salt is used to stop meat and other food items from rotting, the followers of Jesus are likewise to stand against the erosion of moral and ethical values. Jesus did not use ‘salt’ merely as a metaphor for those who would follow him as their model.
In olden days, when they had no deep freezes or any refrigerators, people used salt to preserve valuable food items. We still today do the same.
The preservative function of salt is to be found in one of the most widely known examples: after Eid-ul-Adha, millions of tonnes of cattle hides are salted to stop them from getting rotten for some days.
Salt makes our food tasty! Christ’s followers are expected to bring positive enrichment of justice, love and peace, human dignity and hope in a society where we often experience greed, pride, hatred, unhealthy competition, jealousy, negativity and hopelessness. We are almost submersed in consumerism and materialism all around us. Jesus’ followers are supposed to be led by the spirit of love and justice.
Salt is used also as an agent of cleaning and purification. Use of salt represents man’s longing for purity and trustworthiness.
We should note that Jesus also warned us against losing the quality of salt’s saltiness. Saint Luke records Jesus’ saying, “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile: it is thrown out.” (Luke 14:34-35). If we actually follow Jesus and obey what he teaches us, we are the salt of the earth. The Beatitudes (found in Matthew 5:3-12) that precede Jesus' particular teaching on ‘salt’ have an obvious connection with it. Our attitude and action in real-life situations in relation to other people, all other creation and with our Creator are all unified as our code of life. Christ calls us to be salt in all our lives, in all our relationships. Indeed, it is a great challenge for us all to live that kind of life.
We live in a world that needs transformation from its moral darkness and dissolution. We can face the challenge and transform our world with God’s help. Let this be our watchword and our creed. Jesus gave his challenge to some very ordinary people. This is amazingly unique. We can perhaps conclude this piece with this quote from E. Stanley Jones, one reputed Christian thinker: “The sheer daring of telling a group of ex-fishermen on a hillside in a remote corner of the world that they were to become the one hope of the world! That they would save from moral dissolution and from moral darkness! It is breathtaking!” If we wish to change the world, we need first to change ourselves! 

The writer is a Christian Theology teacher and Church leader