Reading:
Luke 14:34-35; Matthew 5:13; Mark 9:50
34"Salt
is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty
again? 35It
is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown
out. "Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear."
(Luke 14:34-35)
A
couple Sundays ago I was teaching through Luke 14. (Guess
Who’s Coming to Dinner – Are You?)
I presented the end of that chapter as an application for Jesus'
disciples of what the whole chapter had been about. I won't repreach
the whole chapter here, but merely pick up in Luke 14:25-27. In
the context of the whole chapter, I loosely paraphrased those verses
as:
Large
crowds are traveling with Jesus, so he turns to them and asks, “Do
you want to be healed from your dropsy—your greed, self-interest,
love of the praise of men? Or, are you just along for the ride?
Following Jesus Will Cost You
Luke
14 is about Jesus freeing us from our craving for others to think
good of us. He does this by taking hold of our lives and calling us
to His banquet. A banquet of misfits, if you will. But there is a
price to pay in order to be healed of our dropsy! When you
accept Jesus' invitation to His banquet, it may be your last
invitation. It is as if you hate your close family (these are the
ones that were on your own invite list in Luke 14:12) but now that
you associate with “those people” you will often be rejected. But
so was Jesus.
The
cross you bear will be bearing the shame that is often heaped on the
little ones you are now associating with. In
the case of the early church, disciples were often rejected by their
Jewish relatives. In our culture today, to be associated with
Christians is increasingly going to cost us. I've never seen an
episode of Duck Dynasty, and honestly have no idea what it is really
about, but recent events in pop-culture show how one might go from
the top of the dung heap to the bottom when we do not play by the
social rules of the world around us.
After
speaking about the cost of being a disciple, Jesus tells two brief
parables warning us not to start following Him if we aren't going
to finish. In the tower parable (Luke 14:28-29) the point
is: Make sure you finish what you start or you will face
ridicule. In the war parable (Luke 14:30-32) the point
is similar: You better be able to finish or you will be in a
precarious situation.
Both
of these little parables lead to the punch line (Luke 14:33) which I
paraphrase as follows:
If
you are going to start as my disciple, you'd better be willing to say
good-bye to everything you have (respect, esteem, possessions), or
you won't make it.
This
is what precedes the “salt is good...” comment by Jesus in
Luke 14:34-35. These verses are not easy to understand. During my
Christian life I have heard or read a variety of explanations of this
that have remained unsatisfying to me. In the context of Luke 14,
the meaning may be clearer.
Salt and Relationships
First,
in classical Greek to
have eaten a bushel of salt together, meant to
be old friends,
or to
be bound by ties of hospitality.1
Said another way, to
eat salt with one is to partake of his hospitality, to derive
subsistence from him;
and hence he
who did so was bound to look after his host's interests.2
Salt symbolized loyalty
and
friendship.3
“If
the salt loses its saltiness,”
in the context of Luke 14 (with the host of the wedding banquet being
shunned by all his invitees), then could stand as a
warning that when
you follow Jesus and begin to associate with His guests, you will
loose your saltiness
(ties of hospitality) to
your former friends.
You will lose any commitment they had to your well-being.
“It
is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown
out,” means
that those
same friends would have no more use for you.
Therefore, the warning is similar to the previous parables: if
you change your mind later because discipleship is too hard, your old
friends (in
this case the upstanding-rule-following-Jews) aren't
going to suddenly like you again.
They will be concerned for what you might cost them.4
If
this understanding of the salt parable is right, it stands as another
warning to make sure you count the cost. Figuring
out later that you can't finish will leave you not only without the
new community of Christ, you will also have lost your old
self-serving relationships as well.
Then what will you do?
Salt and Being Trampled Underfoot
This
understanding of the parabolic use of salt also fits well in
Matthew's Gospel where similar language is used.
10Blessed
are those who are persecuted
because
of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11"Blessed
are you when people
insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against
you because
of me. 12Rejoice
and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same
way they
persecuted the
prophets who were before you. 13"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.
In
the context of persecution, Jesus says it differently here than in
the context of Luke 14. The last phrase reads, “except to be
thrown out and trampled by underfoot.” Sounds like
persecution to me. It could be read, “You are the salt of the
land/soil. (The
word there can be "earth" or "ground" or "land".)
If Jesus meant ground there rather than how we usually read it
(world/earth), that would change the sense. For more on that, see
footnote 4 above.
Once
again this verse could be referencing how the world will treat us
when we become a follower of Jesus. To them we will lose our
saltiness, the savoriness in our relationship, and they will trample
us underfoot (persecution).
Have Salt Among Yourselves
The Gospel of Mark's use of salt adds an interesting twist.
Salt
is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty
again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace
with each other.
(Mark 9:50)
If
this means the same as I propose in both Luke and Matthew, Jesus
speaks of our losing the saltiness to the world (ties of hospitality,
loyalty in friendship), but then says we are to “have
salt in or among yourselves”.
In following Christ, we will indeed be rejected by many, but we are
“to
be bound by ties of hospitality” to
each other.
We are called to
embrace the other guests at Jesus banquet (the church) as our family
and friends.
Have salt in yourselves (the church) and be at peace with one
another.
Love
the Gospel, Live the Gospel, Advance the Gospel,
Jerry
1New
International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.
2Easton's
Bible Dictionary
3International
Standard Encyclopedia
4As
to how salt was ever fit for the soil or the dung heap vs. unfit for
it, David Garland notes: The text does not say that it is unfit
to be used on food, but unfit for the earth or the dung heap. Malina
claims that Jesus develops the point from the concrete picture of
the outdoor Palestinian earth-oven or kiln, called earth (see Ps
12:6; Job 28:5). Fire in such an earth-oven was produced by burning
dung. To make the dried dung burn, the bottom of the kiln was faced
with plates of salt, and the dung itself was sprinkled with salt.
The salt served as a chemical agent that helped the dung to burn.
However, over time, the heat of the oven would cause the salt plates
to undergo a chemical reaction which made the salt plates impede and
stifle the burning of the dung. It is when the salt crystals
chemically change that they must be thrown out — the salt has lost
its saltiness. [Garland, David E.; Clinton E. Arnold (2012-01-03).
Luke (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament) (Kindle
Locations 15111-15116). Garland references Malina, The New Testament
World, 119.]
