Uniquely Salty

"You are the salt of the earth." Matthew 5:13

I've been using a book of meditations recently* and came across one about salt. We are probably

well used to thinking about mission in terms of being salt and light to the world, but this particular meditation made me think about what being salt means more deeply.

What do you think of when you hear the phrase 'You are salt'?

I usually think of the traditional uses for salt - preserving & flavouring, and apply them to mission by looking for ways to add to or enhance what God is already doing. Or by thinking about ways I can preserve the Gospel in the mission context I'm in. If I'm really honest I usually think that being salt = being an evangelist. Apparently however, less than 5% of the world's salt production is used in flavouring and, most astoundingly, there are an estimated 14,000 uses for salt.

14,000! I don't think I could think of 14! This book listed a few other uses for salt, such as being used in solution to administer medicines, as an antiseptic, as a water softener, making soap and glass, making paper whiter, melting ice from roads, and a host of other historical and cultural uses, including being used as a symbol of honor, hospitality, friendship and purity.

All this got me thinking about how individual we are. Jesus says "You are the salt of the earth", and I don't think He was trying to make us conform into one of a very few ways of expressing that, or trying to make us feel guilty that we're not 'being salt' in the traditional ways we might think of or feel a pressure to be.

Knowing that there are so many uses for salt releases us from having to conform or be like anyone else in the ways we express our 'saltiness'. We are each free to express and live our calling uniquely, in the ways that God creates us to be. We may function in one or more of the Ephesians 4 roles of pastor, teacher, apostle, evangelist and prophet, but we are completely free to express those in a vast multitude of ways.

Salt has many distinct purposes and effects. Likewise the ways God has so uniquely created, equipped, called and em-passioned us are beyond counting. Jesus says we already ARE salt - there's no point in trying to be salt, we already are this way; the question is simply one of HOW.

"Salt does not exist for itself. Its purpose is to penetrate and affect that with which it comes in contact." *

So...

• How are you made to be salt? How are you affecting that with which you come into contact? In whatever way?

• How are the people in your Missional Community being freed to be salt in their own unique ways? Are you releasing and acknowledging all the multitude of ways in which this can happen?

• How is your Missional Community as a whole being salt to your chosen mission context? What are the unique things your community can do and be to the people around you, as distinct or complimentary to other MCs?

* "Named by God - 50 Meditations. Discovering the power of God's names for you." Mary Foxwell Loeks