Matthew 5:13
“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men."
One of the great literature and movie characters created by JRR Tolkien, along with many others, is the character Gollum. I believe he was masterfully portrayed by Andy Serkis in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings and Hobbit franchises. One of the lines that Serkis delivers as Gollum is "Is it tasty? Is it scrumptious?" I enjoy the phrasing of it and the way the line lands with its timing. It stands out in the scene. After another recent re-watch of the movies (all of them) this line stood out to me. It stood out not as much in the movie (even though I do think it's great) but as an odd question to ask about my conduct, whether my conduct reveals Jesus to others. I know, you think I've lost what little was left of my mind. Allow me to explain.
Breaking down the Beatitude, we have been looking at the Sermon on the Mount and discussing what it is to be citizens of Jesus' kingdom and what it is to be blessed. The Beatitudes reveal our conduct that results in blessings. Now Jesus moves on in His discourse to address a couple of issues that illustrate the importance of righteous acts or as I say, living right in His sight. This is the conduct that is exemplary of a citizen of a Kingdom where the citizen is also the co-heir with the King and His ambassador.
The first descriptor Jesus uses is "salt" as quoted in the passage above. Now, you hear a lot of different things about this passage and some of it is helpful, others not so much and kind of weird. I don' think there is a great mystery in this passage. Salt is something that is common enough for everyone to be familiar with it but useful and in some instances valuable enough to always be appreciated. In our world today, in most places, it isn't as monetarily valuable as it has been in the past when it could have been as valuable as gold. Today, we use it for everything from a flavor enhancer to medicinal and industrial uses. One of its uses that has been of great importance since antiquity is as a preservative. Before refrigeration, one of the primary ways to keep food from spoiling was with salt.
In certain regions of the world it is difficult to get pure salt. From the method in which it is obtained other materials are in it and the salt isn't as "salty" as it would be from a more pure source and the impurities over time make the salt so "un-salty" that it becomes essentially useless, no more valuable than dirt. Jesus is using this to describe the importance of the conduct of His followers. Through our conduct (or what we call in "church speak" our testimony, which takes into account our actions and our speech) people either see in us tremendous value and usefulness or someone to be ignored as inconsequential.
When we ignore the instructions that Jesus gives about how we are to live our lives and pursue our own desires, those are the impurities that weaken our testimony. People see little difference in us than other people around them and have no desire to inquire into what makes us different in a good way. There is in an old adage that says, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink." Well, you can make anyone thirsty if you give them salt, right? So the question is: are Christians living their lives in such a way that people are craving the "living water" which Christ affords? Jesus said in John 4:10, talking to a woman next to a well, "“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
So, are we living a life that makes us tasty and scrumptious to people who desperately need the Savior, or are we living a life so filled with impurities we would only leave them feeling like they had a mouth full of dirt?