Salt of the Earth*

A year or so ago my husband gave me a book about salt. I was a little curious when I opened it (it was a Christmas gift) but I trust his judgment and he was right. It was both interesting and important. It is the sort of book you can read on a long flight, and since I had a few trans-Atlantic flights going on then, that’s exactly what happened. I read about salt as I flew back and forth from Philadephia to Amsterdam.

It was interesting all on its own. And although I had never seriously considered the role of salt in the history of humankind, I began to see its importance emerge from the narrative. This was very well-written history; compelling even. And what’s more, I began to recognize salt I knew! Those salt flats at the southern end of San Francisco Bay for instance. We’ve all flown over them landing at San Francisco International Airport. But those of us who grew up in California have driven past them for decades. When have you flown in there, or driven there? I first drove past them in 1964 en route to Hawaii (on the USS Lurline). Next when we flew back from Hawaii in 1967 and drove south to Monterey. And then over and over en route to San Francisco, but especially when I flew to New York to take conducting lessons when I was 17, and then again, and again, and again as I flew back and forth from Portland Oregon, where I went to college. And then more. So that was exciting. And it turned out I knew other salt flats as well. But the real thrill came for me when I was on the train through Belgium, when I began to think to myself “my, this looks like how the salt flats were described” and then whoa, there they were …..

So this Gospel is great because Jesus is equating being salty with keeping your light shining, and that is exactly correct physiologically speaking. But how else is it correct? Remember, the body is mostly salt and water; if we subtract the water, what’s left is salt. If the water is the electricity that makes the engine run, the salt is the substance on which and from which and within which it runs. Sounds like the soul to me.

Never thought of your soul as salt, huh? Well, take a shot at it. Isaiah says shout out your love of God, don’t think all that posturing with candles and vestments and pretty language is convincing God of your love … God knows better, God sees through you, God knows your salt because God knows you’re salt. Paul says the same thing to the Corinthians; he says “we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit of God.” He means, we have received our salt—our souls—from God. And that is how we are the children of God. And like orphans everywhere, it is up to us to recognize God our Father as our Creator, and to acknowledge that love that made us and makes us and is in us.

God my friends wants to be with you in your saltiness. I think this is a terrific message for gay people. We’re always being accused, usually by other gay people, of being too gay—“oh my gosh you will mess it up for us if you keep being SO GAY.” Well, my friends, God wants us to be gay, and salty to boot. And God wants us to be gay because it is how we lift the boats, it is how our salty souls provide a place for the whole world to relax and see that sexuality is not freakish, it is of God.

That means of course that sin is irrelevant. How many times have you  been told you are a sinner because you  are gay? Well, that is always wrong, wrong, wrong. Sin is how you disconnect yourself from God. Isaiah’s prophecy is all about how to stay connected to God. Love each other, respect each other, help each other; for heaven’s sake (literally), participate in creating the kingdom in your own midst.  Because you my friends, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, you are the salt of the earth.
*5th Sunday after the Epiphany (Isaiah 58:1-9a, (9b-12); Psalm 112:1-9, (10); 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, (13-16); Matthew 5:13-20)

©2011 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.