Sermon: Salted for Fire

Lectionary Year B, Proper 21 (Gospel Reading: Mark 9:38-50)

Sermon texts

Mark 9:49-50

For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.

Matthew 5:13

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

Luke 14:34-35a

Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away.

Introduction

Today’s reading is the second half of what began in last week’s. There, it was discovered that while traveling with Jesus, the disciples were arguing amongst themselves who was greatest. In response and rebuke, Jesus told them that those who seek to be first must be last and a servant. And then as an illustration, Jesus took a child and taught them that in serving those that society overlooks and views as unimportant that they are, in fact, welcoming Jesus himself. This sets up today’s passage.

The gospel reading for today covers quite a bit of ground as well. It began with what to do and not do when someone outside of my group is doing gospel work. And then it talked about stumbling blocks and little ones. Keying off the phrase “stumbling block” it then went on to suggest that if something was causing me to stumble, it would be better to amputate those body parts than to be lost for eternity. And then the keyword “fire” transitioned to a discussion of salt.

It is these last two verses about salt that I want to direct our attention for the rest of this time.

Salt Contexts

Present Day

When we hear “salt” we probably immediately think of the culinary uses of salt. Salt is an important component of much of our cooking and eating. It seasons foods and it enhances flavors. It is used in preservation of foods. A certain amount is necessary for life, but too much can be harmful.

There is a more technical definition of salt that is used in chemistry, but unless your work or interest requires it, that is a definition that rarely crosses most of our minds. For most of us, salt is intimately connected with food.

Thus when we read about salt in the Bible, we assume a culinary interpretation and use by those texts.

Ancient Near East

However, that may not be how the original audience heard these texts. Here is Mark 9:49-50 again:

For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.

This is a rather puzzling text, particularly if we assume our present-day understanding and culinary assumptions about salt. Most historical interpretations have assumed these two verses contain three separate proverbs whose commonalities is tied through the word “salt.”

But in recent decades, cultural and historical research has shown another possible interpretation that brings coherence and better understanding to this puzzling text.

The first clue has to do with the kind of climate of the Ancient Near East and present-day Middle East. It is mostly arid – a desert. Water is scarce. People and tribes have fought over water rights. What do we know about culinary salt? It induces thirst. Historically, the people of these lands have not used much culinary salt to season their foods, but rather, relied on herbs and spices to season their foods.

The second clue has to do with the parallel passage found in Matthew 5:13, part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus taught:

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

The clue is found in the word “earth” which can also be translated “earth-oven.” Once again, because of the scarcity of water and soil nutrients, trees are uncommon. Grass and shrubs are far more common. But these kinds of vegetation don’t provide much in the way of fueling the fires of an oven.

 

So what did these desert populations do? They found that grazing animals naturally concentrates these plant fibers. It was the task of the women and children to gather these animal dung and form them into fuel. But dung by itself doesn’t burn well or evenly. Enter salt. Now this isn’t pure, refined table salt that we probably imagine, but crude salt consisting of various minerals salts and impurities. When the dung is mixed with this salt, the salt acts as a catalyst to help the dung patties burn evenly and hotter.

The third parallel passage in Luke 14 reads:

Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away…

The English word translated here “soil” is the same word as “earth” in Matthew, and by extension can also be read as “earth-oven.” In other words, the Lucan text strongly suggests that the use of salt found in all three parallel passages is indeed with the oven and its associated fuel, manure.

Slabs of the mineral-rich salt blocks were used to line the floor of the oven also. The manure patties would be placed upon them, adding more catalyst to aid in the burning process. But eventually the catalyst would be used up – i.e., the “saltiness” would be lost – and it would no longer be useful. At that point it would be removed and used to “pave” the road. Hence Matthew’s observation that it is “thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”

Re-reading Mark

In light of what you just heard, the Marcan text for today could be read like this:

For everyone will be salted for fire. (Unlike in Matthew, in Mark’s text we aren’t the salt. We’re the manure.)

Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it?

Have salt in yourselves (once more, we’re not the salt; we’re the manure and it seems we are being asked to do the dirty job of putting together the fuel), and be at peace with one another (so something about salt has the potential to be at odds with peace).

Lessons

Other than an interesting and new way of reading and understanding these gospel “salt” texts, why does it matter how we read it?

Empathy

We all read and listen through lenses of our own culture, history, and experience. Our default is to read the Bible that way. We read other books that way. We listen to other people’s story that way. We read and listen to news in that way. But as was demonstrated today, our assumptions can be quite off-track. In the case of the gospel salt passages, not much harm comes from assuming a culinary basis, and wonderful spiritual applications have been drawn from culinary saltiness. But what about other things that we see and hear?

One lesson is that it might do us good to check our assumptions and take the time to pause and try to understand what we see and hear from the perspective, history, and experiences of those that are most immediately impacted. This is otherwise known as empathy. We just might discover and learn a whole different world from what we’ve known, and one that is equally as valid as the ones we’ve grown up in.

We’re Not the Center of Attention

In the Sermon on the Mount, we were the salt. But in Mark’s text (and arguably, the more original reading), we are simply the manure into which salt is added.

Mark suggests that the Christian community doesn’t have anything inherently within itself that makes it different or special from any other human group. What makes the church different, special, and useful to the world is that it has a message of hope and a conviction of that hope. That conviction of hope is the salt, the catalyst, to spread the fire of the gospel to the rest of the earth – or the earth-oven, if you like.

It’s not about us. It’s about Christ.

Danger of Over-Zealousness

However, Mark also warns about a potential danger where conviction might turn into something harmful. Fire is useful when controlled, but when it gets too hot and out of control, it becomes dangerous. This section of Mark chapter 9 dealt with two of these dangers.

The first danger was found at the beginning of this section where the disciples were arguing about who was greatest. Self-aggrandizement can be a danger of uncontrolled conviction. The concepts of hope and faith can be turned into weapons against other people. A person can be so convinced of their version of faith and hope that they begin to see themselves as better than those who appear to have less.

A second danger was found at the beginning of today’s reading where the disciples sought to squelch someone outside of their group from assisting Jesus’ work. We might call this group self-aggrandizement. A group begins to believe so much in their interpretations and methods that they begin to see other groups as hostile and as enemies. We can become so convinced that our particular version of the communication of hope is the only right one. Our focus is no longer on Christ but on ourselves. What began as conviction becomes a weapon to protect the group and its methods. 

Conclusion

What Mark is teaching in this text is that Christians must have conviction of hope in Christ. This conviction has tremendous power to set people free. Genuine hope fuels more hope. But conviction turned inward toward self becomes a prison that leads to strife and stumbling blocks. And eventually the fire dies.

Mark’s exhortation to us is that we need to be confident in Christ and convinced of the hope found in him. But we also need to remember that our understandings are incomplete and fallible, and that God can work in ways extending beyond any single individual Christian or a single Christian group.

To be the fire is not our calling. Our job is to make sure that there is a steady supply of genuine hope among ourselves so that Christ shines forth. By our small, seemingly insignificants acts of taking care of one another, we sow hope. This is the salt that allows the gospel fire to burn and reach the world.

The question isn’t, “What great thing can I do for God someday?” but rather, “What word of encouragement or act of kindness on my part will make a difference in someone’s life today?”

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References

Salt for the Earthen Oven Revisited
Salt, Light, and Dung... 
Of dung and salt and being a catalyst for the kingdom