February 5, 2011
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Good seasoning isn’t about what you leave out
My response to the warnings that we were in for a severe winter storm was to go out and buy the ingredients to make up winter storm survival food. I can live without lights, and cable, and even heat, but I don’t do well without food. I figured I would have gas since it was unlikely that anything would interfere with gas supply. I decided on soup and chili as good winter storm food. It was important to have the meat and vegetables to make the soup and chili but it was just as important to have the seasonings to enhance the flavor of the other ingredients. It is the seasoning that moves the meal from just meeting our requirement for daily intake of calories and nutrients to an experience that brings us great enjoyment. I once made spaghetti sauce for a group meal and I must have skimped on the seasoning because one of my friends stormed into the kitchen and demanded to know if I had ever heard of seasonings. If we want food to taste special, we must add the right seasonings to bring out the flavor.
The New International Version of the Bible translates Matthew 5:13 this way, “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 by men and women.” It is clear to me, after our experience this last week that Jesus was speaking to people who lived in a warm, arid climate. Here we understand the value of salt that is spread out for us to walk on. Jesus wasn’t speaking of the ice melting qualities of salt. Jesus was speaking of how salt brings out the flavor of the food it is applied to. We are to be the salt of the earth. We are to bring out the flavor of the rest of creation. If we fail to do that, then we are useless.
Enhancing the flavor of something does not mean overpowering the original. We salt our food in moderation, or we should, just enough to bring out the flavor but not so much that we can’t taste the ingredients. As salt to the world, we are to help those around us to bring out their talents, to find their voice, and to encourage them to serve with others for a greater good. We salt each other with encouraging words and with teaching, and with constructive criticism. Salt is not supposed to stifle the food and we are not supposed to stifle the people we associate with in our daily interactions. We are not the primary ingredient and we are not supposed to call attention to ourselves. We can best season the world around us when we mix in with the world while largely going unnoticed.
It is critical for seasoning to get out of its container to be effective. Having a large assortment of seasonings will not enhance your cooking if you never mix them in with the other ingredients. When we don’t use the gifts and talents God has given us, then we are like salt left in the box and we become stale and useless. We must be willing to mix into the world and use our talents if we are to improve the flavor of the world. I think too often we are afraid to use our talents for fear we will exhaust them and then we will be left with nothing. You will pardon the mixed metaphor but there is a saying that it is better to wear out than to rust out. We are happier when we use our talents than when we horde them for some future occasion that may never come. My grandmother made beautiful crochet bedspreads and she gave them to my mother and my aunt and both of them thought they were too nice to use for everyday so they folded them up and put them away for a special occasion. When my parents died and we cleaned out their home, I found one of the bed spreads and I unpacked it and it fell apart. It had rotted in the box, no one ever got to enjoy its beauty because it was being saved for a special occasion. We need to get our talents out and use them for everyday, if they wear out then it will be because they were used and not because they were never used.
The other important thing about being salt to the world is that the value of seasoning is in what it encourages not what it diminishes. We don’t season food to eliminate the flavor of the food. As salt in the world our task is not to go around telling others what they shouldn’t do. Salt doesn’t try to change beef into fish or corn into a green bean. We aren’t asked by God to go into the world and tell others what they should be so the world will be better. We go into the world doing what we can with what we have to enhance the world and encouraging others to bring out their best to make the world a better place. Jesus says we are to be salt and light. Similar to salt, light doesn’t really change things, it just makes them visible. The same things are present in the light that present in the dark, the light just makes them clearer and more useable. Our function as salt and light is not to change the world but to be used by God to change the world. Isaiah in the passage we read today tells us to stop blaming the victims, stop gossiping about other people and get on about the business of doing what we can to make the world better. Being seasoning and light is about doing something, about enhancing the world around us being the catalyst for the best to be achieved by others, by making it easier to see what needs to be done. Being effective seasoning and effective light is about mixing in the world and shining brightly; it is not about what we leave out or about hiding our light under a basket. Amen.
