Sunday Week 5 Year A
Salt used to be a good thing — now it just raises our blood-pressure. Once packaged foods delighted in their saltiness — now they vie for the label “low Sodium.” Like “no fat” and “caffeine free” what we once sought out for pleasure, we now avoid for long life.
Salt used to be precious—Roman soldiers received part of their pay in salt—their salary. Any of you who are on enforced low-salt diets know just how precious salt still is. Things need taste. We need to be saved from blandness. This, says the gospel, is our communal vocation —to give the world some flavor. But will this low-sodium world thank us for it? I doubt it. But, in fact, our ambivalent feelings about salt offers a good image of our ambiguous relationship to the nation we are part of. We—church—as we lend a little flavor, should also be sending the blood-pressure of the world soaring. The people of Oakland shouldn’t know what to do with us or without us.
1 comment February 4th, 1996