For 6,000 years we have had salt on the table. With its companion, pepper, not to mention mustard, it offers flavour and has a place in the trio of condiments that make meals something more than pit-stops.
And it’s not just seasoning that salt has to offer. It has a major role as a preservative and it early on became an item of currency.
Cheshire is built on salt, as some place names – Northwich, Nantwich, though not Winsford – indicate. Dig into Cheshire and you will find its distinctive form of salt -- rock salt. Chemically the same as salt achieved from the evaporation of salt-water puddles, it may, like salt from sea-water, have small-scale contaminants that explain Jesus’ comments in Matthew 5.13.
It has hardly surprising to find salt in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus’ disciples had a responsibility – not only to live considerate and caring lives but to shape behaviour and set an example. Salt is a figure of speech giving quick access to the imaginative goodness that informs the Sermon. Disciples are to be flavoursome, lovers of beauty, sharp, even witty, we may say. That certainly means something other than being tasteless and not worth a second glance.
The further reasonable implication is that Christian believers can be expected to show a judicious interest in matters artistic, architectural, literary – praising what is worthwhile and dismissing what is shallow and sentimental.
We have only to look at the history of European civilisation to see this playing out. Notable architecture, paintings and poetry – Hagia Sophia, Chartres Cathedral, the Sistine Chapel, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Night Watch, ‘Paradise Lost’ are evidence of salt doing its thing in a world of space and colour.
Here are several routes Christian disciples can take to improve the everyday world. We can gaze on these works of the imagination. We can encourage others to do the same. We can make planet earth a more pleasing place for everybody. We may be able to help things along in our own parish church. We shall all be adding to our own enjoyment of our place called home.
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