Busting the Monopoly! On God’s Forgiveness, Salt and Meat

Transcribed from the sermon preached June 2, 2013

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

 Scripture Readings: Matthew 5:13-16

A pastor and his wife decide to have the church deacons and their wives over for dinner. It was quite an undertaking, but the pastor and his wife want to be "Salt and Light" for the leaders of their church. When it comes time for dinner, everyone is seated and the pastor's wife asks her little four year old daughter if she will say grace. (As a note to new parents: Don't do this!)
The girl says "I don't know what to say."
Her mom tells her, "Just say what I say honey."
Everyone bows their head and the little girl says, "O dear Lord, why am I having all these people over for dinner! Amen!"

When Benjamin Franklin wished to interest the people of Philadelphia in street lighting, he didn't try to persuade them by just talking about it. He hung a beautiful lantern on a long bracket in front of his home. He kept the glass highly polished. Every evening at the approach of dusk, he carefully lit the wick. People saw the light from a distance and when they walked in its light, found that it helped them to avoid sharp stones on the pavement. Others placed light at their homes, and soon Philadelphia recognized the need for street lighting.  Sometimes, a small humble light can be the spark for big change.

This morning we hear a part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus tells the disciples they are salt and light. 

Now with all the health warnings, salt has gotten a bad reputation today.  But it has been one of the most valuable commodities across the world for thousands of years.

I didn’t really understand how salt was used as a preservative until I served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala.  I lived on a river 20 kilometers from the Caribbean.  We would take our boats down to Livingston on the coast to dance. The first time I went to Livingston I was kind of grossed out when I saw a bunch of fish sliced in half and laying out on the road.  A lot of folks didn’t have refrigerators, so fish was laid out, brushed with salt and left to dry.  It didn’t look very appetizing, but if you were poor and hungry, and didn’t have a refrigerator, that is how you would preserve food.

Wikipedia says that this ability to preserve vegetables, fruit, fish and meat was one of the foundations of civilization.  It helped to eliminate the dependence on the seasonal availability of food and allowed travel over long distances.  Since salt was difficult to obtain, it became a valuable trade item and even became a form of currency for some peoples. Roman soldiers were at times paid with salt, so if they did a good job it was said they were “worth their salt.”  We also get the word “salary”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_salt

According to the Jewish Heritage Online Magazine, “The salt and minerals of the Dead Sea have been exploited for millennia. Salt of the lake was an important source of income for both King Herod and the Roman Empire — both exported its mineral products. It has been suggested that Rome's extended and difficult siege against the zealots on Masada in 73 CE was founded in Rome's fear that Dead Sea salt and mineral production would be threatened by Jewish insurgence.” (Jewish Online Magazine)

It is no coincidence then that salt, which prevented corruption was connected to religion and ritual purification for cults and temples the world over.  We might even infer, that he who controlled the salt, controlled the temple and its purification, and therefore he who controlled salt controlled God.

Plato said salt was “Dear to the gods.  Homer said it was, “A divine substance.”

Lev.2

1.     [13] You shall season all your cereal offerings with salt; you shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be lacking from your cereal offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.

Num.18

1.     [19] All the holy offerings which the people of Israel present to the LORD I give to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due; it is a covenant of salt for ever before the LORD for you and for your offspring with you."

According to salt.org, Herod established a monopoly on the salt supply from the Dead Sea carefully guarded by fortifications like Masada.  Now imagine you are a family with a lamb or a cow and you want to kill and eat it.  You can’t eat the whole thing in one meal, so you want to preserve it with salt so that it will feed the family over time.  Salting meat was only possible in the temple with ritual sacrifice, and any family owning an animal, and wishing to preserve the meat for the coming months was obliged to take the animal to the temple.  So the temple in Jerusalem was a sophisticated slaughterhouse monopoly, providing kosher or hygienic service of preserving meat.  One the one hand it was an essential, purifying service to the community.  On the other hand it was the monopoly which exploited everybody who needed to preserve food to eat.  Priests would butcher the meat and then cure it in brine. In other words they would baptize it in salt water to cure it of corruption. They also used salt to cure leather and hides, the sale of which also became part of temple big business.  Of course salt was a profitable foreign export as well and a large part of the reason why Rome wanted control of the region.  People would come in from across the Mediterranean world to purchase salt and cured meat for travel from Herod’s temple. Thus the temple also had a profitable currency exchange business.

So we hear in Mark 11, and in Matthew and John too, that [15] Jesus “entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons;
[16] and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.”  Last night’s reading of this was the first time I really heard this line: he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple: Jesus is not just protesting that business is being done in the temple, he is protesting the agribusiness monopoly which exploits poor farmers who need the salt to preserve the meat of the livestock, fruits and vegetables necessary to feed their families. Jesus is quite literally, occupying the temple and stopping a very profitable business.
[17] “And he taught, and said to them, "Is it not written, `My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers." [18] And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and sought a way to destroy him; for they feared him, because all the multitude was astonished at his teaching.” Now the justification Herod gave for the monopoly of salt and meat was that the temple with its priests was the only proper place to offer sacrificial atonement for sins. But what happens if Jesus offers himself as the Lamb of God, the last sacrifice for the atonement of sins? What happens if it is his body and blood which we share to nourish and sustain? It liberates the monopoly of God and God’s forgiveness. It also, once and for all destroys justification of state cults to monopolize salt and meat, freeing people to salt their own meat and driving down food cost the world over.

We might say Jesus was a salty character.  And perhaps now we understand a bit better what Jesus means when he says: [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 trodden under foot by men.

Our purpose as Christians is to preserve people’s lives and to purify society.  Salt is not to sit off by itself, but to mix in, to preserve, purify and flavor other things.  Today is Jennifer and Kelly’s last official day with us. We want to thank you for adding rich flavor to worship and helping to preserve the life of the Church here at St. John’s.  We have been blessed with our section leaders and Jennifer, with your leadership and beautiful voice.  And Kelly, I have had so much fun this year sharing worship with you and Karen.  I love how they both have such different and unique flavor, and yet are both gifted women reflecting the light of God.  Kelly, you have the gifts, and I encourage you to continue to let God use you to bring flavor and light to the Church.

 And yet, even as worship in the sanctuary, in our temple is important, we are not to be kept in here.  We are not just the salt of the temple but the salt of the earth.  We are not to flee from the world and hide our light under the cover of the sanctuary roof but to be a lamp which shines the light of God so that all the world may see.

As we can see from the exchange with the Roman centurion, it is not occupation or nationality which necessarily prevents us from receiving the blessing of God and being salt.  The centurion recognizes he is a part of an unjust system, for he confesses as much to Jesus.  He knows that his position does not give him the right and privilege of Jesus’ services, but on the contrary, it means he is hardly worthy of being in his presence.  Yet he loves people, and uses his position to preserve and help.  We know this because the people testify on his behalf.  People want the Roman puppet Herod to go, but they don’t want this centurion to quit his job, because without a radical overthrow of the whole system, someone worse would take his place.  So Jesus recognizes that in this situation, when a poor woman needs healing, this man’s tables are not the ones to be turned. Jesus recognizes that this Roman centurion is worth his salt.  Because the centurion is lit with love and humility, Jesus heals and preserves the servant right then and there.       

No matter where we go or what our job is, we are part of a sinful world and if we have any wealth or authority, we will be directing product, policy and people which may not always benefit all people or the planet. But we have to decide if that job will take the taste out of our salt, or whether we, with humility and wisdom, can share flavor and shine light to make the lives of those around us better, and preserve justice and God’s truth in society.     

Reinhold Niebuhr, in the Irony of American History, writes: Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.

Hope, faith, love and forgiveness are of God. The presence of these gifts in our lives is what makes us tasty. So let us go out and flavor the world.