Ordinary decent salt of the earth

To the sources:

From Matthew 4:13-20 (Year A: Lent -4)

Apparently salt is everywhere – our bodies, the oceans and in the ground. Wouldn’t surprise me if it is in the air especially in coastal places!  So, salt is everywhere but rarely seen except on the dining table.

In this Gospel passage Jesus didn’t say ‘you must be salt …’. He said ‘You are the salt of the earth’.  By saying this He was recognising the fact that the world is always full of ‘salt’ in the children, women and men who go about their ordinary lives doing ordinary things in an ordinary way. It is in this ordinariness that light is seen and witness shown. We speak of so and so as being ‘salt of the earth’ meaning that the person in question is just an ordinary, decent , trustworthy and good person.

Perhaps too often we focus on the saltiness of others and cities afar off – past or present.  Rather, we should let the salt within be effective. In that way we become light for each other – villages lit up in dark ordinary places and not just cities on a hill.

As the late Brother Roger of Taizé once said:

“Where would we be today if certain women, men, young people and also children had not arisen at moments when the human family seemed destined for the worst? They did not say: "Let things take their course! Beyond the confrontations between persons, peoples and spiritual families, they prepared a way of trusting. Their lives bear witness to the fact that human beings have not been created for hopelessness.”