By Rev Dr Je Cheol Cook, Parish Minister of Scenic Rim Uniting Church.
Our Lord Jesus says in Matthew 5:13, “You are like salt for everyone on earth.” The bible says, “you are like salt”.
A long time ago, salt was very expensive. It was considered as one of the most important things in most places and countries. Roman soldiers would receive salt for their salary. The Roman government would increase the price of salt to get more money.
In China, the Tang dynasty would receive its tax through the profit of salt. As we see in history, salt had great importance. That you are like salt means you are a very important person. You are a VIP (talk to your neighbour, you are VIP).
Look at yourself. Each one of you is like salt. You are very dear and important.
Salt was used mostly with cooking. What is your favourite food? Is it Pizza, Sushi, Kimchi, or Steak? Sometimes, my wife makes sushi. We have a variety of ingredients, ham, tuna, salmon, avocado, cucumber, and so on. These are optional. If we want, we might have other stuffing. But salt is not optional. It is compulsory.
We Christians are like salt. We are not optional. We are compulsory.
That is why our God made us before creation. He chose us as his children. He is our Lord of lords and King of kings. That is why we are called children of God. That is why we are so special, dear, and important.
Salt originally comes from the Greek word, ἅλας(hálas).
It has two meanings. One is to preserve something. Another is to give it a nice flavour. As we know, salt was used to preserve food.
Many people like cheese. What kinds of cheese do you like? One of my favourites is Brie. I like it very much. To make cheese, we need cream and salt. Salt is not optional, but compulsory.
Many people like Kimchi. I like spicy kimchi. To make kimchi, we need a variety of ingredients, cabbage, ginger, garlic, chili, fish sauce and so on. We might have other ingredients. But without salt it is impossible to make kimchi. Today, we have refrigerators to preserve food, but a long time ago, salt was the only thing used to preserve food.
Salt also gives a nice flavour to food.
One night, I cooked a nice vegetable soup for my family. I put in a variety of vegetables to make soup. But I missed one thing. That was salt. Before that night, my wife used salt to make kimchi. I could not find where it was. The soup was still not nice because I did not add salt. Later I found the salt and put some in the soup. Salt gave the soup a nice flavour. It was very delicious.
We Christians are like salt. We are dear and important in this world. As salt preserves and gives nice flavour to food, we Christians preserve and give nice flavour to the world.
