ON THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS

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"Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
Luke 14:34‭-‬35 ESV

¶Like a Zen koan, Jesus presents to us for our meditation a hypothetical that is contradictory: when is salt not salty? Salt is salty. Salt cannot lose its saltiness. If so, it would not be salt, but something else. Salt is in fact what keeps every other food from decay. And we crave it. Because it is vital to life, its value to us and to the other species that co-inhabit our world extends back in time well beyond that of any precious metal. Gold, silver, jewels, they are all just ways to get salt. Because it is so basic, our need for it so ubiquitous, we become unaware of our essential requirement for it. In a sense, salt is like the sea to a fish, except that we carry the sea within us, thanks to salt. We need salt. We need a way to arrest the decay of our world, our constant falling forward into collapse and destruction. This God provides as a gift, not ultimately to us, but to Himself, within the realm of the Trinity, in the person of the Son. To Him God gifted a people made holy, made salty, by His Spirit, a people who never lose faith, never lose their savor.

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