The Saltiness of Peace

 

the dead sea

Blessed be God who animates our lives and teaches us how to be the peace which passes all understanding. AMEN

The Far Mosque by Rumi

The place that Solomon made to worship in,

called the Far Mosque, is not built of earth

and water and stone, but of intention and wisdom

and mystical conversation and compassionate action.

Every part of it is intelligent and responsive

to every other. The carpet bows to the broom.

The door knocker and the door swing together

like musicians. This heart sanctuary

does exist, though it cannot be described.

Solomon goes there every morning

and gives guidance with words,

with musical harmonies, and in actions,

which are the deepest teaching.

A prince is just a conceit,

until he does something with his generosity.

These beautiful images which Rumi offers assisted me in finding some meaning in a difficult and cumbersome passage from the Gospel of Mark.

Let me explain:

After continuing to lecture the disciples about true greatness and awareness of stumbling blocks to the good news, Jesus ends with these words:

“For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

What in the world does salt have to do with peace? 

This is the question I am left struggling with after praying with this passage from Mark!

There are some important clues I believe: we are still in the middle of the Gospel of Mark when Jesus is increasingly frustrated with the disciples’ infighting and misunderstanding born of impatience. Jesus is still holding that child we talked about last week and hoping we not only welcome that blessing but also become like the child who carries those heavenly qualities with ease. He is still talking about welcoming and the Kingdom here and yet to come.

We have come to expect some pretty obscure metaphors and bizarre stories especially as the tension mounts on the way to Jerusalem. Jesus even warns here of stumbling blocks lest we miss the significance of His time among us.

But salt and peace???visible spice and hidden emotion or state of being??? it feels on one level trivial and on another confusing and confounding.

I am led to think there is nothing trivial about salt!

I suppose that context is important. In ancient times salt was a critical ingredient in preservation of food in addition to improving taste. Salt also had properties of cleansing and healing. Even today a salt water rinse can be used to heal or ease mouth wounds. 

There is a power in salt which can be used and abused. I remember my grandmother pouring it on a slug and being horrified at the acid-like deterioration. Might it be used to enliven instead?

Taking a step back it may become clearer that salt was a necessary and essential ingredient in life with a powerful capacity to alter taste, and the state of foods and even creation. Salt poured onto flame transforms the colors in dramatic fashion. The heat of the flame changes the electrons of the salt and releases photons of light! 

We are getting closer…Jesus is the Light of the World.

In essence we are talking about the power of refining which might be laid alongside other “re” words like restitution and reformation. God makes all things new. Saltiness refines our being into peaceful creatures

These powerful transformational properties might lead us closer to understanding just what salt might have to do with the revelation of a Kingdom unlike any expected previously.

Before we even get to saltiness Jesus is informing the disciples, the crowds and us how to become Kingdom-bearers. How to carry the good news into the world. How to receive and be transformed by the grace as we journey through and toward the peace which passes understanding. 

Grace and Salt, invisible and visible elements, then, may be the essential gifts which flavor, preserve, color and enflame the Light of the World which inspire that precious peace. which make invisible peace /visible. which make the bland/ tasty; the ordinary/ extraordinary. Salt calms the inflammation of a wound; causes light to be more vibrant; preserves the critical ingredients of the Way and the Life.

In short salt might be a key for the sacramental. I think about tears, the salty outward sign of the inward invisible grace. And it is to that which Jesus may be calling us, really pleading with us to remember. Retaining saltiness then may very well lead to that peace which passes understanding. No ordinary or bland peace.

Perhaps there is indeed a necessary relationship between salt and peace. Just as we might remember that missing ingredient at a meal and add salt so might we remember the missing ingredient which causes the Kingdom to be alive….grace.

Peace is just the absence of chaos until it is salted with sacramental tears.

A prince is just a prince until he exercises generosity

A gift becomes grace when salted with devotion

I am hoping that the next time you taste the saltiness of food, or of tears, you think of peace, the peace only God can offer.