Make me salty in a good way!

Reflecting on Mark 9:42-50

"Everyone will be salted with fire." (Mark 9:48)

What exactly does it mean to be ‘salted with fire’?
Jesus has just been talking about the fire of gehenna.
Gehenna was a valley outside of Jerusalem used as a dump.
It had an accursed history, a place of child sacrifice (Jeremiah 7:31).
There were worms in the garbage and constantly smoldering fires.
It was not a place you wanted to go.
The bodies of extremely wicked criminals were dumped there.
In a sense, this fire made things better.

In Jesus’s time, salt had many good purposes:
* Food preservation, making it edible longer.
* Flavoring, making food taste better
* Medicine and hygiene: as a disinfectant for wounds to prevent infection.
* Currency and commerce: it was valuable, possibly behind the word ‘salary’
* Agriculture: fertilizer to enrich soil, help it retain water, promote crop growth
* Warfare: to destroy enemy land, known as ‘salting the earth’
* Manufacturing: industrial processes like glazing of ceramics, production dyes

Jesus is using salt as a positive image: “salt is good” (Mark 9:50).
In context, these warnings against unloving behaviours are good.
They’re meant to protect us, making things better for all.
The fire of salt is a gift of grace.
Jesus urges us to be agents of healing and hope, not of harm.
“Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.” (Mark 9:50)

When we ‘cut off’ unloving behaviours, we are restoring peace.
Our words and actions preserve, fertilize, season, heal, build up.
When we are salted by Jesus encouragements and warnings, our value increases.
We undermine the work of the enemy by enhancing the work of grace.
Jesus, like salt, is making us good and useful to the world (salty).

I hear the words “salted with fire” as positive.
We are like silver, put in the crucible of gehenna to be purified.
The fire burns away (‘cuts off’) that which needs to go.
Unloving, unfaithful words and actions that harm others need to go.
They are replaced by grace, a healing, preserving, seasoning grace.

“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” (Colossians 4:6)

How do I relate to people around me; how do they experience me?
Does my presence, and do my words, generate healing and hope?
Are people encouraged or discouraged by my words?
This is how I want to be, and how I want to speak to everyone.
For that reason I need to allow Jesus to season me.
As I spend time with Jesus, He is flavouring me for the better.
I want to experience a world where all people are blessed.
Where ‘these little ones’ are helped and healed, not hindered or harmed.

As I go out today, may the salt of Jesus make me salty in a good way.
The world be a better place because of His grace working through me.

PRAYER
Lord Jesus, You make me taste better. You burn (or cut) away the things that harm or hinder others. Make me salty in a good way.