Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scriptures: Genesis 19:15-26 and Matthew 5:13
September 7, 2003
Unless my memory has completely failed me, it was the late Mae West (that queen of burlesque) who used to say: “Always remember, darlings, that too much of a good thing is wonderful.” Obviously, Mae West never cooked with garlic. Or ginger, either.
Sometime during the first year of our marriage, Kris was either overwhelmed by schedule or underwhelmed by health, to the degree that I offered to make dinner. My plan was to be creative. With a wok, no less. So I found some chicken, thawed a box of frozen pea pods, and set to work on an oriental recipe for “Ginger Chicken.” Because we did have ginger, don’t you see. Even then, in the macaroni and cheese years of our marriage, Kris had a remarkably complete spice rack.
The problem was not in my anticipation so much as in my execution. For one of my basic operating theories is that “if a little is good, a lot is better.” Which, let me tell you, doesn’t apply to ginger. Even I, normally possessed of a cast iron stomach, couldn’t choke it down. And I have never returned to the wok since.
But having launched this line of thought, let’s stick with the issue of seasoning for a while. Only let’s sashay from ginger to salt. I am “salt people.” Most of you are “sugar people.” Remove pies and cakes from the world and I’ll be sad. But remove potato chips from the world and I’ll be desperate.
My grandmother, who was the greatest cook I ever met until I met my wife (how’s that for fancy footwork?), kept a crock of salt on her stovetop. Whenever she thought salt was needed, salt was added. Not by measures, but by pinches. Always perfectly. Never excessively. How did she do it? Darned if I know. But if you listened to me read the Gospel mere moments ago, you know where this is going. Jesus told his friends to be salty.
In Jesus’ day, salt was prized for a couple of reasons….preservation and flavor. You needed salt to prevent spoilage. But you valued salt to enhance taste. In the Middle East of Jesus’ day, a bag of salt was reckoned as precious as a man’s life. Greeks called salt “divine” (theion). Romans said: “There is nothing more useful than sun and salt.” Primitive religions sacrificed salt to their gods before any thought of sacrificing grains or animals. Even Jews salted their sacrifices before firing up the woodpile.
Which is why it wouldn’t take a genius to make a sermon out of this. I can hear it now. Two points…short and sweet.
Point One: Friends, the world is spoiling….smelling like rotted meat….stinking to high heaven….turning green….crawling with maggots. Go preserve its integrity.
Point Two: Friends, the world is flavorless….dull….boring….bland….insipid….drained of vitality and spontaneity. Go restore its sparkle.
All of that will preach. And maybe just did. Except for a small problem. That being a perceived salt shortage.
Earlier this summer….and for the life of me I can’t remember where I read this….some essayist was lamenting the numerical slippage of the Christian impact in the western world. You’ve heard the lament. Fewer of us than there used to be. More of them than there used to be. Less status and influence than there used to be. Our values compromised by the culture. Our message mocked by the movies. Our hands tied by the courts. When one Christian starts down that road, the name of the game is “Poor Me.” When two or more Christians travel that road together, the name of the game becomes “Ain’t It Awful?”
Whereupon the author who started this hand-wringing suggested that, in some specific population segment that concerned him, Christians were now a mere 25 percent of the mix. Leading him to ask: “Whatever can you do with a mere quarter pound of salt?” But for him, the issue was not coverage, but confidence. Which is where it is for a lot of Christians this morning….and a lot of churches, too.
Lillian Daniel is a hot new name in clergy circles. A graduate of Bryn Mawr and Yale Divinity School, she presently serves Church of the Redeemer in New Haven, Connecticut. More to the point, her quotes frequently appear in clergy journals. Concerning her seminary training she writes:
Nothing could have prepared me for how terribly earthy the ministry is….how incarnational. Sometimes my calling as a minister is to count the broken bodies and call them God’s.
And some of those broken bodies would be churches. It seems to me that the church I was trained in seminary to expect (and serve) was some sort of cocky country club fortress that needed to be taken down a peg or two. So that we, the new ministers, would come flying in like Underdog….armed with new hymnals, new language, and new ideas….inspired by professors who were still passionately processing their only two years of parish ministry (spent while they were working on their Ph.D.s 15 years ago).
To which she adds:
The thing I was trained to expect (and fix) was the pride of the church, not its weakness. But some of our churches (including the ones to which I have been assigned) have been taken down so many pegs, by so many preachers, they feel the next step may be the ground. Which is why they snarl and hiss at change as if they are about to die. Because some of them are. But others of them are about to live. And we (who are being trained to serve them) need to be schooled to search out signs of life.
But signs of life are not always easy to find. You really have to work at it. In situations of great struggle, comfort can be taken in the old bromide that you may be planting seeds today that will not yield fruit for ten or twenty years. Isn’t that what frustrated teachers tell each other in the faculty lounge after very bad and bitchy days in the classroom?
Phil Gully writes:
One of my first sermons was at an inner city mission, where I watched about 50 men (mostly mentally ill or drunk) file into a dingy chapel. Some mumbled the words to a familiar hymn. Most yawned their way through the prayers. All seemed oblivious to the sermon I’d labored over so carefully. Pleading with them to accept Christ and receive his grace, no one responded. Afterward, I turned to one of the workers and said: “Well, that was hopeless.” Leading him to smile and say: “I used to be one of them.”
I suspect every preacher has a story like that. I hope every teacher has a story like that. And most churches need stories like that. To infuse confidence, don’t you see. Confidence that the Word is taking hold. And confidence that the work is bearing fruit.
As concerns the Word, never have we been more at odds over how to study it.
Literally? Allegorically?
Spiritually? Academically?
Line by line? Meaning by meaning?
Inspired by God? Inspired with God?
Critiqueable….yes or no?
Discussable….yes or no?
Cross-culturally translatable….yes or no?
Finished and complete when you get to the back cover….or still being written (with no thought of a back cover)?
But the fact remains, more and more of us are availing ourselves of the Word….by whatever means….in whatever settings….using whatever approaches….under the tutelage of whatever leaders….than in any time in my ministerial memory. The really big debates that divide the church are debates over biblical interpretation….a sure sign that people are digging into the Word on the way to fighting over it.
Like many of you, I have Bible study approaches I favor, along with Bible study biases I own. But, at the end of the day, I will take my chances that we who wrestle with the Word will find some commonality in the Lord, and that commonality may just serve and save us.
Years ago, I asked you to imagine yourself in a strange city, walking down a deserted street on a dark night. If it helps set the tone, take note of the fact that the streetlight is broken. You are walking alone, not quite sure how you got where you are or where it is you need to go next. Suddenly you become aware of others….several others….walking toward you….or maybe behind you…. bearing down upon you….about to overtake you. Don’t obsess about their number, their gender or their color. Get in touch with your feelings. Taste your fear. Then ask yourself this question. Were you to suddenly notice that several of them were carrying Bibles (as if just having emerged from some study of sorts), would you feel any better? I think I would. Not that such would offer any guarantees. For students of scripture have sometimes been perpetrators of great pain. But you’d take your chances. Sure you would.
But in addition to signs that the Word is taking hold, I would also rise to suggest that the work is bearing fruit. I know there is much that suggests otherwise. I see and read the same stuff you do. And if I miss it, you send it to me. I receive all kinds of clippings wherein somebody…. observing some trend….analyzing some data….quoting some poll-taker….points to the broken finger of the church, no longer able to plug the hole in the dike of history. And then you scribble across the top of the clipping: “Dr. Ritter, what do you think?”
Well, the older I get (and the longer I do this), the more I realize that adding my voice to the “Ain’t It Awful” chorus produces little in the way of change, and even less in the way of satisfaction. Worse yet, it deceives me into thinking I have honored my calling and served my Lord, when I know full well I have done neither. To be salt requires me to add something, rather than simply point out how bland, blah and rotten everything has become in its absence. Which leads me to the following.
If there is much in modern music that degrades and depersonalizes, I ought to see that 90 kids and adults go to Choir Camp for a week, the better to sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.
If there is much in modern cinema that speaks to and about the worst in life, I ought to see to it that, come Oscar time, 100 people show up to probe where Jesus might be connected with what graces the silver screen.
If there is a restlessness among the young, who have reason to wonder if anything really matters or anyone really cares, I ought to see to it that people get hired, paid and empowered who do know what matters, and who can show who cares.
If there is a malaise of apathetic indifference metastasizing across suburban culture…. suggesting that if it “isn’t about me,” it is most certainly secondary, and if it doesn’t involve an intimate little circle within a five-mile radius of my doorstep, it probably doesn’t matter….I ought to see to it that mission trips are taken, hammers are swung, partnerships are established and friendships are forged that span the globe while crisscrossing the city.
If there is an increasing secularization of life’s most transitional rituals….so that people now do casually what they ought to do carefully….I ought to see to it that our doors to such a culture are more open than closed, the better to serve more people than less, so that this sanctuary might become the best possible funeral home or wedding chapel, not simply the cheapest or most convenient.
If there really are people who are lonelier than ever in the midst of populations more numerous than ever, then I ought to see to it that support is not a pair of stockings tailored to squeeze, so much as a menu of ministries tailored to ease.
And if home isn’t what it used to be….community isn’t what it needs to be….and fellowship isn’t what it cries out to be….then I ought to reach even further into your pocket (and mine) for a buck and change, or six million and change, so that community can happen here, for people presently gathered and more.
It’s about being salt, my friends. That’s all it is. But that’s exactly what it is. It’s not just doing what Jesus said we should do. It’s being who Jesus said we already are.
One of my favorite stories comes from John Steinbeck’s little play, “The Short Reign of Pippin IV.” The king in disguise comes to the little French town of Gambais where, upon nearing the castle, he notices that a bust of Pan has been removed from its pedestal and thrown into the moat. Pippin asks an old man: “How did it get in the moat?” “Oh, someone pushed him in. They always do, sometimes two or three times a year.” “But why?” asks the king. “Who knows,” says the old man. “There’s people who push things in the moat. Pretty hard work, too. There’s just people who push things in the moat.”
A little later the king asks gently: “Are you the owner here?” “No,” the old man says. “I just live hereabouts.” “Then why do you pull them out?” The old man looks puzzled, as if searching for an answer. “Why? I don’t know. I guess there’s people who pull things out. That’s what they do. I guess that’s how things get done.” People who push things in and people who pull things out. We have a choice.
Well, actually, we have a third choice. We can do nothing, I suppose. But the Word of Jesus will be pretty harsh on us (especially if we count ourselves as his friends). “What good are you?” Jesus said. “You’re salt. But you don’t preserve anything. And you don’t flavor anything. What good are you?”
* * * * *
The angel told Lot and his wife to get moving. He did. She didn’t. And just like that, she became the world’s most famous salt lick. Harsh? Darned right.
Do I believe God did it to her? No.
Do I believe God speaks to us through her? Yes.
How do I know? I’ll tell you how I know.
Several years ago, I bought a bag of salt (or one of those salt derivatives) before winter. Just in case. But I never used it. Never tended it. Never did anything but ignore it. Until “the big freeze” turned my driveway into a skating rink. By which time my salt was hard. Rock solid hard. I couldn’t spread it with my hand. I couldn’t spread it with a cup. There I was with a hammer and chisel….whaling away at it….trying to loosen it. Did it work? No. Was it reclaimable? No. So what happened?
Well, you know what happened. People slipped and fell. That’s what happened.
Note: This sermon was written for Return Sunday and the beginning of the fall program at First Church. My aim was to be upbeat and affirmative, helping the congregation recognize valuable ministries already in their midst while challenging them to go further. The indented examples at the end of the sermon are obviously local in character, but the recognition factor among members of the congregation was high.
As concerns notes about salt, I once again allowed William Barclay’s commentary on Matthew to instruct me. Lillian Daniel’s contribution can be found in a new report from The Fund for Theological Education entitled What Is Good Ministry: A Collection of Portraits and Essays (edited by Jackson Carroll and Carol Lytch). The reminiscence of Phil Gully can be found in a wonderful new book (co-written with James Mulholland) entitled If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person. And as for the slice of John Steinbeck, I first found it in The Christian Manifesto by Ernest Campbell.
