Salt

Luke 14:25-35 Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)

²⁵ Large crowds were traveling along with Yeshua. Turning, he said to them, ²⁶ “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father, his mother, his wife, his children, his brothers and his sisters, yes, and his own life besides, he cannot be my talmid. ²⁷ Whoever does not carry his own execution-stake and come after me cannot be my talmid.

²⁸ “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Don’t you sit down and estimate the cost, to see if you have enough capital to complete it? ²⁹ If you don’t, then when you have laid the foundation but can’t finish, all the onlookers start making fun of you ³⁰ and say, ‘This is the man who began to build, but couldn’t finish!’

³¹ “Or again, suppose one king is going out to wage war with another king. Doesn’t he first sit down and consider whether he, with his ten thousand troops, has enough strength to meet the other one, who is coming against him with twenty thousand? ³² If he hasn’t, then while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation to inquire about terms for peace.

³³ “So every one of you who doesn’t renounce all that he has cannot be my talmid. ³⁴ Salt is excellent. But if even the salt becomes tasteless, what can be used to season it? ³⁵ It is fit for neither soil nor manure — people throw it out. Those who have ears that can hear, let them hear!”

I started to get hung up on the word “hate” in the text, until I realized (along with everyone else who feels like that word couldn’t possibly be what Jesus meant to say) that I was missing the whole point of the story.

So, I’m going to put the story in context. Jesus’s first action in this story was to turn around. When have we done that? Been hanging out with friends and gotten annoyed with their mindless gabble when they really needed to get serious? Think about it. What do you suppose Jesus heard that made him stop and turn around and be so vehement? Mothers talking about teething babies and wayward teenagers? Young men talking about the girls they like, or who got in a fight last week, or who vandalized the police station with rude graffiti? Older men talking about the price of gas, who got laid off last month, or whose wife is the best cook? Young girls giggling about boys, or clothes, or whose naked picture showed up on Facebook?

So, Jesus turns around, plants his fists on his hips, and says—

“Don’t even think about following me unless you are going to shut up about all that! You just aren’t serious about this! You’re nothing but a distraction to me! If you want to be my disciple you have to reject all that as if you couldn’t abide it! Your mother, your father, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your children— all of that. You can’t follow me unless you are willing to die!

You think this is a lark? Something to pass the time? You think it’s fun and exciting to be one of this crowd of amateurs who’ve never given any more than lip service to anything? If that’s what you are doing, quit it! Go away! If you want to follow me then consider yourself a condemned criminal, pick up the syringe with the lethal dose, and carry it to the place you are going to be executed! Yes, that’s what I said! You haven’t even thought about this!

 Suppose you want to buy a house? Are you going to sit down and figure out whether or not you can afford the mortgage, or are you going to put the down payment on your credit card and declare bankruptcy because you can’t make the minimum payments on the card, not to mention making the actual mortgage payments? People make fun of idiots who do that sort of thing! Or what if the leader of a country was going to war without figuring out if there was even a chance of winning when the enemy has an army twice the size? Wouldn’t it be smarter for him to call a truce and negotiate a peace treaty long before the first missile is launched?

You’ve got to stop and think about exactly what it means to follow me. I didn’t ask you to follow me, you just decided to come along for the ride. Well, don’t! If you aren’t willing to shut up and get serious; if you aren’t willing to reject your parents and offend your friends in order to be my follower; then go away! I mean it. Salt is great, but it’s only good if it’s actually salty. If it doesn’t make the food taste better, it isn’t fit for anything and it gets thrown away! You are not making the food taste better! Do you get it? Huh? Do you?!”

Somebody the other day was talking about “warm and fuzzy” Christianity, in the context of evangelism. They were recommending against that approach. I know that warm-and-fuzzy sentiments really turn me off, and that made me wonder if it was possible that this kind of tough, risky Christianity might be exactly what we need in this world.

What if Christ is a hard-ass?

What if he can save us from our own pettiness?

What if the good news is that we can be heroes?

What if he’s still turning around and yelling at us?

What if we are actually capable of giving up our lives?

What if we aren’t deserters after all?

What if we are salty as all hell?

What then?

Well,

I guess in that case

we get to stick around—

as long as we shut up and get down to business.