Salt as Fertilizer

I was reading through Carson’s commentary on Matthew and found an article I’d poked in there by Alan Kreider in a ‘Think Piece’ from the Macquarie Christian Studies Institute. He was addressing the issue of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:13:
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”
The popular explanation of this passage (even by Carson) is that salt is a preservative. But as Kreider questions, why didn’t Jesus say you were the salt of the meat rather than salt of the earth?

He heard a BBC radio gardening program that described wartime farmers in Great Britain using salt as a fertilizer. That was back in the 80’s. Today we have the internet, so I thought I’d google ‘salt as fertilizer’ and guess what? A number of articles on sodium chloride as a fertilizer!

Here’s an example:
“Long before scientists understood the role of sodium or chloride in crop production and plant disease management, farmers routinely applied sodium chloride to salt-tolerant crops to boost vigor and yields. Interestingly, a steady flow of studies over the past half century conclude that when sodium chloride is applied in quantities equal to macronutrients, certain crops fare better. These studies validate the opinions of a number of agriculturalists that touted the value of sodium chloride in crop management.” W. H. Elmer- The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station
http://www.saltinstitute.org/elmer.html

Kreider asks the question- if we are the ‘salt of the earth’ as Jesus says, for what purpose, To preserve the society of first century Palestine, keeping the religious and political systems functioning as honestly as possible? Or to fertilize, finding shoots of kingdom life and helping them grow?

Here’s three of his ideas about salt:
First as a fertilizer it needs scattering. In lumps it poisons the soil.
Second, salt doesn’t exist for itself; it exists for the sake of the shoots of kingdom growth which God has planted.
Thirdly, salt differs from the soil it fertilizes. Jesus is concerned that salt could lose its saltiness and blend in with the rest of the soil.

But here is the take away quote which grabbed me in the context of the Imagine Project and developing ‘Fresh Expressions’ of church:

“Salt as a preservative appeals to Western readers because it helps make sense of a declining Christendom. The world is bad and getting worse (but how comfortably we accept its perquisites). Our calling as salt is to stop the rot. We are called to permeate the structures of society, work hard, do our duty, be evangelistically active, be honest in our dealings, never smutty or sacrilegious.

Imagine another view. The justice, power, and nearness of God’s kingdom are breaking in not to preserve ‘Christian’ society but to make men and women, their churches, and even aspects of society congruent with Christ. This, no less than the preserving view, requires hard work, duty-doing, and the rest. But it also invites us to engage in new thinking. It urges us to commit ourselves to change. It assumes that God through the Spirit is doing new things. Jesus- by his life and teaching- is the one who defines this newness. Our time is a time not of rear-guard action but of mission.”

Now that stirs the heart!