Today’s household object is the very ordinary salt shaker and our passage is Matthew 5:1-13.
Salt flavours and preserves; somehow the chemical reaction between sodium and chlorine produces sodium chloride or common salt. Jesus said that His followers are the salt of the world, but warned that the if the salt has lost its taste, how can saltiness be restored? The salt in our cupboards has to be used; if it gets damp in the pot, it solidifies and is no use to us.
Salt has to be ‘shaken’ (or ground) to be useful. It’s no use hiding away from the world in order to remain spiritually pure; Jesus prayed ‘not that You take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.’ (John 17:15) We remain in the world whilst not being the same as the world because of God’s Spirit in us; we are called to bring out the God-flavours of the world and to be tastily different!