“Can’s and cannot’s”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Luke 14: 25-35 (Forward, p. 14) CEV p. 1081

Jesus has a way of laying out the demands of discipleship pretty plainly and starkly. There can be no doubt at all what He is asking of us His disciples. Here, in today’s passage, He lays out some can’s and cannot’s.

-we cannot be His disciples unless we put Him ahead of all other

relationships, no matter how close or intimate or important they are.

-we cannot be His disciples unless we put Him ahead even over our

selves and our desires and ambitions.

-we cannot be His disciples unless we say ‘no’ to ourselves (take up

our crosses) and follow Him (come with Him).

-we cannot be His disciples unless we are willing to count the cost

ahead of time (as in building a tower or fielding an army) and accept

that cost.

-we cannot be His disciples unless we remain true to our calling in the

world. Here He calls us to be salt, to add taste and flavour, to act as

a catalyst without ourselves being changed, and to preserve our

world from ‘spoiling’. If we lose those abilities, we are of no use at

all.

These are mighty big, mighty challenging demands and of them, we can have no doubts. It is good to know what He expects of us. However, measuring up to them is yet another thing: almost all of us will fail them at some point or other. But thanks be to God for two other truths. Firstly, that our admittance into His kingdom, our salvation, is not dependent on us meeting those demands. And secondly, that there is always forgiveness and a second (or third or fourth) chance if we flub it. Thanks be to God.

Forward notes: “Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?” (verse 34)

“I have googled this question in many different ways, and for all I can find, salt never loses its saltiness. Salt isn’t like other herbs and spices; salt has no expiration date. That’s why it is often used as a preserver of food. Surely, Jesus knew this, so he must’ve meant for us to glean a different lesson than the one on the surface.

“If the lesson isn’t about retaining saltiness or needing to work to keep our flavour, then perhaps it’s about returning to our roots and remembering who we are. Perhaps, like salt, we were created flavourfully, and there is nothing we can do to lose or misplace our flavour. Perhaps when Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth, he is speaking about something inherent in us—a way we were created. If that’s the case, we needn’t work to be salty or nervous about losing our flavour. Our job is to be.”

Moving Forward: “Rest today in who you are: flavourful and salty. There is nothing you need to do, nothing you need to prove, nothing you have lost.

A concluding note: I too, like our author, have researched the properties of salt to try to find out how it can lose its saltiness, and have likewise come up with very little. There was only one thing I found by way of possibilities. It was that the salt had somehow allowed itself to be deleted or contaminated so that it no longer ‘did its job’. John Pitch suggests that one of salt’s tasks in the ancient world was to be a catalyst in lighting and maintaining fires and he suggests that it ‘could’ certainly lose that capability. So, maybe we, as God’s salt, can lose our effectiveness, whether that be in savouring, preserving, or starting something. Something to think about.