Salt, Not Sugar

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”

-Jesus, Matthew 5:13 (ESV)

 

I don’t know anyone, aside from my 85 year-old grandfather, who can drink their coffee black. His taste for bitter, unsweetened coffee came from serving on a naval cruiser in World War II, when sugar was rare. And even he adds a little sugar from time to time in order to sweeten things up. My generation of people has an obsession with coffee, but it’s not a plain cup of Folger’s in the morning that we’re raving about. No, it has to be some type of super sweet chocolate mocha caramel delight, something that’s so loaded with flavor and sugar that the bitterness of the coffee is masked. In a society that craves sweetness, it’s no wonder we try to give our religion the same taste.

Call it what you want, but “sugary Christianity” is destroying the atonement right before our eyes. It certainly seems harmless; after all, we want to include people and make them feel good about themselves. But all we’re really doing is giving them a nice, comforting pat on the back before we watch them plummet into eternal damnation, doing nothing to prevent their fall. We neglect to tell people about God’s wrath and their utter hopelessness without Christ, yet we call this “seeker-sensitive” Christianity.

Now, I’m not saying that nobody has ever come to know Jesus through such a system; God most certainly finds interesting ways to grab hold of those whom He chooses. However, preachers must remain true to the not-always-sugary word of God, choosing to promote the truth over a lie that is, in our eyes, perhaps more pleasant. I’m not advocating that we create unnecessary barriers between us and the world by coming on too strong; however, we must remain bold in our message and preach it with wisdom.

The salt analogy offers us some helpful insight in this regard. In the ancient world (and in fact right up until recent times), salt was used to season meat in order to prevent decay. In this way, it was a valuable commodity. Like salt, Christians should serve to prevent decay in the world around them which is, already, undoubtedly putrefying. Our culture rejects God and our world is dying in its sins. One moral lapse after another, our society is rotting away without any hope outside of Christ. As salt, our responsibility is to make this hope known, without denying the morbid reality that, without Christ, we are utterly hopeless. We are here to prevent decay. This is the will of our God.

However, we find sugar more appealing than salt. It tastes better to us, giving us a delightful euphoria that certainly doesn’t seem all that bad. But sugar does nothing to prevent decay; it tastes sweet but serves no important purpose. So, while we try to make the gospel more appealing and “sweet” by compromising the truth of our depravity, God’s wrath, and Christ being the only way of salvation, we do nothing to prevent the decay around us. We lead people not into salvation, but into the happy-go-lucky pseudo-Christianity our culture has come to embrace. By acting as sugar instead of salt, we are leading people astray. It may seem worthwhile now, as it seems to make our message more “pleasant,” but in the end, even sugar isn’t sweet enough to mask the taste of rotten meat. This world needs salt. Let us not act as sugar.

For, as Jesus says, salt that isn’t salty (that is, salt that does not serve its purpose) is worthless and “is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” Let this serve as a warning to all of us, including myself, that we may be convicted of our sugary irresponsibility and be provoked to preach the true gospel of Christ.