For us there’s nothing special about salt. It’s one of the cheapest and most common items on the grocery store shelf. But in Paul’s day salt was precious. Used to preserve and season food in a world without refrigeration, salt was life; it was even more precious than gold. Conversation “seasoned with salt,” then, means words carefully chosen to be appetizing and not alienating.
But there’s more. Sharing salt with someone meant sharing your precious salt supply over a meal at your table. So in a part of the world in which hospitality to strangers was one of the highest values, “sharing salt” came to mean much more: it spoke of welcome, acceptance, friendship, being family, overlooking differences, a commitment to one another’s best. Conversation “seasoned with salt” also means relating in initiating, welcoming, accepting, self-sacrificial ways that turn strangers into friends.
In this sermon series we’ll explore how to talk with those who don’t agree with us, welcome those who don’t look like us, love those who don’t like us, and share faith with those who don’t believe like us.
