Homily: Tuesday of the Tenth week in Oridnary Time (Salt lose taste)

 “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

Would salt ever lose its taste? From what I understand, the answer is no, not in its pure form. Salt in its pure form, is sodium chloride, and it is very stable, it cannot lose its taste, not even for over a hundred years, it will still maintain its saltiness.

So why did Jesus use this salt analogy?

What did Jesus mean by “salt losing its taste”?

I have come across many interpretations. Some say that salt in this example by Jesus, is referring to our faith, others say it is our love, or our zeal. They are all good perspectives to help us understand what Jesus meant.

A Christian without faith, without love, without passion for God, is in a grave spiritual danger of losing his real essence, the purpose of his being and existence. Jesus was warning His disciples: if they lose the mission of their faith, they will lose their usefulness and purpose in life. It is the same for us who are Christ followers.

But back to the question: how could salt lose its taste?

In Jesus’ time, they didn’t have refined or purified salt like we do today. Salt was often collected from the shores of lakes or the sea. Through evaporating the sea water, what was left behind was a mixture of salt, sand, and other impurities. To use the salt in this mixture, people would often place a handful of it in a cloth bag, like a tea bag and stir it into the cooking pot. The salt would dissolve into the soup to give it taste; then only sand and other impurities would remain in the bag. By then, the salt bag would have lost its saltiness, its taste and would be useless, only to be thrown away.

And this, I think, is what Jesus is teaching us. When we stop living our faith, when we no longer share the love and truth of Christ with the world, we lose our ‘saltiness’, our ‘taste’. We may still look like Christians, but we no longer carry the purpose and spirit of Christianity. We become like that used salt bag – tasteless and useless for the work of God’s kingdom.

This Gospel invites us to fill our lives with faith, hope, and love. The more we live by these virtues, the more beautiful, joyful, and meaningful fruits we will bear, our lives become purposeful, our salt bag remains salty, not for ourselves, but for the people around us, for the world we live in.

So today, let us ask the Lord to keep refreshing our saltiness, to keep our faith and passion for God’s work of salvation going strong. May we never lose the flavor of the Gospel in our mind, heart and life.

Amen.