THE Cafe Church at Crediton Methodist Church, held on Sunday, October 2, was led by Pam Murphy and Cathy Jerrard with the theme “Salt of the Earth”.

Cathy talked about tastes - savoury, sour, sweet, bitter and salty.

In Roman times salt was a highly prized commodity and Roman soldiers were even paid in salt - hence our word salary which derived from “sal” - salt.

If a Roman soldier was not very good he was said to be ‘’not worth his salt’’ and that is where the phrase we use today comes from.

According to the Salt Council website there are 14,000 uses for salt including some preserving, seasoning, cleansing and medicinal.

In the reading from Matthew we heard Jesus tell his disciples “you are the salt of the earth”.

Pam said salt is one of the ways we enhance the flavour of food and in telling the disciples they were the salt of the earth they would have known how valuable salt was.

What do we today understand Jesus to mean “you are the salt of the earth”?

1 Salt was an expensive and valuable commodity in Biblical times so Jesus was implying how much God values his disciples for their faithfulness and willingness to learn from Jesus and take His teaching into the world around them.

2 As salt, the disciples would have added flavour to people’s lives by drawing out the radically different ways Jesus came to show them.

Ways that embraced everyone no matter what their social status, health or past mis-doings. God’s love, joy, peace, generosity and forgiveness is at the heart of what flowed out from Jesus into the world and continues today through Christ Jesus in us pouring out his life changing, life enhancing love into the world through those who follow in his steps today.

3 The disciples preserved what they had been taught by Jesus, even after His death on the cross with the Holy Spirit’s help they kept true to the work that Jesus had started.

We too, today, are called to be salt of the earth through our faith and our commitment to serving Jesus by preserving within our heart those different way of loving that Jesus has taught us and by being focussed and true to His ways with those with whom we are dealing and sowing the seeds around us.

Jesus is saying do not lose your saltiness or you will not be fit for purpose. Now salt does not really deteriorate, but it can be contaminated with impurities or watered down.

What is the value of that to either God or ourselves? Pam asked each one of us to have confidence that we are valuable to God and that we are part of His life changing and life enhancing plans.

Bronwyn Nott