A look at the gaps in the lectionary.
This week: the gap between Proper 18C and Proper 19C.
The text: Luke 14:34-35.
This week’s gap in the lectionary is a tiny snippet familiar to us in another part of the lectionary. We’re talking two verses. It’s short enough that we can quote it here:
‘Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure heap; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’
For those of us following the lectionary, this is a bit of redundant text falling to the cutting room floor. Perhaps it gets put back in for the Director’s Cut.
How it functions in the context, however, is to serve as the mic drop at the end of a big speech about discipleship.
Remember this chapter reveals the turning of expectations on those trying to figure Jesus out. He’s been direct before about what they are trying to do. But it is clear people to understand the scope or impact.
That would be hard enough. Just getting the followers and disciples to get with the program would be a tough job. But he has the religious leadership scheming against him. So how does he continue to focus on teaching when people keep dropping landmines in his way?
He confronts the leaders directly at a dinner (vv. 1-24) and speaks directly to his followers about the cost of discipleship (vv. 25-35).
What about the salt?
An alternate reading of verse 24 is
“Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can it be used for seasoning?“
I think this makes the point clearer. Jesus uses a domestic example we can understand. When seasoning goes bad, it loses flavor. Without flavor, the seasoning has no value.
What do we do when we’re cleaning out the cupboards? We toss the Basil three years past its date.
We all understand this, of course. The problem for the astute reader isn’t the analogy, per se. It is the implications.
I think most of us question that Jesus actually thinks this way about salt if the salt is a stand-in for people. While this isn’t the point Jesus is trying to make, many of us get uncomfortable with an ill-fitting analogy. And we get there from the preferred reading in the NRSV: “how can its saltiness be restored?”
Well, by God! we say. Isn’t God in the restoration business?
And we wouldn’t be wrong.
The problem with this idea is actually two-fold. Jesus is walking us through a field and we’re tripping over a metaphysical and theological problem here. If we believe that God could turn rocks into better disciples than these guys, surely God could restore salt. Jesus turns water into wine, after all! So the analogy seems to suggest the opposite of what we believe!
The problem doesn’t remain technical, but spiritual, too. If our work is about restoration, then we must believe that even the most useless seasoning can be of value. Because the ramifications of this analogy bounce us out to the idea that God throws us away if we get used up. And that doesn’t fit.
Poking holes
Of course, we’re now in our favorite pastime of poking holes in the analogy rather than wrestle with the point. Everyone should take a few moments to wrestle with this junk so we get our heads on straight. But let’s not mistake the analogy for the whole of the argument, either. Because this act specifically serves to erase Jesus’s actual point.
Jesus was just talking about hating family, sacrificing everything, planning ahead, and giving up all our possessions. This is what it means to follow Jesus. You might want to review why I believe this isn’t nearly as harsh as it sounds.
The point is about making a choice and our sense of urgency. These are themes Jesus explores directly in chapter 12. So Jesus isn’t describing the metaphysical certainty of whether or not a human is restored to grace by God. He is trying to speak to the opportunity and will to receive. And what happens if we refuse to take responsibility for our ministry.
A little grace in interpretation
To get more simplistic than I usually like to be, it seems as if there are two kinds of hearers of the Good News: the powerful and the powerless.
The powerless need a message of restoration.
The powerful need a message of sacrifice.
Many of the people who read a passage like this one get worried about the powerless. They worry that it communicates a different gospel—that those people cannot be restored. That they will be thrown away for making one mistake.
Personally, I think that message is oversold. But sure, let’s take it.
And yet what is far less attended to is that such a reading is often a reading from the powerful demanding a common sacrifice to protect the powerless. It isn’t a voice stemming from the powerless, but the fears of the powerful.
Jesus, on the other hand, is upending the expectations for his followers because he has made them powerful. Not in the Roman sense. They aren’t powerful in the Empire. But they possess the healing and restoring power of Jesus already.
So this isn’t a teaching about whether or not God throws people away. It’s a direction to go out and season!
His final words on the subject are, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” Which we might say is more like Hear what I’m trying to say—not what you want to hear!
In Conclusion
This is the kind of bit that could’ve easily worked into last week’s homily for a little extra seasoning. And it could be worth an extended look for those people who need the regular reminder that Jesus decontextualized can be easily manipulated. But chances are, this doesn’t have a significant impact on the preaching around Luke 15.
But in the full context, these small verses connect chapters 14 and 15 because it is a call back to the urgency and ramifications of knowingly avoiding God.
Just as Luke does in the Sermon on the Plain where he pairs blessings with woes, we see here a Jesus who isn’t only hyping the good (and avoiding the repercussions). He invites us to deal with it all and still choose to follow him.
Which leaves me with the underlying question.
If Jesus can identify and differentiate the different needs of the powerless and the powerful, why would we expect grace to be different? Isn’t it possible that Jesus can make both arguments: that those who make mistakes can be shown mercy AND that there are ramifications for hindering the kin-dom?
And what does it say about us when we can’t allow for God to show mercy and to allow those who refuse to show mercy deal with the repercussions?