Water & Salt (Mark 9:38-50)

Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink …

will not lose their reward.

Mark 9:41

Water has always been vital to our everyday life and the key to our survival as a human race. For this reason alone, it holds the potential to become a strategic, political and humanitarian issue with its ability to affect world peace1. This is not new. Even the Bible refers to the importance of water 722 times – more often than the core Christian values of faith, hope, prayer, and worship! Matthew 25, for example, suggests we will be held to account based on the way we have used and shared our resources of food, water, clothing and companionship with those in need. So water was already a religious and political issue in Jesus' day.

The part of the world where Jesus lived had little rain for six months of the year. This meant people had to rely on a natural water supply such as the river Jordan or a natural spring. Local dug wells are also mentioned in the Bible. So too are underground cisterns, built beneath the homes of the wealthy, that relied on the spring rains to fill them. In contrast, the poor and destitute had to rely on travelling to a local well. If you have had to carry a bucket full of water, you will know how heavy water is. No wonder the words of Isaiah 55v1 held so much appeal to those who struggled home with their heavy water containers:

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;

and you who have no money, come... without cost.

Another thing that interested me about this Sunday's Gospel (Mark 9:38-50) was the reference to another naturally occurring and vital life-giving resource:

“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again?

Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

We are well aware that water can become polluted and dangerous to drink. Salt also can lose its flavour of 'saltiness' when it is confused or polluted with other similar looking compounds that don't have the same life-giving effect or taste. How does this analogy relate to being at peace with each other?

To help answer that question, I found Mahatma Gandhi's article “What Jesus means to me” helpful. In the article, Gandhi refers to the non-violent protest march against the British imposed salt tax that prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt. Instead, they had to buy salt at an inflated price from their British rulers. The most affected people were the poorest of the poor. The non-violent Salt March of 1930 began a movement that ultimately led to India gaining independence from British oppression. Similarly, Jesus' reference to both water and salt were highly political comments against the oppression of the poor in his day. To give a cup of water to those in need, free of charge, was a political challenge to those who were oppressing the rights of the poor.

While you might feel this is a misuse of Mark's passage, Mahatma Gandhi often referred to the Sermon on the Mount. Within that collation of sayings, Jesus refers to his listeners as being “the salt of the earth”2. Our purpose, as people of faith, who seek to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, is to make a difference. And just as salt and water are vital to life and good health, Gandhi reminded us that we are not to just listen to what Jesus said, we are to live his words into reality as we bring new life and vitality to the communities in which we live. If, for example, we “loved our neighbour as ourselves” all day and every day, what a different place our world might be. We would then 'live in peace amongst ourselves' as Gandhi – and Jesus – hoped and longed for:

For a bowl of water give a goody meal;

For a kindly greeting bow thou down with zeal;

For a simple penny pay thou back with gold;

If thy life be rescued, life do not withhold.

Thus the words and actions of the wise regard;

Every little service tenfold they reward.

But the truly noble know all are one,

And return with gladness good for evil done.3

Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga

May you find peace and goodwill on your journey.

Phil

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1 https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170615-why-hydro-politics-will-shape-the-21st-century

2 Matthew 5:13

3 Gandhi, An Autobiography, 32-33. Penguin Books Ltd. 1915.