Five Days after Pentecost

It took a cannonball to the leg to bring Inigo of Loyola to God. 

We know Inigo as St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuit order of Priests, but before he was a Saint, before he was even a Priest, he was a soldier eager for recognition. 

We just celebrated Pentecost in the church, and we often refer to it as "the Birthday of the Church". It's a celebration, a joyful time of holy hubbub. Or that's how we seem to depict it. The sermon on Sunday focused on the intersection of mission and mysticism. We were asked to recall moments where we felt close to God, like holding a new baby, or being on a nature walk, or seeing God in the people around us.

When I read the account of Pentecost in the Book of Acts though, I feel that there is some discontinuity between the Biblical account of this event and how we talk about it in the church. I think if I had been in the room with the disciples, hearing the violent wind, seeing the tongues of fire, the solid wall of noise as everybody talked at once, I would have been afraid. The NRSV translation says that the disciples were amazed (ἐξίσταντο) and perplexed ( διηποροῦντο). Were they amazed, or were they falling to their knees in fear (existanto literally means "removed from a standing position)? Were they perplexed, or were they feeling trapped (the components of diaporonto mean "thoroughly no way out")? Then Peter begins to speak, quoting a terrifying prophesy from Joel about the last days in which the sun disappears and the moon turns to blood. If this was a lighthearted party, he just spoiled the mood. But it don't think it was a joyful party. 

                     

The day after Pentecost this year was the 492nd anniversary of that cannonball in Pamplona that shattered St. Ignatius' leg. Sometimes God doesn't enter your life like a blossoming flower or a gentle summer's breeze. Sometimes God is found in a violent wind, a terrible loss. Sometimes God is found at rock bottom, in the moment when you fall to your knees and can't see any way out. Ignatius found God during his slow recovery from his injury while reading the Vita Christi. Whatever the disciples experienced at Pentecost, whether fear or joy, they received what they needed from the Holy Spirit to continue on in their journey as followers of Christ. 

You are the potash of the earth

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot."
Matt 5:13

In our last Greek class of the semester, our Prof blew our minds explaining this passage. Now I feel that it is my Christian duty to share this information with you.

First of all, we need to know that the way that this passage is normally translated from the Greek messes with its meaning. A more literal translation of this passage would read:

"You are the salt of the land; but if the salt has been made useless, with what will it [the land] be salted?"

Once we realize that the word "taste" in the English is an interpretive flourish by the translator, it is easier to understand why my Prof made the outlandish claim that this passage is not about table salt, it's about potash.

Potash is also a salt, a different salt than NaCl (table salt), but a salt nonetheless. And the Greek word τὸ ἅλας that we find in Matthew's gospel isn't the word for table salt. It is a generic word for all salt, including salt like potash that is used today as fertilizer (and was used as fertilizer way back in Jesus' day as well).

The more common interpretation of this passage is that the "salt" that Jesus refers to is something that preserves food. So metaphorically, theologians suggest, Christians are what "preserve" the Earth.

But I think my Prof is right when he says Christians are not the "preservers" of the land, we are the "fertilizers" of the land. My Prof might be in the minority of theologians who suggest this, but I have come across others (including a former CMU Prof who blogged about this in 2009). The idea of Christians as a salt fertilizer is consistent with the Christian idea that we lose our identity, we dissolve our ego and become one in Christ so that we can serve God (Matt 10:39).

He made some further claims that I have not been able to verify but he also said that when potash is in the soil, its potassium leaks out, and the potash becomes gypsum, something that is "thrown out and trampled on": further support for the notion that this passage is about a salt fertilizer, not a salt preserver.

So if Jesus says that we are fertilizers of the Earth, what does that mean for us exactly? Unlike the more traditional thinking, we are not meant to purify the Earth, rather, we are meant to scatter and be the agent that allows good things to grow.

I can't help but think about the decline of the Christian church in reference to this passage. Perhaps at the height of Christendom, the land was a little too salty, and it choked out the other plant life. We have biblical references to the practice of over-salting a city to destroy it (Judges 9:45). Soil that is too salty is lifeless. I think the significance of Christians as fertilizers, a significance that has been obscured for too long due to mis-translation, is Good News for Christians today. It seems to be telling us that the decline in Christian churches may not be as worrisome as we think: we are simply returning to the right concentration of Christian fertilizer required to do God's work.