Salt or Bay Leaf?

Often the best and most insightful things that are said about the scripture text for the day come after the benediction and are spoken by someone other than the preacher.  People have made comments to me at the front door of the church that have caused me to continue thinking (or rethinking) my sermon and that day’s text.

Yesterday after worship at lunch a member told me a little story that did this.

A person was cooking a pot of soup, and for some reason the bay leaf the recipe called for wasn’t added.  When the soup had simmered and was ready to serve, the cook was surprised that the soup didn’t taste any different than it had the many other times she had made this same recipe.  So, the cook wondered, what else could be left out and not be missed.  The next time she cooked the recipe, she left out the salt.  Again, the soup simmered all afternoon, and when supper came and the soup was served, it was TERRIBLE!  There was a huge difference in the soup when the salt was left out, when it was missing.

Of course the moral to this modern-day parable is: don’t be a bay leaf, be salt.

There are some people, there are some churches, that make no difference in their communities, and there are some people, some churches, that make a huge differences.  There are some churches that if they were to cease to exist, they would not be missed by their community.  They don’t take risks, they don’t invest in their community, and they don’t adapt to reach the community around them.  They are bay leaves.  They don’t make a difference.

I’m grateful for the ways that May Memorial has been salt in the Powhatan community for well over one hundred years, and as I have thought about salt and bay leaves, I pray that we will continue to be the “salt of the earth, the light of the world.”