Matthew 5:13

"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" (Matthew 5:13).

 

Question:

I am studying toward becoming a licensed Unity teacher. Unity teaches that man is the greatest concentration of divine energies in the universe, with reference to this verse.

Comment:

I'm a little puzzled by your last sentence. It's not a teaching I am familiar with, and I'm not sure I agree with it. Everything is a part of the Allness of Spirit, of course. And I don't think 'greater' or 'lesser' would have any meaning at the level of Spirit. I am. I am not 'greater than' or 'lesser than.' I am. Any judgments apart from that belong to the realm of ego mind. And that's fine, as long as we remember whether we are speaking from our Spirit or our ego.  

What is true—and what the teaching may in fact be saying—is that we are the creative expression of Oneness in a way that our creation is not. We create according to what we choose to believe, which becomes our experience, and our contribution to the greater consciousness. Everything is created in the realm of ideas, and ideas do not create other ideas. We may allow one idea to draw us to another, but we are the Source.

As to this passage, it is the first statement recorded after the familiar Beatitudes. Jesus is speaking privately to his closest disciples, early in his ministry. He is, I think, helping them to understand how profoundly his message will be from the traditional religious beliefs of his time. We are here on earth to change it, improve it, create new flavors. That is the central Truth of his ministry. Traditional religion would see us as having 'lost our saltiness,' our Oneness with the Dvine, as the result of past disobedience. Jesus is saying that if we feel 'unsalty,' if we feel like we are being trodden underfoot, it's because we've never been told the Truth. We can't do our creative work if we don't see ourselves as the creative expressions of Spirit that we are. If we allow ourselves to be less than that, it creates a life experience that is correspondingly less than it can be.

Blessings!

Rev. Ed