Resolution – I know I talk too fast.  I will slow down.  Resolution – I know I walk around too much when I am in conversation.  I will be more relaxed.

       Either that or I will try out for a role on one of my favorite television shows, The West Wing.  I wouldn’t even need to act.  Almost everyone on The West Wing is a fast talker, fast walker.  Everyone on the West Wing is in a hurry to do important things.       

       The constant sense of urgency was only heightened last season when former Chief of Staff Leo McGary called the senior staff into his office and wrote a number on a white board.  He told them that the number stood for the remaining days that were left to the Bartlett administration.  He was pushing them to use their time effectively and wisely.  With each episode the number got smaller.

       Well we have a number too.  Here it is.  365.   Counting today that’s how many days we have left in 2006.  And Jesus says to us as we enter this New Year, “You are the salt of the earth.”

       Note that Jesus doesn’t say to us “You should be the salt of the Earth” or “You must be the salt of the Earth.”  He tells us that we are the salt of the Earth.  As such, we have a vital role to fulfill.

       Now we are maybe a little distant from the image of salt Jesus uses.  Doctors warn us away from salt in our diets.  So we may think that being the salt of the earth means that we are the ones who give the planet high blood pressure.

       But that is not how the people gathered on the hillside hearing Jesus teach would have heard it.  Salt was a good thing. 

       In those days, people knew the value of salt.  In fact, in the first century, Roman soldiers were paid in salt.  Their pay was their “salary”.  Sal means salt.  If you didn’t do your job you just weren’t “worth your salt.”

       What is so important about salt?

       It is essential for life.

       People in the first century didn’t have refrigerators.  They didn’t have wondrous things like BHT.  The only way to keep meat from going bad was to cure it with salt.  That was the case up to just about 150 years ago.  That’s why early settlers in this country made it a top priority to find a source of salt.

       In the same way Jesus says that we are part of what keeps the world from going bad.  This is true in a cosmic sense when scripture suggests that the presence of the Holy Spirit in the church is a “restraining force” that keeps all hell from breaking out in the world.  The world is in a bad way, but it is not nearly as bad as it will be once restraining force is removed.  Then it will be Book of Revelation time. 

       This is also true in a local sense in our own community.  The morals you stand for, the ways you vote, the compassion you show, the commitment to the community you demonstrate all make this a better place to live, not just for us but for all people.

       Dennis Praeger was debating a prominent atheist a few years ago on a radio program.  At one point the atheist claimed that the church had done absolutely nothing good for society.  Praeger countered by asking his opponent to envision himself walking along a city street at night – only to see a group of young men walking toward him down the dark sidewalk.  Praeger asked, “Now would it or would it not make a difference to you if you knew they had just come out of a Bible Study?”

       You bet it would make a difference.  Even the atheist would want the salt to do its job.

       The second thing that salt does is give flavor.  A low salt diet may be good for the heart but it is terrible for the mouth and terrible for the enjoyment of life.  I can take sweets or leave them.   But don’t let me get close to the chips.

       In calling us the salt of the earth, Jesus says that we are what preserves the world and gives zest to life.  We do this as we represent Jesus, for these things are what He does.

       Now Jesus doesn’t tell us that we should be salt.  He tells us that we are salt.  If we live like who we are in Jesus, we will make a difference to those around us.

       We need to be effective salt so the second part of Jesus’ words doesn’t apply to us --, “but if the salt has lost its saltiness, its flavor, it is good for nothing.”  In some parts of the country it’s good for melting ice and rusting out cars’ underbodies.  But here, as in Israel , it’s not even good for that.    So Jesus says that it is good for nothing except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by people.

       The way to avoid deserving to be stepped on is to be what you are.  You are the salt of the earth.  You are new in Christ Jesus.  So act in a new way.  This first day of a new year is a great time to start.  Start today to put on the new clothes of the Christian like we’ve looked at and will look at in Colossians 3:3-16,    Start today to live in the sacred relationships God calls us to and which we will focus on for this year’s Lenten study.  You don’t have to wait until March. You can read ahead and read ahead.

       Ten years ago violinist Itzhak Perlman came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City .  If you have ever been to a Perlman concert or seen a video, you know that getting on stage is not small achievement for him.  He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches.

       To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an unforgettable sight.  He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair.  Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward.  Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.

       The audience is used to this ritual.  They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair.  They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs.  They wait until he is ready to play.

        But this time, something went wrong.  Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke.  You could hear it snap – it went off like gunfire across the room there was no mistaking what that sound meant.  There was no mistaking what he had to do.

       People who were there that night thought to themselves:  “We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage – to either find another violin or else find another string for this one.”

       But he didn’t.  Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again.  The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off.  And he played with such passion and such power and such purity, as the audience had never heard before.  Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings.  But that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that.

       You could see him modulating, changing, and recomposing the piece in his head.  At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.

       When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room.  And then people rose and cheered.  There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium.  People were all on their feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything they  could to show how they appreciated what he had done.

       Perlman smiled, wiped the sweat from his brown, raised his bow to quiet the audience, and then he said, not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone, “You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”

       That’s a powerful line.  It has stayed in my mind.  And who knows?  That is the way of life – not just for artists but also for all of us.

       Our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music -- at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, with what we have left – even if that is 364 ½ days of a new year – even if it is with the energy you have left or the brain cells you have left or the years you have left. 

      You are the salt of the earth.  So go out there and act salty.