IS IT OUT OF THE BAG?

Sometimes the smallest of ironies fascinate me. At church during the winter I station bags of ice melt and a snow shovel at the main entrances of our buildings. Recently, before the first snows I just done so with new unopened bags. Later, after a snow, I had gone to clean the entrance ways of the buildings before Sunday School. One of the buildings has no porch above the entrance. There, leaning against the building by the door was an unopened bag of ice melt, its top piled high with snow. The irony struck me: Ice melt is suppose to melt snow; yet, here was a bag of ice melt covered in the very snow it is suppose to melt. The reason the ice melt didn't melt the snow, put simply, is that ice melt cannot do what it is supposed to do when kept closed up inside the bag. It must be outside the bag to have any effect on the snow and ice. Kept inside, closed off, shut up, from the snow, the snow can be right there lying on it, and the ice melt has no effect at all. Technically, this ice melt is not "salt." We use this combination because it is easier on the concrete. However, we used to use only salt. Thus, I begin to reflect on Jesus' proclamation that we believers are the "salt of the earth." We truly are that. Yet, like the ice melt, if the Good News, the effects of the Kingdom it brings, are kept shut up, closed off, within us, never shared, never expressed, never manifested, then we will never have the effect of salt upon our world. We can rub shoulders with those of the world, be right there in that environment at work and school, and yet never influence or affect this world. I brushed off the snow, opened the bag, and scattered the ice melt over the area I had just shoveled. I hardly had finished sowing it when I heard the popping and crackling sounds as it went to work. It was working because it was out of the bag, in direct contact.. For the individual believer there should be no compartmentalizing, partioning off, of his faith during his interaction with this world. For the church, there must be no isolating, withdrawal, of itself from the community where it is located. The salt must be out of the bag, scattered, and in direct contact. Contained by and behind the veneer of the plastic of the bag, the salt has no effect though right there in and covered by the snow. It must be out of the bag. Our faith, too, must be out of the bag. If snow is piled onto of it, the salt is not out of the bag. If the world is piled onto of the believer, the salt is not out of the bag. Where's your salt? Is it out of the bag?