Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
September 7, 2025
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras
Pentecost 13
The Salt of the Earth
While great crowds of people were accompanying Him (to Jerusalem) He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters and yes, his very life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross, and follow me, cannot be my disciple.
For who among you wishing to build a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to be sure that he has enough money to complete it? Lest once he has laid a foundation, and is not able to complete it, all who see it will mock him saying, “This man began to build, but was not able to finish.” Or which king who sets out to go to war with another king does not first sit down to determine if he is strong enough with ten thousand to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else while he is still far away he will send a delegation asking for terms of peace.
And so anyone of you who does not relinquish all that he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good! But if the salt loses its savour, with what can it be seasoned? It is fit for neither the ground nor the manure pile, but is cast aside. Let him who has ears to hear, hear.
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Before you sell all that you have, and sign up to join a monastery, please understand that today’s gospel is not about you, but about our Lord Jesus Christ, as all Scripture is.
Not the mega-church Jesus of pop culture. But Jesus who saves His people from their sins. (Mt. 1:21) Jesus the Eternal Word and Incarnate Son of God (John 1) who once intervened into the affairs of men to put right, all that was wrong, by the cross. And who continues to insert Himself into the affairs of men through this “pure offering” predicted by the prophet Malachi (1:11) that we are offering today. This “reasonable service.” (Romans 12:1). This “sacrifice of praise.” (Hebrews 13:15). This “spiritual sacrifice” which “is holy and “acceptable to God.” (1 Peter 2:5)
Don’t believe your eyes! Humanity’s dystopia runs far deeper than you will ever know, and the love of Christ even more. But in this hour let us consider how unspeakably great a blessing it is to be a disciple and follower of Jesus. So great is the advantage that the Lord counsels men to relinquish, even to hate all that they have.
Saint Paul comments on the Lord’s admonition when he writes, “This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.” (1 Cor. 7:29-31)
Do you want to follow Jesus? Then hear His Word that we must relinquish everything else; take up our cross and follow Him. Which is to say that there is no person, or thing, or earthly posture or position that comes even close to the benefits of life in Christ.
But our Lord did not, and does not, counsel people to do anything that He Himself did not first do. He first “hated,” which is to say rejected His heavenly peace for the “joy that was set before Him,” for which He “endured the cross and scorned its shame.” (Heb 12:2) He “left” His heavenly Father, and His earthly mother and went to the cross to gain the church as His Bride. Whom he baptismally washed with the water from His riven side, and feeds us, as does the stork, with His indestructible flesh and blood.
And so he teaches what all intelligent people know – that before constructing a building, or prosecuting a war, one must sit down and count the cost to be sure that he can complete what he started. Our Lord on the other hand did NOT count the cost.
He was fully cognizant of utter destruction of all things perpetrated by sinful man. And entirely aware of what redemption entailed. So aware that at Gethsemane He sweat great drops of blood at the prospect, and prayed that if there were any other way that his “cup” might pass from Him. What did He know that we do not?
But still He did NOT count the cost. But as we said above, “For the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and is seated at the right hand of God.” (Heb. 12:2) Indeed, despite the anguish and agony of the cross, and the pains His soul sustained, He counted it all joy; and asks us to do the same.
But while our Lord did NOT count the cost, nor did He experience defeat! He was not an army of 10,000 challenging an army of 20,000. But was an “army of One,” absorbing God’s wrath against sin; the pure hatred of the devil, and the bitter rejection of His own people addicted to sin, who lay dying in the gutters of the world. But on the cross, and by His resurrection from the dead, gained life, salvation and victory for us all.
In Creation we were the salt of the earth, but by sin we lost our savour! And there was nothing by which such salt could be salted again try as humanity might. But Jesus did the impossible! He has made us salt again. The salt of the earth, which is to say its flavoring and preservative.
At this very time, by this very “sacrifice of praise” that we now offer; we join our Lord in crushing the head of the devil; and all the forces of evil. Because He has once again made us the salt of the earth; its preservative and seasoning by our prayer. Amen