2/10/19 “Being Salty” by Brian Crisp

Text: Genesis 19:15-28

15 When morning dawned, the messengers pleaded with Lot, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be consumed by the atrocity of the city.” 16 Yet, Lot lingered; so the messengers grabbed him by the hand and also his wife and his two daughters by the hand, by God’s grace, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. 17 When they had brought them all outside, they said, “Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed.”
18 And Lot said to them, “Oh my God, oh no! 19 Your servant has found favor with your messengers, and you have shown me great kindness by saving my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, for fear that something evil will overtake me and I die. 20 Look, that city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one?—and my life will be saved!” 21 They said to him, “Very well, I grant you this favor as well, and will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. 22 Hurry, escape there, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.” Therefore the city was called Zoar. 23 The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.
24 Then God rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from out of heaven; 25 and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and every living thing that grew from the ground.
26 Lot’s wife looked back, and she became the pillar of salt.
27 Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the God; 28 and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the Plain and there he saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of a furnace.

“Don’t look. Whatever you do, don’t even look.” This was my mantra as I crouched with my hands covering my eyes. The images splashing across the screen were a shock that solicited involuntary body contortions unconcerned with other moviegoers. “Don’t look. Don’t even look,” was my attempt to deafen the cinematic violence. Not knowing the premise of Saw, I assumed the movie’s title referenced the past tense of the verb “to see” and would resemble Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. My estimations were drastically wrong, and I found myself on the fourth row of the movie theater looking directly into the face of horror.
“Don’t even look” appears innocent disguising itself as cautionary care. “Don’t even look at the stove” alerts the wobbling toddler. “Don’t even look at that lake” is the warning administered to the novice swimmer. The words fool us as we think they are universally sounded for our protection. Most often, they are not.
Commonly, this simple saying acts as a fence that has nothing to do with the care of humanity and has everything to do with the preservation of power. It is used to keep people out, keep people away, keep people down, and to keep people in their place. “Don’t even look at that neighborhood.” “Don’t even look at that lunch counter.” Women in my mother’s generation entering college were warned, “Don’t even look at philosophy or mathematics!” The church universal administered an unyielding proclamation to many, “Don’t even look at the pulpit!” As a LGBTQIA+ person, my own humanity has been reduced to a single sexual act when straight men have warned me, “Don’t_even_look_at_me!” The words, as many of us know, deny our humanity, denounce our ability to be responsible, defame our capacity for thought, and serve as an insidious line of demarcation fortifying “us” versus “them.” Don’t look! Don’t even look!
The phrase must have lingered in the chaotic air around Sodom and it makes us wonder what Lot’s wife heard and felt. This question has been the companion of Genesis 19 for centuries as theologians have struggled to make sense of this story. Very little is known about Lot’s wife. From name to nature, the biblical account is paltry, and this absence of evidence has translated into conjecture that has maligned and mistreated this woman. She has been the subject of hymns that have proclaimed her faithless, and sermons that have derided her as lustful. One female writer identifies her as a “Bad Girl of the Bible” because she defies God. It is as if these writers are so intent on disparaging this unnamed woman that they turn a blind eye to the horror that unfolds around her, and they continually issue a warning at her expense: Don’t Even Look Back.
Now, I agree the biblical narrative is meager, but the biblical witness is outstanding! “Lot’s wife looked back, and she became the pillar of salt.” The pillar of salt. Unlike the columns known in Greek and Roman architecture, a pillar, without filigree and finish, could be an ever-reaching and ever-becoming testament to the sky. Pillars were foundational at the ziggurats and momentous around courtyards. They could be the support system for roofs and the framing gesture of the heavens. They captured the eye of all marking physical places of prominence. The pillar demands attention indicating a moment to be seen, and at this noticeable intersection, we have salt.
From the Egyptians to the Babylonians and from the Persians to the Greeks, salt was a valuable element in the ancient world. Salt accompanied the dead in their tombs, served as currency in burgeoning economies, preserved nourishment in a world of volatile food sources, and gifted the maudlin with medicine. Leviticus tells us our sacred offerings should be sprinkled with salt identifying a rich and long-lasting communion; Aaron and David both take an oath of salt as a sign of devotion to their people; and Ezekiel references the common practice of rubbing newborns with salt as to make them fit for a common humanity. The Book of Numbers proclaims that “Our covenant of salt with our God is forever,” and still today in many Jewish congregations, bread is dipped vigorously in salt to represent an unwavering companionship. Luke’s community reminds us that salt is amazing, and Matthew’s community punctuates the beatitudes with the famous phrase, “You are the salt of the earth!”
Lot’s wife is not being derided; she is being extolled. She is foundational , essential, persevering, loyal, keen, courageous, audacious, and caring. She is not a villain sabotaging religion; she is the embodiment of faith. She is that precious spice that protects the parcel, preserves the future, and through some strange alchemy of time, makes each morsel savory. Instead of bending our words to malign this hero, we should bend our lives to conform to her example.
And, oh how she is salty. With fresh eyes, we can only imagine what made her so piquant. We can only begin to visualize what compelled her to look upon the horrors of genocide purportedly committed with divine endorsement, and we begin to form new ideas about her motives. She looks back because she has borne witness to a husband whose greed was so intense that it separated families and isolated individuals. She looks back because she knows first-hand the devastation of having her youngest daughters offered to an angry mob intent on rape and mutilation. She looks back because she has daughters and sons-in-law who were being burned alive. She looks back because she understands other people have daughters and sons-in-law. She looks back because she understands the Torah’s primary prayer is about a great love for the refugee, the orphan, the widow, the poor—all her neighbors in the city. She looks back because she cannot accept the men who are so inept with their pleas for humanity; she cannot adhere to the religion that is focused on punishment; and she cannot embrace a god that is more prone to great violence than providing of an amazing grace. She looks back because she is more overwhelmed with her compassion than her need for self-preservation. When she heard “Don’t look, don’t even look,” that admonishment hellbent on restraining her intellect, responsibility, and humanity, she could only respond, “how can I not look?” and, in turn, asks, “how can you not look?”
She is a divine dissenter calling attention to the very fallible logic of Lot and Abraham. She is a sacred scalawag turning away from the horrors of greed and apathy and turning towards those who matter, the perishing. Although she is only referenced with the possessive noun indicating her connection to a man, a more accurate representation is her connection to all. She understands fully that the saline compound found throughout her body is also found throughout every morsel, every animal, every plant, and every person. And maybe she is nameless because there is no word capable of capturing the mystery of such a connection.
Lately, I have been surrounded by a great cloud of such salty witnesses. On Tuesday I witnessed Round Table food donations from Patti, the owner of Yindee, who believes no one should go hungry. On Wednesday, I witnessed Nancy Jones, Bob Mosher, Steve Braun, and Zoe Nichols being extremely salty as they sat with seven young Wiley students nurturing them as storytellers birthing their skills and abilities. My inbox has been filled with messages from Lynn Lyle who is gathering fifteen congregations to form the Interfaith Creation Care Network, a group focusing on the respect and restoration of this great planet. On Thursday, I witnessed Julia Williams being salty as she sat with the homeless sharing laughter and listening intently, bringing each woman dignity and humanity. Yesterday, I witnessed so many of you being salty as you used your feet and voices to advocate for peace and justice during HKonJ. In fact, this roll call could continue infinitum because so many of you participate in these holy endeavors. As a community you bear witness that being salty is a non-negotiable for a person of faith.
Compassion may not be optional, but it is a potent riddle. It is that remarkable moment that connects us to so many, but it is also the unfathomable burden that separates us, and makes us feel out-of-synch, out-of-our-minds, and out-of-touch. Caring is not a universal mode, but a sharply focused beam embracing humanity and discarding all that is threatening to life. It will make you stand beside the oppressed and it will cause you to stand up to principality and power. You will have no regards for the laws of your city if your city’s laws have no regards for its citizens. You will not care about the church’s constitution or polity if the church’s constitution or polity doesn’t genuinely care about people. You will defile what you worship if what you worship defiles creation. And you will find it impossible and heartbreaking to be in communion with a father, a sister, a cousin, or a lover when those family members find it heartbreakingly impossible to be in communion with others.
Surely Luke’s community understood this phenomenon fully when they retold this unnamed woman’s story, “Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it.” Being salty will grate away at everything in this world and everything in you that could possibly keep anyone from this great love. It may cost us time and resources, it may hurt, we may become wounded, or it may even kill us. But I am fairly certain this is what was meant when Jesus urged people to “Remember Lot’s Wife.”
From time to time, I am invited to speak about sexuality, the Bible, and the intersections with public policy. Last week, during a university lecture, I noticed a young man, his face betrayed a profound confusion. His polite posture couldn’t mask that, most likely, for the first time in his life he had encountered a minister who was gay. When there was a lull in the student questions, he slipped his hand up and spoke: “I just wanna ask, ‘How many souls have you saved?’”
The question stopped me. The earnest look on his face shook me as I realized I was more comfortable talking about circumcision than salvation. His sincerity seized me and before my eyes I saw a young man and his craving for connection and his yearning for a life of faith. I saw a young man accustomed to a church more concerned with eternity than with people. I heard the voice of a young man who was taught that the biblical witness was a stone to throw and not a rock on which to build a foundation. I recognized the thoughts of a young man whose elders told him that religion was solely about what he believed and faith had little to do with how he behaved. I felt the pain of a young man who had been told his soul was infinitely more important than his hands or his feet. I saw a young man. I saw.
Being salty will grind at you; it will be gritty; and it can leave an indescribable sharp taste in your mouth. It refuses to let you reduce anyone’s humanity, it resists labeling people as “them;” and it wildly recognizes that sacred worth in all.
In those few seconds of silence, I felt tears in my eyes and I could not help but think about this unnamed woman in Genesis 19 and how she must have shed tears, bitter with salt, over such devastation, such destruction, such pain, such loss, such horror. I thought about the courage it takes to defy customs. I thought about the boldness it takes to care. I thought about the faith it takes just to look back.
When the lecture ended, and as I stood talking with a few students, I noticed the young man lingering toward the middle of the hall. He turned and our eyes locked for a few seconds. Time faded, and we both walked away not knowing that much about each other and not knowing how much each of us had been affected, altered, changed, if you will, transformed.
“How many souls have you saved?” This question, more than likely, will haunt me for years to come, and like time itself, my answers will most likely evolve. Yet, today, this day, I can surely answer that I have tried to save just one unnamed soul, and for the sake of humanity, may she be an example for us all. Amen.