On Saltiness
By David Gill
When things around us—in our country, our workplace, our neighborhood, our school—seem to be sinking or spinning in the wrong direction, it is tempting to want to grab the steering wheel and impose our insight and leadership on the situation. We might wish (or even attempt) to take over, even if it means acting like a steamroller or bulldozer or authoritarian dictator. It is sometimes tempting to admire or try to imitate what strong leaders look like.
There is, of course, a need to be strong, resolute, unwavering, and immovable when it comes to our faith, hope, love, and our loyalty to God and people. Those are the places for stubborn commitment with no compromise. But when it concerns our relations to the “crowds” and to institutions like business and government, our calling is always to be “servant leaders.” This is as true for Christians in official leadership positions as for those in subordinate roles. We are followers of Jesus, the true king of kings who led as a Servant, and instructed his followers to do likewise.
In our Lord’s most famous teaching, the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7), he “saw the crowds,” called his disciples up on the mountain, and taught them how to be present as the “salt of the earth”—not as the “steamrollers/bulldozers” of the earth and its crowds of people. Being that “salt” is what will lead people to give glory to our heavenly Father, Jesus said. It is not “giving up” but a different strategy for making a difference.
The Beatitudes are a precise description of what makes us salty. It all begins with being “poor in spirit”—humble, open, teachable. It moves to “lamenting/mourning”—rather than blaming and attacking. The third attribute is “gentleness/meekness”—rather than being a rough, tough, control freak, These are rarely proposed as the first three virtues of effective leaders. But they are precisely the essential foundation for seeing and pursuing the fourth Beatitude, righteousness and justice—for choosing and doing the right thing in the eyes of the God who made and loves everybody.
That’s not all. We must add mercy, compassion, and forgiveness to our pursuit of justice, and cultivate a pure heart with no hidden agenda. With those six characteristics, we are finally in a position to be peacemakers in our world of conflict and disagreement. Yes, this is for families and churches, for neighborhoods and political parties. But it is just as truly our calling in the workplace; it is about creating enjoyable, high-performance teams. In Jesus’ metaphors this combination brings “salt” (preservation, retarding decay) and “light” (understanding, conditions for life and growth).
And since we do all this in a broken world, we must, finally (the 8th Beatitude), have courage and persistence and “keep on keeping on” even in the face of suffering, resistance, and unfair attack.
David W. Gill (www.davidwgill.org) is an Oakland-based writer and speaker on Christian ethics and workplace/business ethics. He served forty years as an ethics professor at New College Berkeley, North Park University, St. Mary’s College, and Gordon-Conwell Seminary and is the author of ten books, most recently What Are You Doing About It? The Memoir of a Marginal Activist (2022) and Workplace Discipleship 101: A Primer (2020).