Living in Hope
2. Distinctive flavouring

A distinctive flavour of winter for me, is the memory of my mother’s vegetable soup – a blend of bacon bones, pearl barley and heaps of root veges and celery – cooking in the pot for several days. The perfect answer to bitter Hamiltonian winters with its biting frosts and ever-present fog. That flavour encouraged, healed and comforted all in one happy bowl.
Pause: what comforting flavours can you recall in your life?
When Jesus called us to be the salt of the earth, He meant us to bring out the God-flavours that fill this present, “between times” reality; to demonstrate the possibilities of human communities in which God is the centre.
How do those flavours taste, what does a community taste like where God is the centre? What ought a woman or man to experience amongst us? First that they matter; surely that’s what it means that God’s Son should give up His life that we might live in unending fellowship with His Father. Everyone matters the same, no matter where they’re from or what they ever did.
Second there is that attitude with which God regards all His creatures; love. Selfless, kind, open-hearted, accepting, unconditional love. It’s what drove Jesus to the Cross, and it’s what defeated the grave; it is also what enables the Holy Spirit to move in and among the people of God to do His work in us.
Finally there is refined taste of holiness; God-alikeness. In our relationships with each other and those who new among us we deal with each other with the utmost integrity. We never lie, we never allow jealousy any place, we forgive every offence (and I do mean EVERY offence.) If this is the taste that characterises being among us we are encouraging a hunger for heaven.