Baccalaureate Sermon, Wachusett Regional High School, 2011
Sermon on Matthew 5:13; John 14:20; Parable of the Salt Doll
Well, to begin: Congratulations. All of you–youth especially, but families too, and teachers and staff, have all worked very hard to get here together.
I thought I should reach into my own experience and share about achievement and success. But looking back, well, while I graduated from college with a 4.0, my high school record shows that I was a mediocre student on the best days. So then I thought I should talk about the joy of high school, the best years of your life. But I was pretty unpopular as a teenager, even bullied now and then. And I don’t think I’d honestly want to relive those years of my life again, not for a million dollars.
So what am I supposed to say that’s good?
Well, I thought I’d tell you a story. It’s an old story, first told by a Buddhist philosopher many centuries ago, and it’s been changed and adapted so many times through the years that it probably doesn’t resemble it’s beginnings very much. But it’s a good story, and it goes like this:
Once upon a time, there was a kind, old toy maker. He was very creative, and one of those kind of people who doesn’t like to waste anything–you know who I’m talking about. One of his neighbors had a large pile of salt, don’t know how they got it but they weren’t going to do anything with it, and he decided to mold it and shape it into a doll. The doll was beautiful. She had long flowing hair, and a pretty blue dress. And the toy maker loved the doll, and she loved him.
But the doll was sad, because she didn’t have any friends to play with. So they went on a journey, the toy maker and the doll, to find her some friends. First they came to a village. Everyone wanted to see the doll, and thought she was wonderful. Nobody had ever seen a doll made out of salt before. She was wonderful, and strange, and unique… but too strange, too unique, and nobody wanted to be her friend. They just wanted to look and see how pretty she was.
Then they came to a forest. The forest was dark, and there were many different creatures there which scared the little doll. They had their own interests. They liked their forest very much, and didn’t want the doll to intrude on their home. So they bullied her. And the doll thought she’d never find a friend.
Until one day, they came to the sea. The salt doll took one look at the sea, vast and wide, and she just knew she would find friends there. And before the toy maker could stop her, she had mustered all of her courage and rush headlong into the sea.
And of course, you know what happens when salt and water mix. The salt dissolves and dissipates. The little doll had disappeared completely. The toy maker was very sad. He sat down on the beach and cried, “Where have you gone, my precious little girl?”
And the whole sea answered, “Here I am, Daddy!” as she laughed with the rolling waves and played with schools of fish. And that’s how the ocean got its salt.
You are salt. Let me explain. I might not be eager to relive my teenage years. But I’d love to go back, to sit down with Mrs. Roebuck and thank her, not just for teaching me my first words of Spanish, a skill which has been very helpful many times in my life already, but for teaching me to love other peoples and cultures, to experience life outside of my comfort zone. That was her salt. Or to see Mr. Bridenstine, who found ways to help me grow leadership skills in the midst of the school’s music program–his salt. Or Heather, that brilliant, redheaded girl who sat in the front row of every class, who taught me that sometimes the smartest thing to do is sit back and listen to everyone else before putting in your own two cents–her salt. Or even Mike, to find out what he really cares about, to do my job today as a pastor and help him know that he’s valuable and important and loved just because of his createdness, his salt, to help him see through the insecurities that made him a bully in the first place.
Because when we come in contact with one another, when we share our lives in the way that you have done for the last four years, we affect and change each other. Like the meeting of the salt and the sea, we become something different, something new, something better. And long after you have forgotten how to conjugate French verbs or factor polynomials, the part of you in me and the part of me in you will still be living, active, making us new. It will be more than a high school memory. It will be alive. In you. Your salt.
Here you are, about to rush headlong into the world, to college, to jobs, to families, each to his or her own station. Some people would tell you that you CAN change the world. I tell you that you ARE the salt of the earth, you WILL change the world, like it or not, just by being in it. But you get to choose how. How can you best respect and honor those who have already molded and shaped you? Will you find the world too strange, too unique to really get involved with? Will you focus on your own interests, and bully the world? Or will you give it a bright new flavor, working to bring peace and joy, to sow justice, to create waves of laughter and schools of play and lift up our world in love, lending your saltiness wherever you go? Let it be so for you and for the world we share.