Volume 30, No. 15                                               
April 10, 2005

Shaking the World’s Assumptions

   When Mahatma Ghandi wanted to give his country a thirst for freedom, he used salt.

   Salt was not only abundant in India, but essential to life in a tropical country where work in the hot sun depleted the body of its reserves.  But when the English first took over the nation, colonial officials passed a law that only members of the British government could produce or sell salt.  They also put a heavy tax on it, meaning Indians of all classes suddenly had to pay a high price for something they could get for free from the seashore.

   So in 1930, Ghandi wrote the British rulers, saying he intended to break the Salt Laws.  Then on March 12th, he and less than 100 supporters began a 23-day trek to the coastal village of Dandi.  During the 240-mile trip, the marchers stopped in every town, making speeches and adding more people to the pilgrimage until the procession stretched for two miles.

   On April 6th, Ghandi reached the seashore where he took a lump of salty mud and boiled it to remove the salt, as his ancestors had for generations.  He then ate the salt and encouraged his followers to imitate him, even though it was illegal.  By the end of the month, authorities had imprisoned 60,000 people for making salt, including Ghandi who was locked up for nine months.

   But the leader’s bold, unbending action had captured the hearts of his people.  Under intense pressure, the British eventually scrapped the Salt Laws, but it was too late to stop the gathering momentum for independence.  After 300 years of rule by England, India became a free nation once again in 1947, realizing Ghandi’s cherished dream.

    In many ways, this is the same story of Christians and our struggle for freedom, only instead of salt, the skirmish is over acceptance and approval.  Just as the celebrated seasoning is a staple of life, approvalis essential to replenishing our depleted emotional resources, day-by-day.  Each of us must feel like we matter;  that our life counts for something;  that we make a difference in the soul-scorching climate of our increasingly complex and competitive culture.

   In the beginning, we had that confident sense of self because, long before God created the human heart, He knew how to fill it.  “Let’s make people in our image, to be like ourselves,” He said.  “They’ll be masters over all life.” (Gen. 1:26)  The first humans knew who they were.  They had relationship with God and each other, and there was purpose to life.  As the Lord did, they surveyed it all and saw that it was good.  Too good to last, as it turned out.

   What sin does is disfigure our identity, distort our relationships and disrupt our purpose.  Though each of us could find peace and inner stability in the approval of God — approval that’s just as available to us as it was to our spiritual forefathers — we too often submit to the dictates of the worldly who claim they alone have the right to dole out the acceptance that’s so essential to our well-being. They exact an incredibly high price for that approval.  It’s conditional on who we know, what we have, where we work, and how we conform.  Even then, ac
ceptance runs out quickly and must be paid for, over and over.

   To free us from that cycle of endless self-doubt and insecurity, Jesus defied the dark forces of conformity.  With only a few followers at first, he led the people of the Light on a bold journey of discovery that saw him reestablish the one and only Source of genuine, legitimate approval.  “We’re made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins.  And we can all be saved in this way, no matter who we are or what we’ve done...  For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and satisfy God’s anger against  us.”(Rom. 3:22, 25)  He alone refines and defines our approval.

   Today, Jesus reaches through the centuries and brings you and me to the seashore of decision.  “The world offers only the lust for physical pressure, the lust for everything we see, and pride in our possessions...  And this world’s fading away... But if you do the will of God, you’ll live forever.” (1 John 2:16, 17)  Live forever in freedom. But to quench that thirst, you’ll have to take what the world offers with a lot more than a grain of salt.

By Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the Followers of Christ church family in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.  Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications.  To receive these free weekly articles via email, send a note to sgamble@bfree.on.ca